reflections – Page 9 – Gregory Crofford

How big is too big? On Goldilocks and the devil

Posted on August 30, 2014August 16, 2014 by Gregory Crofford

Next Saturday, we’ll return to our series Christlike Disciples, Christlike World: The Transformational Mission of the People of God. For today, here’s one from the archives.

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The story of Goldilocks and the three bears is a children’s favorite. A little girl takes a walk in the forest, and comes upon a house. She knocks, but when no one answers, she opens the door and begins to explore. Besides three bowls and three beds, she spies three chairs in the living room. Sitting in the first two, she concludes that they are too big, but the third one is different. “Ah, this chair is just right,” she exclaims.

When it comes to the devil, Christian theologians disagree on how large a “chair” he should occupy. Some argue that he should only be a bit player in salvation’s drama. After all, Satan goes unmentioned in the early affirmations of faith, including the Apostles’ Creed (2nd century CE) and the Nicene Creed (325 CE). Henry and Richard Blackaby, in their devotional guide Experiencing God Day-By-Day (Broadman, 1998), are of this persuasion. In their thoughts for October 31, they observe:

Christians can become preoccupied with battling Satan. This deceives them to invest their time and energy attempting to do something that Christ has already done for them. If Satan can divert you to wage a warfare that has already ended in surrender, he will have eliminated your effectiveness where God wants you. Fearing Satan is fearing a prisoner of war.

Dr Rob Staples, Professor Emeritus of theology at Nazarene Theological Seminary, recalled when he was a boy that his mother asked him to choose one of their farmyard chickens for dinner. When he lopped off the chicken’s head with a axe, the headless chicken danced in a frenzy for a while before dropping over dead. “That is an image of the devil,” Staples told us. “Jesus, through the Cross and Resurrection, chopped off Satan’s head, and all that we have seen since is his death dance.”

On the other hand, some reserve too large a place for the devil in their thinking. In 15 years of ministry in Africa, I have resisted calls for inserting a “demonology” course in our curriculum. While several courses with a different focus touch upon the issue, to dedicate an entire course to the topic reminds me of Goldilock’s comments about the first two chairs: “This chair is too big!” I’ve been in church services where the first ten minutes are given to the congregation raising its voice to chase the devil away. I’ve challenged pastors to consider whether they are unwittingly sowing fear in the hearts of believers. After all, if it takes 200 Christians ten minutes of concerted, high-volume prayer to chase the devil on a Sunday morning, what will the poor saint do on her sick bed when she senses spiritual attack and can only manage a whisper?

The New Testament truth appears to lie somewhere between the position of the Blackabys and Staples and the exaggerated view of some African pastors. It is a view that recognizes the eventual defeat of the devil (Rev. 20:1-3), a final defeat begun via Cross and Empty Tomb. Satan was wounded, there can be no doubt, yet is this the mortal wound of Staples’ headless chicken? If so, then the “death dance” has lasted 2,000 years!

Peter chose another animal to which he compared Satan:

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8, NIV).

Paul joins Peter in his assessment, lamenting that to-date he had been unable to visit the Thessalonians, since Satan had “hindered us” (1 Thess. 2:18, NIV). Yet the same Paul did not hesitate to cast out of of a slave girl in Philippi a python spirit of divination (Acts 16:16-19). His spiritual preparedness to confront whatever the devil threw his way is epitomized in Ephesians 6:10-20, where we are to “put on the full armor of God” so that we may “stand against the devil’s schemes” (v. 11). Unlike the Blackabys, I do not believe that the devil has already surrendered, though one day he will.

When it comes to our understanding of the devil, there is a position – like the chair Goldilocks chose – that fits the biblical evidence “just right.” I wonder: If we insist that “Satan is a defeated foe” – rather than “Satan is wounded and will finally be defeated” – could this lead to spiritual complacency? A wounded animal is particularly dangerous. To downplay this reality may risk being naively blind-sided while serving the Lord. We may consider something a “test from God” that is instead an attack from Satan. On the other hand, to place the devil center-stage in our thinking is to do what neither creeds nor Scripture have done. This can lead to an unhealthy fascination with darkness. It may sow fear in our hearts, a fear that is unbecoming a Christian’s confidence in the victory of Christ, now and in the future.

Meanwhile, in this great parenthesis between Jesus’ ascension and his final enthronement at the Second Coming, we ask the question contained in Francis Schaeffer’s book title:

How should we then live?

We live in neither complacency nor fear in this time of “already, but not yet.” We live a vigilant life, aware of the devil’s schemes (2 Cor. 2:11). With the Blackabys, we refuse to be distracted from the work to which God has called us, preaching the Gospel, binding up the wounds of the brokenhearted, and in victory over Satan awaiting the day when God shall in Christ bring all things to fulfillment. What a day that will be!

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Photo credit: Missoula News

African theology, reflections

Fear or faith? Mrs. O’Leary’s cow and the Ebola virus

Posted on August 9, 2014August 9, 2014 by Gregory Crofford

You’ve heard of a scapegoat. How about a scapecow?

From October 8-10, 1871, the Great Chicago fire cut a huge swath through the city, resulting in $ 192 million in damage to property, killing 300 and leaving 100,000 residents homeless. Urban legend has since blamed Mrs O’Leary’s cow, though a board of inquiry never conclusively established the fire’s cause. A popular poem nonetheless assigned blame:

One dark night, when people were in bed,

Mrs. O’Leary lit a lantern in her shed.

The cow kicked it over, winked his eye and said,

“There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight.”

It has been 143 years since the Great Chicago fire, but some things don’t change. We still want to assign blame. The latest example is a group of more than 100 Liberian clergy who – in a statement reported by the Liberia Observer – blamed “homosexualism, etc.” for the “plague” of Ebola. One may wonder why homosexuals – a tiny minority of citizens – were singled out by name when others in the majority only merited an “etc.”

Continue reading “Fear or faith? Mrs. O’Leary’s cow and the Ebola virus” →

reflections

My Times are in Thy Hand

Posted on July 19, 2014July 19, 2014 by Gregory Crofford

I’m one who travels by jet, a lot.

Those who – as one of my Ivorian students put it, “vivent dans les avions” (live in planes) – get over thinking about the thousands things that could go wrong on an airplane at take-off, landing, or mid-flight. Statistics that prove you’re more likely to die in a car crash than in an airplane are comforting.

But whatever probability theory teaches, I find peace in theology, knowing that I am in God’s hands.

When our older son, John, was just 3 years old, he learned the Sunday School chorus, “He’s got the whole world in His hands.” “Dad and Mom,” he asked one day from the back seat of the car, “does God really have the whole world in His hands?” “He sure does, Johnny” we replied. Johnny was quiet for about 10 seconds, then finally commented: “God sure must have big hands.”

I sang tenor with the A Cappella choir at Eastern Nazarene College. The choir was known for closing out its concerts with an interpretation of Psalm 31:15a, with lyrics by William F. Lloyd:

“My times are in Thy Hand,

My God I wish them there.

My life, my friends, my soul I leave entirely to thy care.”

But I really like the last line of the song: “Then after death, at Thy right hand, I shall forever be.”

The hope that we have in Christ is the resurrection of the body. No human or diabolical scheme can shake that faith. No missile can shoot it down.

Our love and prayers go out to those mourning the loss of loved ones on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.

I believe in the resurrection, when wrongs not righted on this earth will be squared away and loved ones separated by evil and senseless acts will be reunited. God will have the last word.

Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus, and complete your Kingdom.

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Image credit: Cyber Hymnal

reflections

Emperor Constantine or King Jesus?

Posted on July 4, 2014August 3, 2014 by Gregory Crofford

constantinebust3 — Constantine the Great, Emperor of Rome

Constantine served an Empire founded upon military might. Jesus loved people, establishing a different kind of Kingdom altogether, the peaceable Kingdom of God. Where do our ultimate loyalties lie?

The Roman Emperor Constantine (280(?)-337 AD) represents the fusion of the state and Christianity. In the years following his 312 AD conversion at the Milvian Bridge, Christianity moved from being tolerated to being favored by the state as a way of uniting and advancing Empire. John Wesley (1703-91) argued that the People of God lost something essential in the process. Wesley lamented in his sermon, Of Former Times, that the “kingdoms of Christ and of the world” were so “unnaturally blended together” that the “power, riches and honour” that Constantine lavished upon both clergy and laity made the church a partner to evil.

I have been long convinced, from the whole tenor of ancient history, that this very event, Constantine’s calling himself a Christian, and pouring in that flood of wealth and honour [power] on the Christian Church, the Clergy in particular, was productive of more evil to the Church than all the ten persecutions put together. From the time that power, riches, and honour of all kinds were heaped upon the Christians, vice of all kinds came in like a flood, both on the Clergy and laity. From the time that the Church and State, the kingdoms of Christ and of the world, were so strangely and unnaturally blended together, Christianity and Heathenism were so thoroughly incorporated with each other, that they will hardly ever be divided till Christ comes to reign upon earth. – See more at: http://www.umcmission.org/Find-Resources/John-Wesley-Sermons/Sermon-102-Of-Former-Times#sthash.i51T1EXN.dpuf

Before Constantine, Christians always had a conflicted relationship with temporal powers, not encouraging their young to serve in the Roman legions and looking to advance another way of doing things, a peaceable Kingdom not of this world (John 18:36). But with the ascent and apparent conversion of Constantine, Christian leaders over time gained a favored status, entree into the halls of power. Increasingly, bishops and pastors became more concerned with promoting their own importance and status and less concerned with enacting Christ’s prayer: “Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).

This caution from Wesley about the dangers of melding spiritual and temporal power appears to have been unheeded in recent decades by some conservative Christian leaders in the United States. Yes, there was the occasional prophetic warning from the likes of former Nixon White House counselor turned prison reform advocate, Chuck Colson: “The Kingdom of God will not arrive on Air Force One….” Still, many placed an emphasis upon getting the right Christian people into political office which would then assure that their most cherished values would be protected and promoted.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was caught up in this philosophy. Too much of my time and effort as a pastor were spent on what might be called “moral environmentalism,” i.e. preaching about things ethical, writing letters to newspapers and opposing things I deemed nefarious. The result was predictable: I became known in town for what I was against rather than what I was for. My conviction was that elected officials should work to maintain a holy environment as conceived by my evangelical Christian worldview. I even distributed “voter guides” annually in our congregation, brochures produced by a quasi-Christian lobbying group that was a thin veneer for a political party.

Looking back, those lobbyists used me to promote their own political power as surely as Constantine used the church of his time to promote his. My complicity cheapened the witness of our local church. Ironically, in my zeal to keep a corner of America morally strong, I lost sight of the compassionate Jesus who always starts not by scolding sinful behavior but by graciously meeting people where they are and lovingly transforming the human heart.

Far from co-opting the system to advance a social agenda, Jesus promoted another system entirely, that of a non-violent Kingdom based upon love of God and neighbor (Mark 12:28-31), new wine in new wine skins and all confirmed with signs, wonders, and authority (Hebrews 2:4, Matthew 7:29). By his creation of an alternative, global community of character, Jesus transcends the interests of political parties or nations, uniting believers from places as far-flung as Iran, China, the United States, Russia, France, Argentina and Zambia around a different task, that of making Christlike disciples. Verses 1 and 3 of William Dunkerley’s hymn say it well:

In Christ there is no East or West,
In Him no South or North;
But one great fellowship of love
Throughout the whole wide earth…

Join hands, then, members of the faith,
Whatever your race may be!
Who serves my Father as His child
Is surely kin to me…

We live in a world of Empires. There are still Constantines who would co-opt Christianity to consolidate earthly power. As followers of Christ, the temptation remains to think that this can be a “win-win” for both state and church, yet history tells us a different story. The church always loses when with the best of intentions she seeks to promote herself through the political structures of this world.

So, what will it be, the Empire of Constantine or the Kingdom of Christ? It’s time to choose.

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Image credit: Constantine the Great Coins

reflections

Holiness? I choose the Jesus kind.

Posted on May 3, 2014May 3, 2014 by Gregory Crofford

There are two kinds of “holiness.” One looks like the scribes and Pharisees; the other looks like Jesus. I choose the Jesus kind.

If the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ time lived today, they’d buy stock in hand sanitizer. Their holiness was a fragile one, a righteousness maintained only through vigilant separation. It was on the defensive. Sinners? Keep ’em at arm’s length. Otherwise, they feared being contaminated.

That which was unholy was always in danger of spoiling that which was holy.

Jesus would have nothing of it. He turned the equation around. The Jesus kind of holiness was no frail religion. Far from being defensive, it went on the offensive. Rather than fearing infection from “sinners,” it brought cleansing to sinners. Jesus insisted: “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32). On another occasion, he responded: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” (Mark 2:17). Lepers – those with the disfiguring skin disease – had to call out to one-and-all : “Unclean!” Yet Jesus reached out with a healing touch.

He who was holy sought out and cleansed those whom others called unholy.

Far from being himself “contaminated,” Jesus “infected” them with God’s cleanness! *

Pope Francis prays for a man with a disfiguring neurological condition. — Pope Francis touches a man with a non-infectious but disfiguring neurological condition.

For followers of Christ, the implications are huge. God’s call to us is to “Be holy, as I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). But what does this mean? Christ’s actions clarify his Father’s intentions: Don’t worry about sin being catching. It’s holiness that is loving, winsome, contagious. Go spread it!

When talking about how holiness should impact our world, Jesus loved metaphors. He spoke of salt, light, and yeast (Matthew 5:13-14, 13:33). Salt preserves, light disperses darkness, and yeast makes a loaf of bread rise. What is striking about all three is that they must come into contact with what they would act upon in order to be effective. Salt must touch the meat, light must shine in darkness, and the baker must fold the yeast into the batch of dough. If the salt stays in the shaker, the light stays covered by a shade, or the yeast remains in the packet, then the meat will rot, the darkness will reign, and the dough won’t rise. What does that tell us about how we as followers of Christ are to interact with the world?

It’s inspiring reading on Facebook about people being salt, light, and yeast. Jacob Wright and his three siblings make up the band The Wright Brothers. From Tulsa, Oklahoma, Jacob lists himself as a “revivalist.” He’s a deep thinker, and often talks theology on his FaceBook page but also shares his faith wherever he goes. He wrote about he and some friends sharing their faith with Steve, who works at the porn shop. Now Steve has accepted their invitation to church. Jacob concluded: “No place is off limits for the kingdom to invade.”

Prudence is essential. A recovering alcoholic is not the person to evangelize in bars (see Galatians 6:1), but someone who isn’t tempted in that way may be the right one to sip only ginger ale, offer a listening ear and a ride home to someone who has had too much to drink. Others who need us may be as close as the neighborhood store. Katie Jones commented on Jacob’s page:

One night He just had us go to Walmart and encourage the employees. We prayed for two people but that was after they asked why in the world we would stop and tell a stranger they’re doing a great job at work. One was an elderly man who ended up getting his kidney healed and the other was a witch, who practically begged us to come back on her next scheduled day off.

That’s the kind of holiness I want, the Jesus kind, the kind that – with love as its only weapon – goes on the offensive. It’s not frail and defensive. Rather, it’s infectious. That kind of holiness will change the world.

_____________

* I am indebted to Old Testament scholar Dwight Swanson for this insight into the difference between holiness in the Old Testament vs. in the Gospels.

____________

Image credits:

Sanitizer – UPMC My Health Matters

Pope with disfigured man – Imgur

reflections, The Wesleys and Wesleyan theology

Bless not the instrument: thoughts on glorifying God

Posted on April 13, 2014April 13, 2014 by Gregory Crofford

Statue of John Wesley (1703-91) on the campus of Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, KY

The life and teachings of John and Charles Wesley, Methodism’s co-founders, have shaped me at a deep level. Sometimes I call John “Saint Wesley” since we in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition are prone to place a halo on his head, overlooking evidence of his all-too-human imperfections. Those responsible in 1791 for etching the words on Wesley’s tombstone must have sensed this ill-advised tendency. Toward the end of the inscription appear these words:

READER if thou art contrain’d to bless the INSTRUMENT,
GIVE GOD THE GLORY.

Rich Little in his essay “5 Overlooked Cultural Sins Threatening the Church” names “celebrity” as one such sin. Little notes:

“There were and are none like him (Jesus Christ). He is so incomparable to the celebrities we celebrate today that to offer a comparison is an affront to his majesty.”

When John Wesley in the 18th century or anyone else in the 21st century takes on the aura of celebrity, are we not “blessing the instrument” rather than giving God the glory?

To say that “the only good in me is the Christ in me” is more than a throw-away slogan. It is a profound theological truth that John Wesley himself promoted as Scriptural. It is no accident that the doctrine of sin looms large in Christian theology. Jesus himself refused to entrust himself to people, because he knew what was in their heart (John 2:24). Like Walt Kelly, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Because we know that our default position as human beings post-Fall is to do evil, we cannot give direct credit for good deeds to any individual. To do so would be to “bless the instrument.” Rather, we can only praise God for the powerful working of His grace in the lives of individuals who have surrendered to the impulses of that grace, wherever they are on the spiritual journey.

As Wesleyans, we believe that God the Holy Spirit through prevenient grace (the grace preceding conversion) is always at-work in the world. Not only Christians but people of all faiths (or no faith) are recipients of God’s preceding grace. The old hymn asks God to let our hands move “at the impulse of Thy love” and many do, even if they are not yet conscious of it. A beautiful work of art or a memorable song (like Dan Fogelberg’s “Leader of the Band“) is an admirable expression of grace. The poet Cecil Alexander put it this way:

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

How will a Wesleyan understanding of grace change how we talk about one another?

Instead of blessing the instrument, we will bless the One who made the instrument. The conversations might sound something like these:

Scenario One

Comment: “Susan, it’s so exciting to see how you’re allowing God to do some amazing things in your life!”

Reply: “Thanks, Mrs. Jones. You’re exactly right. God has been good to me.”

Scenario Two

Comment: “God has given you a gift for singing, Kyle. Keep letting God use it for His glory!”

Reply: “Thanks, Mr. Thomas. It’s fun singing for the Lord.”

Scenario Three

Comment: “Your work in the children’s department has really turned things around, Brian. I thank God for you.”

Reply: “Do you think so, pastor? I’m glad God has let me be part of a good team.”

On the other hand, if we praise the individual directly as if they are responsible for whatever is good, should we be surprised when sooner or later they develop an attitude of superiority? As the people of God, when we praise the recipient of the gift rather than the Giver, are we not beginning to walk down the fatal path of celebrity? The most that we can do is to praise the individual for allowing God to do admirable things in their lives. Whether that individual is a believer or a non-believer, we believe that any good is a reflection of the grace of God at-work in His creation.

The self-esteem movement was well-intentioned but has served to focus the attention back on the individual, robbing God of the glory due to Him. We are valuable one and all because we were created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). When we see something beautiful in each other, shall we not direct the praise back to God, the maker of beauty?

I still like John Wesley, but what I really like is that Wesley allowed God to work powerfully in his life. My prayer is that more and more I will let God do the same in mine. To Him be the glory, forever and ever!

ecclesiology & sacraments, reflections

Idols in the Church, Part 2: The cult of the beautiful body

Posted on January 25, 2014January 25, 2014 by Gregory Crofford

The story of the handsome young Narcissus is cautionary. One day he came upon a pool and bent down to get a drink. There, he saw an image in the water, but did not recognize it as his own reflection. Enamored by the vision and instantly in love, he repeatedly reached into the water to touch the alluring face, only to have it dissolve each time in ripples. Narcissus stayed transfixed for the rest of his life, kneeling by the pool, withering away to nothing, frustrated by desire unfulfilled.

From the story of Narcissus derives the word “narcissism,” whose first definition in Merrian-Webster’s Online Dictionary is “egotism” or “egocentrism.” The second definition is “love or sexual desire for one’s own body.”

In his influential 1979 The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations, cultural historian Christopher Lasch observed (p. 5):

“To live for the moment is the prevailing passion — to live for yourself, not for your predecessors or posterity.”

While there are many manifestations of narcissism that infect American culture, let’s look at just one, the cult of the beautiful body. We should ask: How as the People of God can we smash this idol that has been set-up among us?

The everyday media message that shapes how we perceive ourselves is insidious. While we admire the talent of the sculptor, it is dangerous and unrealistic to take the statuesque proportions of a Venus de Milo or Michelangelo’s David and expect everyone to conform.

Venus_de_Milo_Louvre_Ma399_n4 — Venus de Milo, at the Louvre (Paris, France) See page for author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

A 50-ish mother past child bearing years was on nursery duty at church. One of the toddlers came up to her, put her hand on the woman’s tummy and said: “Are you going to have a baby?” Laughing, the woman replied: “No, dear, some of us are just shaped this way.”

The proverb reminds us that “beauty is only skin deep.” Yet every time we check out at the store, the magazines shout: “You should look like this!” There we behold the twenty-something belles and beaus who are the cultural icons of physical perfection. Those who are older are more resistant to the physical beauty drumbeat, but not so the young. While many think of anorexia nervosa as confined to females, one in ten males in the United States suffer from this disease of self-perception. The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders attributes this to “social norms for males, which emphasize strength and athleticism.”

Does our careless use of language contribute to our society’s fixation with physical beauty? In the ’70s, we complimented each other for being “cool.” Now, among the most overused word in the English language is “hot.” “Wow, she’s HOT!” Or, “He’s a hottie!” Seriously? Do we really want to reduce people to a one-word description carrying sexual overtones? Surely that’s beneath the dignity of a follower of Christ.

Continue reading “Idols in the Church, Part 2: The cult of the beautiful body” →

reflections, The Wesleys and Wesleyan theology

Work with the end in mind

Posted on January 1, 2014January 1, 2014 by Gregory Crofford

Steven Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Steven Covey penned one of the most influential leadership books of the late 20th century, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey passed away in 2012, but his principles live on. Here is one of them:

Work with the end in mind.

Those words would have resonated well with 18th century Methodists in England. One of their characteristics that commended Methodism to the people of their day was the peaceful, even heroic way that Methodists faced their own end. Long before the time of drugging people in their final hours, those who approached death were often quite lucid. The 88 year old Rev John Wesley, laying on his death bed in 1791, murmured to those gathered around him: “And best of all, God is with us.”

Here are last words from some others:

“See in what peace a Christian can die.” – Joseph Addison, English politician and writer

“Am I dying, or is this my birthday?” – Lady Astor

“Now comes the mystery.” – Rev Henry Ward Beecher, 19th century American abolitonist

“I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” – Nathan Hale

“I’m going over the valley.” – Babe Ruth, 20th century American baseball player

“Bring down the curtain, the farce is played out.” – Rabelais

“They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist-” – John Sedgwick, Union General, to his men when they advised him to take cover

“Let us cross over the river and sit under the shade of the trees.” – Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson

“Leave the shower curtain on the inside of the tub.” – Conrad Hilton, hotel magnate

“So little done, so much to do.” – Cecil John Rhodes, South African gold and diamond miner

“Strike the tent.” – Confederate General Robert E. Lee

“Hold the cross high, so I may see it through the flames.” – Joan of Arc

“I have seen heaven open, and Jesus on the right hand of God.” – Rev Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury

Samuel Clemens, better known under his pen name, “Mark Twain,” had some “work with the end in mind” words of his own. I chose them for the “senior quotes” section of the 1985 Nautilus, the yearbook of Eastern Nazarene College:

Let us so live that – when we come to die – even the undertaker will be sorry.

Have a God-blessed and pivotal year in 2014.

————

Photo credit: NPR.org

reflections

Idols in the Church, part 1: when food displaces God

Posted on December 29, 2013December 30, 2013 by Gregory Crofford

Idolatry is not a new problem for the people of God. It’s as old as the impatient Israelities – restless when Moses was delayed on Mt Sinai – forging a golden calf and bowing down in worship before it (see Exodus 32). Repeatedly in the Old Testament, the prophets called upon Israel and Judah to return to Yahweh. Righteous kings like Hezekiah broke down the “high places” dedicated to Baal and the poles erected to the worship of his partner, Asherah (2 Kings 18:1-4). The willingness to confront idolatry – no matter how ingrained it had become – was the hallmark of the righteous leader.

The times have changed, but our tendency as the people of God to set up idols has not. One idol that the Church needs to topple in its midst is not Baal or Asherah, but it is an idol nonetheless. I’m talking about the false god of food.

Paul described those who lived as “enemies of the cross” (Phil. 3:19). Among the characteristics of such individuals whose minds were “set on earthly things” was that they made of their stomach a god:

Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven (3:19-20a, NIV).

The apostle was calling the church to be radically different than the world in which she lived. In Eating to Excess: The Meaning of Gluttony and the Fat Body in the Ancient World (Praeger, 2011; available here on Google books), Susan Hill (p. 103) includes a warning from Clement of Alexandria (AD 150-211/215):

There is no limit to the gluttony these men practice. Truly, in inventing a multitude of new sweets and ever seeking recipes of every description, they are shipwrecked on honey-cakes and desserts.

Likewise, John Chrysostom (AD 347-407) compared a gluttonous person to a wild animal. He or she is “a wild beast rather than a human being; for to devour much food is proper to panther, and lion, and bear. No wonder (that they do so) for those creatures have not a reasonable soul. Yet even they, if they be gorged with food more than they need, and beyond the measure appointed them by nature, get their whole body ruined by it; how much more we?” (Hill, p. 117).

Paul, Clement, and Chrysostom echoed cautions sounded in the Old Testament. Proverbs 23:1-3 (CEB) advises:

When you sit down to dine with a ruler, carefully consider what is in front of you. Place a knife at your throat to control your appetite. Don’t long for the ruler’s delicacies; the food misleads.

So inadvisable was gluttony to the Jew that to befriend a glutton was to shame one’s parents (Proverbs 28:7). Gluttony (along with drunkenness) led to impoverishment (Prov. 23:21).

Continue reading “Idols in the Church, part 1: when food displaces God” →

reflections

Top 5 Christlike acts in 2013

Posted on December 23, 2013December 23, 2013 by Gregory Crofford

Some want to go back to the “good ‘ole days.” Count me out. These are exciting times to be alive and to see what God is up to right now. Here are my “Top 5 Christlike acts of 2013”-

5. Nine-year-old swimmer gives trophy to hospitalized rival – Josh Zuchowski and Reese Branzell are rivals, with Reese usually coming out first, and Josh a close second. When Reese was hospitalized with a bone infection, Josh won the Florida swim meet, then sent his trophy to the hospital, a gift for Reese. The attached note? “I won this trophy for you today,” said Josh, “and I hope to see you back in the pool.” What parent wouldn’t be proud of such a son?

4. Wrongfully imprisoned man has kind words for friend whose testimony put him behind bars – Ryan Ferguson, 29, spent more than 9 years in a Missouri prison for a crime he did not commit. When he gave a news conference the day of his release – cleared of all charges – he promised to do what he could to work for the release of Chuck Erickson, whose police-coerced testimony had put Ryan behind bars. Ferguson’s humble spirit and refusal to walk down the path of bitterness have gained him more than 90,000 followers on FaceBook, the “army” that – in addition to the efforts of his family and lawyer, Kathleen Zellner – he credits with having produced the judicial review that ultimately resulted in his release. Thanks, Mr Ferguson, for your positive model to everyone.

3. Teammates create an unforgettable moment for fellow player with special needs – In a story worthy of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Keith Orr – a young man with a learning disability – scored a touchdown for his team, the Olivet Middle School. His teammates left their coach in the dark, working for weeks in secret to devise a play that would allow Keith to score from within the 5 yard line. When the play worked, they carried Keith off the field in triumph. Looks a lot like Jesus to me.

2. Freed prisoner walks the way of peace – O.K., this one happened before 2013, but the movie – “Long Walk to Freedom” – came out this year, so I’m counting it. Nelson Mandela had every reason to strike back after having spent 27 years in prison. Even his wife, Winnie – who had suffered 16 months of solitary confinement – was ready for battle. Yet in a broadcast that many credit with averting civil war, Mandela committed himself to reconciliation between long-term enemies in South Africa. The rest, as they say, is history.

1. Pope Francis sets new tone for the Roman Catholic Church – With his emphasis upon reaching the hurting and marginalized, Pope Francis is leading the way, not with law but with grace. Even those not usually inclined to applaud Christianity have noticed, including Time, which named him Man of the Year.

How about you? What would be your vote for the top 5 Christlike acts of 2013?