Why I Am a Liberal

 Next month I will have been a pastor for 58 years. I was a licensed minister and preached now and then for eight years before taking on my first (student) pastorate in August of 1968; so the Judeo/Christian Scriptures (the Bible) have been a part of my official work for 66 years.

I am amazed—and often disturbed—at the many diverse and often contradictory ways those Scriptures have been understood and applied.

Actually, it’s not the variations that disturb me; it’s the anger and bitterness with which we Christians—you know: “blessed are the meek…” “blessed are the peacemakers…” “love your enemies…” Christians—treat each other when we don’t agree. Due to the animosity, I’ve come to prefer the word Christlike over the word Christian as a goal for living. Not everything that is called Christian is “like Christ.”

Most recently I’ve seen hostile exchanges over the concept of God’s sovereignty. From where I sit it’s that God can do whatever God darn well pleases.

Okay; I can work with that. My question is about what God pleases to do. In the biblical witness, some of the writers seem to believe God pleases to do some pretty ungodly things; so, what is our standard of “godly?”

The next level of sovereignty is: “…and we’re not to question it.” David did. And Abraham and Moses did. And Jeremiah shook his fist in God’s face and called him a bully! (Jeremiah 20:7-9) In my view the we’re-not-to-question-it part is not so much from the Bible as from post-16th-century Calvinist/Puritan pulpits.

There’s yet another level: it’s all part of God’s plan. God can do anything God darn well pleases, and we’re not to question it because God planned it that way.

A child is diagnosed with cancer. It’s part of God’s plan.

A teenager is brutally raped. It’s part of God’s plan.

Of course, God has a plan! It is stated clearly in the covenant with Abraham: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. …and in you[1] all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:2-3)

            That covenant is the foundation of Judaism, the faith of the patriarchs and the prophets and the Wisdom writers and of Jesus of Nazareth. And the very definition of covenant is that it is two-way: we are partners with God in God's plan to bless every nation, people, and family of the earth.

So, here is my question: if that covenant truly is for “all the families (the word also means nations or people) of the earth,” and if the covenant extends to us, where is the “blessing” in the current sovereignty of God theology? How are we to enact our calling to be a blessing?

For me, the standard is Jesus: the Word become flesh (John 1:14), the visible image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15) in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (Colossians 1:19; 2:9). If there is any doubt or confusion over what God intends or plans, let us “…look to Jesus, the author [in the original language the word is αρχηγον (ar-kay-gon): author, source, pioneer; the root of the English word architect] and perfector [τελειωτην (tell-ay-oh-tain): Jesus used the verb form on the cross: “It is finished.”] of our faith. (Hebrews 12:2)

Looking, then, to Jesus—his words, his relationships, and his ethics—God’s intention and plan take on a clear, but different, look. Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17; part of the Sermon on the Mount)

Jesus came to rescue the Hebrew Scriptures (Law/Torah and Prophets) from the grip of the legalistic, exclusionary interpretations of the temple oligarchy and the religious elitists of his time. In my view, Jesus’ understanding and interpretation of the Hebrew Scripture take priority over all other understandings.

And in his summary, Jesus said the greatest commandment is part of the Shema in Judaism: “You must love the Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole being, and all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) And the second is “…you shall love (agape) your neighbor as yourself…” (Leviticus 19:18)[2] For Jesus, those two principles were the foundation of all Scripture, and for his faith and, I hope, your faith and mine. If it does not communicate love of God and love of neighbor and love of self, it is not Christlike.

And when a smart-aleck in the crowd asked, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). And for those who suggest that Jesus meant only those who are of the same faith or that Paul meant “the church,” consider Matthew 25:35, 40, “…I was a stranger and you took me in…and whatever you have done to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.” And in the original language the word “stranger” is  ξενος (zee-nos): stranger, alien, foreigner, and in some contexts, enemy. It is the root of our English word, xenophobia.

So, I propose that Jesus’ words cannot be used to justify any act of violence or revenge or selfishness or misogyny or prejudice or social caste system or insult or put-down. I further propose that Jesus words point us at least toward actions of unlimited forgiveness, reconciliation, generosity, kindness, mercy, compassion, and understanding/empathy.

As for judgmentalism, which is the primary criticism of today’s Christianity, Jesus used two words: one means to condemn, and Jesus said we will be condemned by the same standards we condemn others. He said, “Don’t do it.”

The other word means to discern—to distinguish between good and evil, or as Jesus and several of the New Testament Epistles put it, to distinguish between love and whatever is not love. “…those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4:20)

So, that’s my argument for understanding God’s sovereignty on the basis of Jesus; that is, God chooses to exercise divine sovereignty in restorative, reconciling grace and love. And that seems to make me a liberal.

That’s the way it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim


[1] Later Genesis passages (like Genesis 22:18 and 26:4) explicitly redefine and expand "you" into his "seed", clarifying that the covenantal blessing flows through his descendants to include an ultimate global reach.

[2] Matthew 19:19; 22-39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27 and by extension, Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8.

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