You, Me, and Pastors (hopefully part one of a series)

In recent weeks Mark Driscoll's star hasn't just eclipsed, its gone supernova. Damage control that should have been done years ago, is finally too big for him to handle. Last year it was Steven Furtick and his $3 million home. The sad and scary thing is that I got some joy out of it. The complex emotion comes from the fact that it feels nice when people who put so much stock in these rock-star pastors get it wrong. Friends who would come up to me and ask if I had read something by Driscoll or Furtick are now eating crow because of the monumental failures they have shown themselves to be. Luke 18:11 comes to mind. Its the part where the pharisee stands in front of God almighty and thanks the giver of all good things ... that he is not like the poor wretch next to him. "The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector.'"

Oh Lord God, I thank you that I am not like Mark Driscoll or Steven Furtick. I thank you that I am not like the other pastors who get taken down by greed or gossip or sex! I thank you that when one of them gets taken out, maybe I can move up just one more rung! Maybe, I'll be appreciated. Lord God, glorify me!

That is the secret prayer my heart makes when I am not looking and turned around. Thank God for His Holy Spirit. I recommend the rest of Luke 18, but especially Luke 18:9-14:

 9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

For this I repent. You see daily repentance and renewal (and many things we associate with the life of the pastor) is not for them alone. It is for you and I. I live day by day on grace that God has given me. I am in Christ's debt. The more I live with my own pride and comparison being the center of my identity, the more envious I become of those who are getting along better than I am and even those who give me so much. This has always been why I have been so against pride, any kind. It is a sin which I wrestle with and kills me every time. 

While I look at the failures of pastors and ask the Holy Spirit to guide me in how I should feel about this, I find that it comes back to my walk with Jesus. The sad thing for my pride is that when we are focused on Jesus we don't have enough vision to gloat over the failures of others or feel envious of their success. All we can do is be thankful like the second man in the parable. All we can say is: God, have mercy on me, a sinner. 

Deaths Which are not My Own.

Perhaps one of the most hypocritical things one can do is declare that we should not intervene. It was, theoretically, intervention that stopped the Nazis in their tracks. Yet, I suppose that the Nazis were an aberration rather than a rule. As we look throughout history we find time and again that evil is confounded only after it has reached a limit. Napoleon just couldn't keep going. The Vikings settled down after raiding. Rome was not so much conquered, but fell apart. The great bloodletting by the Golden Horde and expansion by the Ottoman's was not checked by violence, so much as the ware and tare upon them internally.

And so I am not sure what to make of ISIS. I would want a strong deliverer if I were in the position of my brothers and sisters confronting such a demonic clan. I have read of a great clamor for the U.S. to be involved, protect the innocent, fight and kill the evil doers. Our question should never be should evil be resisted, but rather who and how should evil be resisted. 

America has had two very painfully bad wars in the Middle East. Al Qaeda, such that they were, perpetrated a terrible tragedy upon humanity. Saddam was a tyrannical dictator who kept rule through oppression and fear. There was a large outcry for the U.S. military to come over and intervene. Perhaps we didn't care enough to rebuilt, but that doesn't change the fact. Whatever your justification, if your desire to use force is what you belief you will be offering; than you are not concerned with winning for peace. Peace requires greater discipline than war; and while there are many things America is showing the world which it has, discipline is quickly becoming apparent that it is not one of them.

And so we find ourselves, after seeing and sometimes fighting skirmishes with lesser clans, to be facing a movement of a people. A condensed hatred drunk in like poison has brought a living death to people no longer people but with human form. ISIS is evil and people have sworn themselves to that evil. The oath has been made in blood. Sadly, in our rashness, we have conjured up the specter to feast upon brothers and sisters in another part of the world. The deed has already been done and monsters have already been summoned.

Now we find ourselves back in a place we had sworn we would have already left so many years ago. In our desire to fight a war without a projected peace, we end up bombing a place where we have not declared war. bellum erit in perpetuum

Yet do I let people die whose lives were disturbed and disrupted further than they already had been by actions caused by my people? Do I wipe my hands of the whole thing because my people failed to think something through? On the other hand, can we afford one more war? We have a president who has been pulling back from greater military escalation in a part of the world we have been attempting to make in our own image. Our nation has desired to send young men and women to fight a forever war. Meanwhile they fight in a place that is not our own by people who are trying to rebuild either on traditions of the better part of their culture or the demons that possess them. I cannot help but wonder what they must think when planes from the outside world rain down bombs upon them. 

Ultimately there is no satisfactory answer. We either fight a forever war or watch people die in the aftermath of hell we have created. Even if we think it is noble to play the champion and come to the rescue, what will guarantee our success? All of this runs through my mind when I think of ISIS. How are we to protect against the evil in this world? How do we make sure it doesn't harm us? How do we make sure it doesn't become us? There are no clear answers. Evil will always be just beyond our ability to understand, to feel, to relate to; but it will always be close at hand. We must just pray that something is closer, if just for a little. 

I firmly believe that what we must do is be willing to call things what they are. Let us dust off words we wished not to use. Let us call evil what it is: evil. For those of us who believe, let us pray for righteous judgment to befall evil itself. Finally, let us make sacrifices for the restoration of human life in reflection and homage to that which we believe is the source of human life.

I admit that I do not know how it should be done, but I do know what should be done. We must save the lives of those who suffer at the hands of evil. We must not let evil be disguised by human form and destroy that which seeks to destroy our shared humanity.