Thursday, March 15, 2007

unresolved thought

while we were in Africa we read about The Lord's Resistance Army. It was probably one of the most horrible and disturbing things i've ever read. The LRA apparently is a rebel army in northern Uganda. They brainwash and use children to commit horrible inhumane offences. They are psychological conditioned to think perverted violence is a normal part of manhood and are severely beaten or killed if they don't do what they're told. Children are told to pray to the Holy Spirit for courage to commit vile and evil acts (including raping and murdering younger family members) and it's all done in the name of Jesus.

unfortunately i have a vivid imaginations and after reading about this i spent the next few weeks imagining what it must be like to be a kid today in the LRA.

imagine a 12 year old kid who has been exposed to the brain washing but the LRA hasn't quite killed his spirit yet and somewhere in his heart he's knows it's wrong. he has seen some of his little buddies severely beaten for not following orders and is deeply afraid this will happen to him. and then one day one of the bosses comes along and tells him he has to commit some horrible offence against someone he knows. The kid is told to pray to the Holy Spirit for courage to be a man and they will be leaving in an hour to go and bring justice in the name of Jesus.

The kid is deeply afraid and goes of to his room to get his gun. He wants to be a man. He wants the admiration and respect the older boys get from being brave. He prays to Jesus to help him follow his orders. He takes out his gun and imagines what the people will look like as he shoots them. His stomach turns. His spirit cringes. He weighs up his options. If he refuses he'll be beaten or killed. If he runs away he'll probably starve in the desert.

one of his boss's comes in and tells him to pick up his gun. the kid doesn't move. the boss moves closer and raises his voice 'Jesus is Lord. Pick up your gun'. the kid is absolutely terrified but follows his heart, 'I hate Jesus' he yells and tries to make a run for it...





this scenario doesn't fit my theology. in fact it exposes some gaping holes in it.

can someone follow Christ without actually knowing it?
can someone hate everything they know about Christianity and still usher in the Kingdom of God?
can someone deny Christ with their words but actually be a true disciple of Him in their life?
how much is it about language and labels?


i know this scenario seems very extreme to us. the 'Jesus' presented to this kid was obviously a perverted version.

are we capable of presenting a perverted 'Jesus' in milder ways?...



God is Good.
God is Love.

maybe following goodness and love is enough?

8 comments:

Vawz said...

I like what you are saying. "would the real Jesus please stand up"!
I think that we will be judged on our relationship with Jesus. Not the Jesus we got told about in a Ugandan war or even our western sunday school. But I have no doubt, it will be the Jesus that walked and talked on this Earth. The son of God, the Fathers rvelations of himself, the "image of the invisable God". If I distrort that image, I will be accountable for that distortion as will the man forcing the boy to pich up his gun. But if I listen to my God given conscience and refuse to do evil in the name of Jesus, then I may well be in fact following Jesus, even though I am doing the opposite of what the evil request is..in the name of Jesus. (I guess George Bush needs to wonder about that one too!)
Bottom line for me, it's ALL about Jesus.
And it's ALL about doing good.
Some cultures don't call him Jesus, they call him Ischar, but the man Ischar describes is still the Christ.
We have a invisable God who revealed himself in the body of a man, not a philosophy, or idea, or a behaviour, a man who who in Spirit form is able to be related to. "Christianity" is a term we made up (humanity) I hold to it loosely. Jesus did not come to start a religion but rather to announce a new Kingdom, his empire, his reign.
Love ya questions Charlie!

Glenn Globber said...

Hmmm, heavy man. But good thoughts. I have a friend that would say something like; that all things good come from God. I see this as viable in one sense yet in another there's something in my mind that doesn't quite agree.
My friend see's a physical therapist who uses a type of spirituality and massage to make say, a sore back feel a lot better. My friend would say that because it / he, has a healing power that it's ok cause good things (like any healing) ultimately come from God.
Now I have to say that I don't know particularly about that method or person using that healing power but the question has to be asked, just because something makes you feel good does it mean that it comes from God?
1 Cor 11:15ish talks about the enemy masquerading as an angel of light. As the LRA have in a vivid way. But what about not so vivid?
Is being a follower of Jesus just doing good / loving enough? Can't the enemy do 'good things' too?
I fully get the other side of it though coz 'Christians' haven't been following Christ neccesarily, it's all been about religious duty and a mythological following of Jesus than what's really true about God and His Son. Because of that 'Christians' are totally capable of and have presented a perverted Jesus. I reckon that because of this people will be welcomed into the kingdom of God through ways that many 'Christian's' may not be comfortable with. That people will find Jesus in ways uncommon to 'the western church'. However, I'm not sure that good and loving things are what makes you a follower of Jesus? Doesn't there need to be a conscious decision to accept Jesus as the leader of our lives, understanding he has paid the price for all sin?

c & c said...

thank you so much for your thoughts lads... this is really helpful.

firstly... who is Ischar?

and secondly... what does "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in him." mean?

Glenn Globber said...

I'll go the second q. I like that question on love, I have questions though on the question that at the moment I don't have answers for :)
What kind of love is John talking about in that verse, coz we usually only have one version of love and also our 'love' is conditional in the way that we view or have experienced love. It has some relevance to the question I think . . maybe . . . maybe not? I think I'm teasing this in my brain coz we might see someone being 'loving' but this may not be God's version of love.
I think, in my really limited view of love, I have come to know the love of Jesus and what Jesus says is love as self sacrifice. The giving up of the right of my needs and wants to serve, give to someone else. There's a lot more than that though in God's love, like discipline, affection etc etc so much that I'm not sure we will ever understand it.
But . . . I would cautiously (coz I'm sprouting from my keyboard and not thinking about it too hard)hold to a view that the self sacrificing, unconditional love that we experience on this earth can only come from God whether we acknowledge where that love comes from or not. So if we love this way does it mean we are in God? Does it mean we have a relationship with Him? Is that what Jesus was saying or is He actually saying that if we love like God loves we are the same as He is because that kind of love only comes from Him? Like I said, questions.

Vawz said...

We are all made in the image of God, ALL. So where there is genuine love there is a genuine flash of God. Like a mirror reflecting the sun on a hillside. We catch glimpses of God all around us, most of the time we are too busy to regognise the flashes, or if we see them I think I often fail to see God in them.
Having said that...I would encourage you as I have been encouraged of late to be careful in pulling a single passage out of the bible and say "look at that, does this not show my point?" The books of the bible are intended to be looked at as a whole. Like the comments I was making the other night Charlie, about looking at trees instead of forrest and narrative and meta narrative etc.
This verse is a wonderful gimpse of a fraction of the God/man story. "God is Love". But God is also Jesus, the way, the truth and the life, the only way to come to the Father. He is also the begining and the end, the bright and morning star, he is also a baby in a smelly cave, a mystical creator of all, a man on a cross, a rider of a white horse with a bizare sword coming from His mouth!
No wonder there is such mystry in Him!

c & c said...

good call on the one of bible verse scottie. it definitely sux when people take the one random bible verse and use it to justify their crazy beliefs.

met this guy while we were away who reckons he preached this sermon once about why he and all christians could fly. it went through the bible and pulled out all the verses that justified his premise (that he could fly) and then said he was going to jump off the roof.

he didn't, but went on to tell his listeners that they were all stupid for using the bible as a set of prepositions instead of an incredible cosmic meta-narrative.

Vawz said...

Hmm, I read in an NT Wright book yesterday about a guy who suggested the whole book of Mark was written by Mark for the one express purpose of helping alcoholics recover.
Not sure Mark had that in mind, but I'm sure it might have helped a few over time!

Vawz said...

On this topic, have a look at this video from God Tube with Oprah.
http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=f21d69c91dddeefb792a