Monday, March 14, 2011

The foundation of Christian freedom is weakness, submission and poverty, not gold and guns

I got an email advertising the book God, Guns and Gold: Foundations for Christian Freedom and like a slow moving trainwreck I couldn't look away from, I had to watch the promo video. Ugh.



Here is a big problem. When your message is closer to Glenn Beck's message (without the histrionics and crying) than Christ's, you need to reevaluate your position.




As I watched the promo video featuring Joel McDurmon, I found it interesting to note how often he went back to the Old Testament. Among Christians it seems as though an awful lot of the errors we encounter stem from a misapplication of the Old Testament onto the New Covenant community of Christ.

Why do I pick on my conservative brothers like this? Two reasons. One, liberal arguments regarding Christianity, government and culture are so ridiculous they hardly both being mentioned. People like Jim Wallis of Sojourners have identified an issue correctly (i.e. the need for justice) but are advocating for a Biblically unsupportable solution (i.e. a secular government confiscating and transferring wealth). Second, I am in basic agreement with many of the political positions these brothers espouse but without seeing the linkage between American political conservatism and the Kingdom life we are called to.

This mindset of "God, guns and gold" is foolish. It is dangerous in that it promotes a new Trinity where God shares His throne with personal safety (guns) and personal independence (wealth). More importantly it is unbiblical.

Our only source of freedom as Christians is in a Savior who for our sakes became poor, who for our sakes meekly went to the cross, who for our sakse sacrificed Himself to secure our freedom so that we would no longer have to rely on swords or money but instead could rely solely on Him. The Christian has no need to hoard gold and defend that gold with an arsenal of weapons. Our security is far more assured than a bunker full of guns could ever hope to be.

America is not a "Christian nation". Jesus didn't live and die and rise again so you can have private property. God is not a pawn in our political movement.

2 comments:

Bean said...

There does seem to be a segment of the population who use Christianity to promote their ideology. I do not understand this whole bunker mentality, there are some in the far right who seem to think that societal collapse is imminent and only those with guns, gold, ammo, water, generators and freeze dried rations will survive, and they put their faith in this. Perhaps they need to read their history books, during WWII there was absolute destruction of many communities, basic infrastructure was destroyed, but you know what? People just kept going, the war ended, cities were rebuilt, life went on. The same can be said for the Depression, famines, wars throughout time, hurricanes, whatever, people survive, people are resilient and they generally managed without a huge arsenal of weaponry and a stockpile of gold.
I choose to put my faith and trust in God, and know that whatever trial I have to go through the Lord will be with me.

Glenn Beck has really gone over the edge, I think he is heading for a crash. A shame, I used to enjoy listening to him, but all he does is promote fear.

Arthur Sido said...

Bean,

I agree about Beck. He seems to be more than a little unstable to me.

There is a distressing lack of faith in God's providence in America.