Gimme that Old Time Religion, Part 2

Spirituality Column #190
June 29, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Gimme that Old Time Religion, Part 2
By Bob Walters

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
– Preamble, U.S. Constitution

“… Blessings of Liberty …”

Did you catch that?

“Blessings” – capitalized in the original – is a God and faith word, not a secular, non-faith word. It’s a word that assumes a Creator and more importantly assumes a relationship with that Creator.

Yes, one could argue that a blessing can be as secularly simple as doing something nice for someone else, but that’s a good deed. One can also argue that all the nouns except “defence” are capitalized in the Preamble, but that’s grammar.

I would argue that Blessings are God-inspired things, and that words like “Blessings” and “ordained” clue us into the intent of the Constitution’s framers – that for this grand venture of American democracy to succeed, God needed to be not only on our side, but in the very hearts of the republic’s newly empowered and free citizens.

Given that Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Benjamin Franklin were all more deist than conservative Christian, and that secular humanism was the philosophical fashion of the age (and especially of the Founders), let’s not worry for now whether 18th century America was founded as a “Christian Country.”

Let’s instead focus on the immense, frontier-penetrating Christian revival, the Second Great Awakening, that almost immediately followed our nation’s birth.

Revival is when the Holy Spirit works to reveal the Gospel truth of Jesus Christ. And regardless of the “Christian Country” debate, America with its unbridled freedom was surely a nation of unlimited personal opportunity, an unimaginably vast expanse of land, and with no establishment church, previously unknown religious openness.

Americans proved thirsty for the Gospel message. In many ways we were a people without tradition. New directions and snap judgments fueled the ferocious growth of the nation. The population physically grew away from the Protestant religious establishments of the East. The independent pioneers went west, and independent Bible preachers followed.

The Holy Spirit knew the opportunity was ripe to shine the light on Jesus Christ from sea to shining sea. The old rules were left behind, and Bible revival was on.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) can’t think of a worse hindrance to freedom – and brotherly love – than state religion. More next week.

Gimme that Old Time Religion, Part 1

Spirituality Column #189
June 22, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Gimme that Old Time Religion, Part 1
By Bob Walters

It’s funny what people do with freedom.

Among the topics covered today in standard U.S. History high school text books is the Second Great Awakening, the Evangelical Christian movement in America’s first 50 years or so from the late 1700s into the mid-1800s.

Remembering that the U.S. Constitution was written in 1787, ratified in 1788, and took full effect in 1789, it’s interesting to note that historians typically date the start of the Second Great Awakening as 1790.

FYI, the “First Great Awakening” in America was circa 1740, led by philosopher and scientist Jonathan Edwards. His phenomenal grasp of Christian intellectual and spiritual pursuits, and his prolific writing, are often overshadowed by one exceptionally famous yet (for him) highly atypical sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”

That sermon has been used ever since, oxymoronically it seems, to scare people into the secure and loving arms of Jesus Christ. Christ didn’t die because God was mad at us; Christ died because God loved us (John 3:16), and Edwards knew that. It’s more illuminating to read Edwards’ less famous works (15 volumes worth), but I digress.

Back to 1790, the Second Great Awakening, and a new government created by “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.” Perhaps the first full, free cultural expression of America’s newly ordained citizenry was to get God into the act.

For all the hue and cry and debate about whether the United States of America is a “Christian Country,” at its founding (1770s and 1780s) only a small minority, perhaps only 10 percent, of the Colonial population belonged to a mainline Protestant church –the Anglicans, the Puritan Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, etc.

The organized Protestant churches, remember, were part of the British tyranny and European establishment from which the Colonies were trying to free themselves.

Belonging to a church, we infer, was not the fashion. Believing in God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, however, was demonstrably pervasive in American culture.

To that point, it is telling that the U.S. Constitution’s “We the people” Preamble quoted above, included the action phrase, “and [to] secure the blessings of Liberty on ourselves and our Posterity.”

America thus began, and an awakened, free people understood Liberty to be a blessing from God. Political and cultural freedom, united with personal faith in God, proceeded to storm across the American landscape.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) contemplates America and has no doubt “God shed His grace on thee.” More next week.

A Wooden Response to Real Faith

Spirituality Column #188
June 15, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

A Wooden Response to Real Faith
By Bob Walters

In the small-city, American innocence of my youth in the 1960s, it seemed that everybody went to church.

To my recollection nobody talked much about Jesus Christ but “Where do you go to church?” was a socially acceptable, non-invasive inquiry. God was at church, everyone went to church, everyone understood God was God, and God was good.

Of course, we didn’t go to church in the summer. We rode our bikes, played ball, and went swimming. We went to church during the school year.

And in school I learned that in 1776 our nation declared its independence in no small part because people “are endowed by their Creator (capital C) with certain unalienable Rights.” It made historical sense to recite daily the Pledge of Allegiance, facing the American flag as “one nation under God” (no comma).

How surprised I was to learn years later that the Pledge was relatively new (1892, Francis Bellamy), and “under God” was really new (1954, President Dwight Eisenhower). “In God We Trust” on our paper money first appeared in 1957, having been adopted officially as our national motto in July 1956.

Given that era’s bristling Cold War with the Soviet Union, the motto was a “purpose pitch” promoting American values like God and freedom. Some dismissed it as mere propaganda against godless Communism, but so what? Communism was a horrible idea, horribly applied, with horrible effect. Communism chokes individual freedom, creativity, wealth … and God.

Anyway, even today ninety percent of Americans like the motto.

So why is it that so many of us are willing, happy, even thankful, to Trust in God, while so many also blanch at any public confession of the miraculous, freeing character of redemption through the saving power of Jesus Christ?

These thoughts cross my mind when a great American like John Wooden dies. In his death, our culture reduces John Wooden’s enormous, demonstrated, lifelong, prosperous, humble faith in Jesus Christ to sports, championships and coaching.

Mercy gracious sakes.

It’s hypocrisy that all this reporting is done with an understood wink of the mass media’s eye. Everyone knows Wooden was a devout believer in Christ, and that every corner of his life witnessed to his Christian faith.

Wooden’s is what an abundant, American life in Christ is supposed to look like.

If truly “In God We Trust,” why is “Christ” so hard for so many Americans to say?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that while Wooden wasn’t shy about his faith, the media only reports on earthly rewards.

Wholly Imitating Holiness

Spirituality Column #187
June 8, 2010
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Wholly Imitating Holiness
By Bob Walters

We can never go wrong shining a light on Jesus Christ.

And the most assured way to do that is to imitate God by being holy.

How are we holy? Surprisingly, not by being sinless (we aren’t), not by being divinely loving (we fall short), not by being perfect (only God is perfect), and not by going to church, reading the Bible, shouting “Amen!” or haranguing non-believers.

Holy is a special assignment.

“Holy” can mean many different things, few of which any of us would typically apply to humans. But God (Leviticus 11:44-45, 19:2, 20:7, 1 Peter 1:15-16) tells us to “be holy as I am holy.” And as we are told frequently in the Bible to “imitate” or “be imitators” of God, what can we do to carry out that assignment?

I’ve often wondered about that, and heard a pretty good answer on the radio a couple weeks ago (Today in the Word, WGNR 97.9, May 25, 2010).

We can be holy in the same way God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are holy in the Trinity by shining the light on Jesus Christ.

In theology the Trinity is called the “economy,” which refers to the working relationships within the Godhead. Jesus willingly submits to God, and the Holy Spirit willingly places all focus on Jesus Christ (John 14:26, 16:13-15).

We imitate God and obey His command “to be holy” when we imitate the Holy Spirit and put Jesus Christ center-stage. We are holy when we focus on Jesus Christ.

Naturally, believers and non-believers alike balk at putting Christ first, which means putting Christ first in everything – in our work, in our love, in our lives, in our nation, in our community, in our world, in our knowledge. In everything.

Most people have a problem putting Christ first on Sunday; heck, some have a problem putting Christ first in their church. They’d rather not mention His name. They’d rather put Jesus Christ in a convenient box of human restrictions, making it easier to focus on their (our) human desires.

It’s wrong to think, “Hey, I’m a good person. God will take care of me. Jesus isn’t a big deal.”

When God says, “Imitate Me” and “Be holy,” God is saying “Jesus Christ is a very big deal.” We’re holy to do it, and wise to believe it.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) knows he is more unholy than holy, but appreciates the opportunity to shine a light on Jesus.