Christians Living in America

As Christians living in America, every day when we wake up we are faced with the decision to either die to our selves and actively enter into God's mission to redeem all of humanity or choose to embrace the idolatry that is all around us serving as a constant temptation.  We can so easily deviate from God's path for our lives, which leads to life.  Instead we often choose death, and we destroy ourselves by trying to be upwardly mobile and achieve the American Dream.  The American Dream is all about us, as individuals, advancing ourselves.  God's plan for our lives is all about him, and we give up control of our lives.  The idols in America are right there, all the time, waiting to numb us, or help us escape and distance ourselves from the hard realities of life.  God's path, the narrow path, can be difficult to find and it involves unbridled release of control and giving ourselves away to others on a daily basis.  The great irony of all of this is, the very things that we think will actually bring is life in the American Dream actually lead us down a path to self destruction.  The very things that look like they could bring us struggle and pain through following Christ at all costs are actually the things that will bring us life.  This is why life can be so difficult living in an American society with seemingly unlimited individual opportunities, resources, and idols masked as the latest and greatest thing that might help to improve our lives.

The path to finding life is through downward mobility, by dying to our selves because Christ died for us.  The great joy is found in entering God's mission, through giving ourselves away to others... especially including the people in this world who are struggling like orphans, widows, and the poor.  Alan Doswald writes, "James 1:27 is interesting. If you asked most people what true religion is, they would not give this answer. 'Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself from being polluted by the world.'  If we're not caring for widows and orphans, we're already polluted by the world, because the world doesn't care either.  The church's very nature, though, is to care.  The church has demonstrated this many times over.  The vital role of the church is to love our neighbors the way Jesus loved them."

We cannot look after orphans or widows in their distress if we have intentionally distanced ourselves from them while desperately trying to pursue the American Dream.  Caring for the poor and marginalized people in this world is all about relationships, and we cannot be in relationships with people when we are afraid to go where they are and spend time with them.  That is the great harm of upward mobility that is encouraged by the world: the more upwardly mobile we are, the farther we get from living out Christ's call to be downwardly mobile.  The more we elevate ourselves, the more we distance ourselves from people in need.  The more we spend hours watching television obsessing over Charlie Sheen's celebrity meltdown or worshipping Ameican Idol contestants, the more the work of the Church to reach hurting people in this world goes undone.  The more our hobbies and habits become consuming addictions, the farther we go from being able to give ourselves away to others.  The more we choose to comfort ourselves and arrange for a better life for ourselves, that's just all the more that we distance ourselves from the life that is found in giving control over to Christ.

My Take on LeBron James

Professional sports are a unique phenomenon in American culture. It seems that the entire nation hung on the words of a young basketball star, LeBron James, yesterday as he announced his plans to take his talents to Miami. Cleveland fans were left heartbroken again. Media outlets across the country have chimed in their opinions on this subject. Sports talk radio ratings have gone through the roof as middle-aged, bald, fat men discuss random sports-related topics with one another and with other middle-aged, bald, fat men who call into their shows to discuss the issues. Thousands of fans fill up arenas, ballparks, and stadiums each year to show allegiance (or in some cases disgust) to "their" teams. Athletes are paid millions of dollars in contracts and endorsements. When an athlete makes questionable moral decisions in their personal lives, the fans will obsess over the circumstances and how it all could possibly relate to the performance of the team.

One word comes to mind when I look at the world of professional sports in America: worship. In my opinion, in many parts of America we have replaced the worship of God with the worship of professional sports franchises and star athletes. I understand it, I guess. America is obsessed with many different types of idolatry, whether it comes in the form of sports or in celebrities, TV, pop stars, or any number of other things. I would bet that even though we do not usually worship golden statues, we worship many more idols than any other civilization in the history of the world. We have made idolatry into a science. The worship of LeBron James is just the latest example of what I'm describing.

I have a little bit of a unique perspective on this topic. I used to be a professional athlete. For the arena football team I was on, it was all about entertaining fans, making money, and basically putting up a big fake front to the world so that the people in my city could escape their own personal realities for a few hours. This is what American people do when they attend a sporting event, or watch TV and movies, or play video games. They escape their own lives in order to enter into worship of idols in a fake environment which has been carefully crafted for them by entertainers. I remember that as athletes we would act one way in public for reporters and fans, and then privately we would make fun of the reporters and fans and how absurd everything was. People who are sports fans, the ones who obsess over their teams and listen to sports talk radio or watch ESPN or post comments about their teams on the internet don't realize that the athletes are not worshipping their teams like the fans or media do. They are just doing a job, just like the rest of us who work in any number of places.

I think that American Christians really need to examine ourselves on the issue of idolatry. We need to ask ourselves what we are worshipping. Are we worshipping God, the Creator of the universe and the One who will have nothing to do with idolatry? Or, are we worshipping TV, movies, celebrities, music, and LeBron James? Is LeBron James "the king" and "the chosen one" who we all need to "witness," or are we going to worship Jesus Christ as the King and Chosen One? The next time you sit down to watch an episode of your favorite TV show (maybe American Idol?) or raise your hands to the sky at a sporting event or a rock concert, keep in mind that your worship of men may be replacing worship of the Risen Christ. Imagine if the Christians in Cleveland decided to turn their attention away from the LeBron James saga and focus their time and energy on living out their functions as the body of Christ in a city just like every other city in America that has people living in poverty, brokenness and pain all over the place, and needs that can only be filled by people who are on mission with God as the centerpoint of their worship. Many Christians in Cleveland are crying out in pain about the injustice of the removal of their biggest idol. Where are the Christians in Cleveland who are crying out in pain about the poor in their city who are being oppressed, or the children in Cleveland who are going to bed hungry, or the sex trafficking going on in seedy parts of their town, or the violence on the streets of their communities? Christians can not have God work through them to transform people and places if their worship is focused on the idols surrounding them. We cannot have two allegiances... one to Christ and one to the idols being offered up by the world.

Idolatry

Americans have many idols. We have almost made idolatry an art form. People spend countless hours in front of TV sets and computer screens, obsessing over celebrities, and worshipping the rich and powerful of our society. I sometimes think that Christians could solve many of the problems in the world if we would all agree to turn in our televisions, cell phones, and computers for at least one year. Who knows, we might actually start having real face-to-face relationships with other human beings? Maybe we would all of the sudden find that margin in our lives that we've always wanted to use to serve others?

For all the gods of nations are idols,
but the LORD made the heavens.
Splendor and majesty are before him;
Strength and glory are in his sanctuary.
- Psalm 96: 5-6

Christopher Wright says, "the gods worshipped by the nations are personifications of all that impresses us - splendor and majesty, strength and glory. We look for such magnificence and power, and worship these things wherever they inspire awe and trembling admiration; in the stadiums of great sporting triumph or in the lives of pampered sporting heroes; in massed battalions of soldiers, parades of military hardware or on the decks of aircraft carriers; on the stage of rock concerts or the glare of TV and movie celebrity; on the pinnacles of the thrusting towers of corporate power and greed in great cities. All of these can be enticing and idolatrous. But such places, says our Psalm, are not where we will find genuine deity. If we are looking for true splendor, majesty, strength or glory, they are to be found in the presence of the living Creator God alone. Some commentators see these four words as personifications, as if they were the great angelic companions of YHWH's throne, in stark contrast to the false gods that claimed such magnificence but lacked even real existence."

I have recently asked myself which idols I have in my life. The answers were not pretty. When was the last time you took an idol inventory? What are your idols? American Idol? Professional sports? Celebrities? TV? Shopping? Just imagine what Christianity would look like in the world if we gave up our idols and focused all of our worship on God. We might actually start to talk and live like real, true, authentic Christians. Wouldn't that be something? Instead, we embrace the same idols as the world and people think we're a bunch of hypocrites (just ask them).