Snippet: When Even Our Best Disappoints

Snip·pet | ˈsnipit | noun a small piece or brief extract.

Here’s one from Justin Giboney, quoting a Twitter post by Jane Coaston:

“One of the most fascinating things about politics is that at no point are the truest believers ever happy. Not once. Not ever.”

Later in the same Church Politics Podcast (Nov. 24) he says:

“Once you get engaged in civics, sometimes you slowly start to realize that there’s no finality or ultimate conclusions in human accomplishments. The best of our accomplishments are usually reversible or corruptible. Even the greatest policies that we’ve been able to enact, none of them have ended human suffering and none of them will ever end human suffering.”

This is a follow-up to my sermon from this past weekend. I wanted to include some of these thoughts but I had to make cuts, not add to the sermon.

As I said this weekend, “waiting hopefully” strengthens our hope in difficult times.

To wait hopefully means we do the work Christ called us to do in the world. Part of that is the difficult work of restorative justice.

But involvement in restorative justice without the distinctly Christian hope of the new creation and God “putting the world to rights” (N.T. Wright’s phrase) can lead to deeper hopelessness. Our biggest efforts and biggest wins for justice are always “reversible and corruptible,” even in the individuals who are helped.

As Christians, we simply don’t get a pass on seeking justice or on living hope-filled lives.

We don’t get to say despondently, “What difference will it make anyway in the end.”

Nor do we get a pass on true, enduring happiness.

And most of us don’t want to get a pass. Most of us, given a choice, would not choose hopelessness.

We have a hope on which to set our eyes and our hearts, hope that will not be reversed or corrupted.

Ultimately, that hope is set in God himself.

Photo by Rachel Coyne on Unsplash

Snippet: Bullies and Saints

Snip·pet | ˈsnipit | noun a small piece or brief extract.

Here’s one from John Dickson talking about his takeaway from writing Bullies and Saints: An Honest Look at the Good and Evil of Christian History:

“I had an increased wariness and weariness at Christian bad behavior, and a heightened sensitivity about the bullies and how easy it is for anyone, especially religiously gifted or powerful people to become bullies and to use their faith as cover…. At the same time I have an intensified love for the original melody that Jesus proclaimed. ...love your enemies, which he took all the way to the cross. And that in every century of Christianity, even the worst centuries, there were always reformers, prophets, people who will put their hand up and say, ‘Hang on. We don’t look at all like what Jesus said. We are worse than the unbelievers of the world.’ And they caused revivals and reforms to break out. …I am convinced that there is within Christianity an inbuilt corrective mechanism where when people glance back at the gospels they go, ‘Oh my goodness, we don’t look like that!’”

This dovetails with a recent snippet post I did (quoting Tish Harrison Warren) on our faith and the church needing reform, not “deconstruction” (in the sense that the historical basics of faith are abandoned or dismantled).

Of course, some people feel they can no longer believe in orthodox Christian faith or any other form of Christianity, and “deconstructing” is necessary or, in a sense, has already happened.

But for those who want to believe, but the disappointment in the church or in other followers of Jesus is too much, I think there is another path.

You might say, “I’m not a prophetic type.” If so, I would suggest that there are whole enclaves you can find within the larger church where the prophets have been heard and where faithfulness is more common..

It may take a while to find, but if you want to believe and follow Jesus, and you know it’s not really possible on your own, it’s worth it.

Photo by Kat J on Unsplash