Practice what you preach, brother!

From a headline today on Foxnews.com:

CINCINNATI — A 71-year-old Cincinnati preacher has been convicted of aggravated menacing, after another motorist said he waved a gun and cursed at her.
Thomas Howell could get up to six months in jail on the misdemeanor charge when he's sentenced Sept. 4.
Howell says he was on his way to First Commandment Church of the Living God in the East Walnut Hills neighborhood when April Evans cut him off on June 23. During Monday's trial, Howell testified that he has a gun and permit but denied ever removing the weapon from its holster.
But a Hamilton County municipal court judge sided with Evans, who said the preacher threatened to shoot her and called her names as their cars chased each other.


"First Commandment Church of the Living God" ... ok, let's check that out. If memory serves, the first commandment (from the Ten Commandments) is essentially a requirement that we have/worship no other gods but the one true God (Exodus 20:3). Or maybe the church name refers to the words of Jesus in Matthew 22:37-38 when he said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment."

It's a shame that the preacher isn't living out the rest of that command: (vs. 39) "And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

And before you counter with the oft-misused adage, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone", let me assure you that I have felt a little road rage now and again. I may have even said a thing or two I should not have. But threatening to shoot a woman who cuts you off in traffic? C'mon preacher!


... just one more black eye for the Kingdom ...

In the you-gotta-be-kidding-me category ...

... The Solano State Prison in Vacaville, California is installing 10 condom machines that will be be stocked with 1200 condoms a week. Presumably meant to help curtail the spread of HIV, these condoms will be available free to inmates in a facility where it is against the law for inmates to have sex. According to the KCRA 3 News: "Sexual activity in prisons is still illegal," said Terry Thornton of the California Corrections Department. "Inmates will be notified of that as well where the machines are located."

So, let me see if I got this right ... It's against the law to have sex in prison, so we're giving away 1200 condoms a week in conveniently located dispensers. BUT, we will make sure there are signs posted at each machine reminding the condom clientele that sex is still illegal here. Is there anyone else out there confounded by this?

This may be over-simplifying things a bit, but we are making it easier to sin here, aren't we? (Even if your definition of sin is different from mine, at least this bizarre decision is making it easier to break the law, no?) How do you get past the mutually-exclusive messages: "Don't do this"/"Here, do this"?

But before we get too judgmental here, aren't we also sometimes guilty of paving the way on our own paths of destruction? We constantly find ways to make it easier for us to do what we know we shouldn't be doing. For example:

• The porn addict still keeps a computer where no one can see what he is looking at. Or keeps late hours so he will have unfettered access to the internet.
• The alcoholic keeps beer, wine, liquor in the house "for guests". Or goes to bars for "the company".
• The easily-pressured and misled keeps the same set of "friends". Or frequents the same places.

The same situations, same circumstances, same people .... we keep setting ourselves up to fail. The list could go on ad infinitum. The bottom line is that we often purpose not to do something (harmful, destructive, or sinful), only to keep every option (or nearly every option) available to us should we decide to do the very thing we have determined not to do. We should learn how to apply what Romans 13:14 teaches:

... put on the Lord Jesus Christ,

and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.

We have to - at the least - stop making it so easy.

What's REALLY wrong with Jeremiah Wright (and those who preach like him)

After the Jeremiah Wright flap months ago, I realized something pretty quickly about most American Evangelicals. They get a lot more upset with there is a perceived affront against America and their ideas of patriotism than there is when someone slaughters the Gospel message. I remember reading and listening to Barack Obama's spiritual mentor's messages and being incredibly offended - not because he sees America so very differently than I do - but because he understands and presents the Gospel so very differently. It is his theology that should have gotten us in an uproar more so than his politics. And as Dr. Russell Moore so powerfully describes in the following poignant article, he's not the only one who superimposes an agenda on the timeless message of the Gospel.

Here is an excerpt from Moore's article. For the entire article, go here.

This is not the Gospel as proclaimed by the prophets and apostles, a Gospel that centers on Jesus Christ and Him alone. We should be outraged by the clips of the Wright sermons. But we should be outraged first as Christians, not first as Americans. The most egregious aspect of the Wright sermons is not what he is saying about America, but what he is not saying about the Gospel. But one does not have to be a political radical to bypass Jesus at church. And it is certainly not true that liberation theology is the exclusive domain of those who have suffered oppression. White, upwardly mobile, pro-American preachers do it all the time, preaching liberation theology with all the fervor of Jeremiah Wright, if not the anger.

Just take a look at the best-selling authors in evangelical Christian bookstores. Listen for a minute or two at the parade of preachers on Christian television and radio. What are they promising? Your best life now. What are they preaching about? How to be authentic. How to make good career choices. How Hillary Clinton fits in Bible prophecy.

How many times have we all heard from pulpits the Bible used in exactly the way that Jeremiah Wright uses it, except perhaps in reverse? Jeremiah Wright uses the Scripture as a background to get to what he thinks is the real issue, psychological or economic or political liberation from American oppression. Others use the Scripture as a background to get to what they think is the real issue, psychological or economic or political liberation through the American Dream. Either way, Jesus is a footnote to get to what the preacher deems really important, be it national health care or support for Israel. Either way, apart from the Gospel, the end result is hell for the hearer, regardless of whether God damns or blesses America.

This past Sunday, Easter Sunday, the new pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ preached from the biblical account of the crucifixion of Jesus, but did so as illustrative of the controversy over Wright. In some other churches all over the country this past Sunday, the account of the crucifixion and resurrection was utilized as illustrative of finding hope when you're hopeless, of finding a light at the end of your tunnel. In both cases, the preacher is fitting Jesus into a preexisting storyline. He is not calling his hearers to find themselves in the storyline of a crucified, buried, resurrected Jesus. Jesus is a mascot, just for different agendas, none of which will last a minute past the Judgment Seat.

Preachers will always be tempted to bypass the problem behind the problems: captivity to sin, bondage to the accusations of the demonic powers, the sentence of death. That's why so many of our evangelical superstars smile at crowds of thousands, reassuring them that they don't like to talk about sin. That's why other evangelical superstars are seen to be courageous for their culture wars, while they carefully leave out the sins most likely to be endemic to the people paying the bills in their congregations.

Where there is no Gospel, something else will fill the void: therapy, consumerism, politics, crazy conspiracy theories of the left, crazy conspiracy theories of the right, anything will do. The prophet Isaiah warned us of such conspiracies replacing the Word of God centuries ago (Isa 8:12-20). As long as the Serpent's voice is heard, "You shall not surely die," then the powers are comfortable.

American citizens are rightly outraged by Jeremiah Wright's conspiratorial rants, of course. But Christians should recognize that we have even more at stake here, and that Jeremiah Wright is neither novel nor alone.