Politics – Page 6

On Funerals for Politicians

September 3, 2018 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

This past Saturday was the funeral for John McCain, a long-time US senator and, many years ago, a long-time prisoner of war in Vietnam. In our hotly divided political climate, even his funeral became big news and a source of political contention.

I’m not going to weigh in on the politics of it all. There’s no lack of voices doing that, and the question of whether his funeral was too political or not is none of my business and frankly none of yours either. On the matter of what’s done at his funeral, I think the decision is the family’s to make, and the family’s alone. But the controversy does bring to mind some implications that go far beyond the politics of any moment, implications that we ought to consider—“we” being not just those with an interest in the American political process, but anyone with an interest in any political process.

Most news outlets have noted the tributes given to McCain by political friend and foe alike. Perhaps the best example is a line from former President Obama, who said, “So much of our politics, our public life, our public discourse, can seem small and mean and petty, trafficking in bombast and insult, in phony controversies and manufactured outrage. … We never doubted the other man’s sincerity or the other man’s patriotism, or that when all was said and done, we were on the same team.”

Responses to Mr. Obama’s words, and to others like them, have typically been driven by political motives. Those on the political left have celebrated the fact that the former president, who ran against and defeated McCain in a presidential election, could speak so respectfully and generously of him. Those who voted against Obama in that election, however, accuse him, and all the other political liberals who are now lauding McCain’s “maverick spirit” and “honor” and “principles,” of being hypocrites, especially given the vitriolic language heaped on McCain by those same opponents and their campaign supporters in that election.

What interests me in all this is not Mr. Obama’s words or any of the other recent commendations. What interests me is what those words tell us about the earlier political campaign. All those excoriations, all those dire warnings during the campaign about how dangerous McCain was, or how hateful or personally flawed he was, were actually meaningless; by their own present words, McCain’s political foes actually respected him and saw him as virtuous—on the same team, as Mr. Obama put it. But they reviled him back then, because politics, you know. Have to win the election. Say whatever it takes.

And let’s not pretend that only the political left does that. Those on the right are just as inclined—aren’t they?—to say things that aren’t true just to get their guy elected, or to get votes for this or that piece of legislation.

John McCain died of cancer, a particular type of cancer—glioblastoma—that crouches in my mind as well. It killed my brother, and it killed my pastor, the man whose signature is on the paperwork that forms the legal basis for the decades of life my wife and I have shared. A friend of mine, a neurosurgeon, once told me that glioblastoma is a just a nasty piece of work, and he said he hopes he’s seen the last of it he’ll ever see. It’s the worst.

But I’m not sure it is. There’s another cancer, one that infests our national brain and is killing our ability to govern ourselves as surely as glioblastoma killed John McCain. With the size of our federal government, and consequently the power at stake in every national election, the desperation to win leads us to savage ourselves with lies, to say whatever it takes to get our way. And our leaders acknowledge that, whenever they say that this or that vitriolic conflict is “just politics.”

How healthy, how healthful, can a system be that is based on lies?

It’s a mark of strength when we can speak respectfully of the dead, with whom we disagreed in life. But it’s a mark of great sickness when in doing so we put the lie to how we lived.

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7 Stabilizing Principles in a Chaotic World, Part 8

August 6, 2018 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Number 7: Fellowship. You need those people who disagree with you.

Believe it or not, one year I played football. American football. I was an offensive lineman.

Pop Warner League. Seventh grade. Weight limit was 110 pounds at the top, 75 at the bottom. I was 2 pounds too light, but they let me play anyway.

We called ourselves the Patriots. (We were in a Boston suburb.) We lost every game but one.

That experience didn’t jump-start my career, but it did teach me a lot of things. Most important, it forever changed my thinking about diversity.

As with any team sport, football has different positions, and they have different requirements. The offensive lineman has pretty much one job: be a wall. Protect the quarterback. Give him 2 or 3 seconds to get the ball where it needs to go.

So what does an offensive lineman look like? He’s big. Really big. 350 pounds big. His job is to get in the way and stay there.

Out at the far end of the line is the wide receiver. What’s his job? Get down the field—sometimes waaaay down the field—and catch the ball. And then run with it. He needs to be fast. And agile, to out-maneuver the defensive secondary. And it helps if he has some vertical reach so he can catch a broader range of passes.

So what does he look like? He’s not 350 pounds, that’s for sure. He’s thinner, more like an Olympic sprinter, and he’s usually tall, with an ability to jump. And he has great hands.

Now, which of those body types is better?

Neither one, obviously. They’re both necessary for the success of the team. You put an offensive lineman out at the wide receiver’s position, and he’ll be worn out after 2 or 3 plays. You put the wide receiver in at left guard, and they’ll be carrying him—or the quarterback—off the field in short order.

You need them both, and you want them both. It’s the diversity that makes your team great.

What about church? What about life?

It’s human nature to want to be with people who are like you. They look like you, they think like you, they live like you. Other people are unwise, or icky, or nuts. Anybody who drives faster than you is a maniac; anybody who drives slower is a moron. So we go to church with people like us.

And our church is all wide receivers, or offensive linemen, and we wonder why we don’t win any games.

You need to surround yourself with people who are different from you. Sure, racially different—whatever that means—but different in the more important ways as well. Different in the way they think. Socially different. Culturally different. Politically different.

Different, in significant ways.

Why?

Because you’re not good at everything, and you need them to be good at whatever you’re not. You need their strengths, their insights, and especially their correction. You need them.

For many years I was on the elder board of my church. As we wrestled with hard cases and difficult decisions, I came to appreciate the fact that we had different kinds of people at the table.

We had men with the gift of mercy. They would bring a situation to the table: here’s someone who doesn’t have enough to eat. And they would weep, and they would say, “We need to help this family!”

But we also had men without the gift of mercy. They would listen, and they wouldn’t weep. And they’d say, “Why do they not have enough to eat? Is it because he’s foolish with his money? And if so, should we be giving him more money? How about if we buy him a bag of groceries, and then have one of the financial advisers in the church give him some pro bono help setting up a budget and learning how to stick to it?”

(I’ll let you guess which of those groups I was in.)

Now. Which of those people on the elder board is more important?

You need them both. You need the one who weeps, and you need the one who doesn’t. They both make you a better team.

Now let me place the rubber on the road.

When families are being separated at the border, you need people with the gift of mercy, and you need people without it.

You need people who get righteously angry at the suffering that’s going on. You need people who call down a system that takes 3-year-olds to court. Without their parents.

But you also need people who say, “These people are in this predicament because they broke the law. And if we subsidize their behavior, we’re going to get more of it. And that’s not good for us, and it’s most certainly not good for them. We ought to do what we can to discourage this kind of behavior.”

You don’t need to be all in at either pole—you probably shouldn’t be. But you should listen to them.

And we—we—should work together to bring about a system that works.

We can’t do it without each other.

Photo by Keith Misner on Unsplash

7 Stabilizing Principles in a Chaotic World, Part 7

August 2, 2018 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Number 6: Responsibility. You can and should control your reactions. You should resist being manipulated.

When Adam sinned, God confronted him. And in a really remarkable display of chutzpah (was the first language Yiddish?), Adam blamed his wife. And then, in the same breath, he blamed God himself: “the woman, whom YOU gave to me … “ (Gen 3.12).

From the very beginning, we’ve been blame-shifters. When we can be cajoled into reluctantly admitting that we’ve done something wrong, our natural reaction is to blame the whole thing on somebody else. Our children do it. And so do we.

You don’t understand. It happened this way, under these unique circumstances. This is different.

We’re really good at blame-shifting, because we’ve had a lot of practice.

And Scripture will have none of it.

Adam’s problem wasn’t his wife; it was his own willingness to ignore a direct order from his Creator (Gen 2.16)—and we now stand guilty not of Eve’s sin, but of Adam’s (Rom 5.12-14). Moses’ problem wasn’t the infuriating thanklessness and complaining of the Israelites (Num 11.11-12); it was his prideful rejection of God’s instructions (Dt 32.51). David’s problem wasn’t Bathsheba’s carelessness in bathing where he could see her (2Sam 11.2); it was his lustful eagerness to steal her for himself (2Sam 12.7-10).

Your sin, your failures, are your own fault.

Now, I’m not suggesting that only your sin is significant. Others have sinned against you and me, and their actions leave scars, sometimes life-changing ones. But how you behave is not their fault. You are not an animal; you can make moral decisions and carry them out. You can do the right thing despite what others have done to or around you.

You don’t have to be a victim.

So when people make you angry, or when they make false statements, or when they demonstrate that they’re just idiots, they’ve done what they’ve done; but now you need to decide what you’re going to do. And your responsibility is to act in a way that demonstrates love for God and love for your neighbor (Mk 12.29-31).

So here’s a post: “SHARE IF YOU THINK HILLARY SHOULD GO TO JAIL!”

Some observations:

The poster has no right to tell you what to do. You are not obligated.
The decision as to whether Hillary goes to jail or not is not a matter of democratic vote. You do believe in the Constitution, right? :-)
Further, the decision is not up to you, unless you get chosen to be on the jury. If there is a jury.
- And even if there is a jury, and you’re on it, you may not be tasked with any decision for the penalty phase of the trial.
So sharing is a complete waste of your time.
And it fills a lot of other people’s timelines with nonsense, a complete waste of their time—which can hardly be said to be loving.
And it gives the impression that you care about that more than other stuff, stuff that’s really worth caring about.

You don’t have to share it.

So why do we do it?

Typically, one of two reasons. Rage, or humor.

Either we’re really ticked off about whatever, or we want to stick it to the other side.

I’ve commented before on the essential fleshliness of sticking it to the other side. And, for that matter, about the needlessness of being enraged by the professional agitators.

Some closing thoughts:

Things are rarely as bad as they seem. #freakoutthounot
There’s plenty of noise out there. Why add to it?
Don’t you respect the guy who stands in the middle of the maelstrom, clear-headed, focused on the solution, bringing order and calm and clarity to the chaos?
- Be that guy.

Part 8

Photo by Keith Misner on Unsplash

7 Stabilizing Principles in a Chaotic World, Part 6

July 30, 2018 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

Number 5: Peace. God enables his people to have inner peace amidst outward turmoil.

I’ve been fishing this lake since I was 10—since Dad first took me out on his boat. I’ve been working it professionally since I was 16, 6 days a week, 12 hours a day—well, except when the weather was too bad. I’m a professional; I have enough sense to stay off the lake when the weather could kill you. And I’ve seen weather like that, more than once. But I have never—never—seen a storm like this. It’s sudden, and violent, and powerful beyond all my experience to deal with it. We’re essentially baggage, being thrown around the boat by a storm the likes of which we’ve never seen.

We’re toast.

And he’s asleep.

Seriously?! How does he do that?!

Peter would soon find out how he does that. In a few moments, shaken awake by lifelong sailors who think they’re about to die, he speaks a few words, and the storm is dead, the water calm, the threat just a memory, as if a dream (Mk 4.35-41).

He does that because he’s Lord. He’s in charge. There is no threat.

__________

This summer I took my 5^th trip into Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park, one of the 4 premier safari locations in the world. On 4 of those 5 trips we’ve found lions. We drive up in our safari vehicles, to within perhaps 10 meters of the beasts, and we turn off the engines and just sit in silence, most of us taking photos as quickly as we can.

And what do the lions do?

Nothing.

They sit and stare across the plains, completely ignoring us. They may get up and walk around a bit, sometimes even rubbing up against our vehicles, but paying no attention to the people inside.

One year, it was a mating couple. Another, a female lion and 2 cubs. Another, 17 males sitting in the shade of a single acacia tree.

They ignore us. Why?

Because we’re no threat. The lion is the king of the jungle (and the savannah); he has no predators, and he knows it.

He’s at peace.

Now, the peace is deceptive; he’s capable of sudden, rapid, and brutal action. One year we saw a lioness take down a wildebeest literally 15 feet in front of our front bumper—eyes on us the entire time.

And that power is part of the reason for the peace. He has no need to fear.

__________

Jesus is like that. He has no fear, because he has no predators. He’s in charge. He’s king of kings.

And as we’ve noted, he’s directing all that’s happening around us, to his own spectacularly good ends. And he intends for us to play a part in how it all turns out.

That means we have no reason to be afraid. We ought to be at peace as well.

But God knows our frame; he knows that we are but dust (Ps 103.14), because he’s the one who formed us from the dust in the first place (Gen 2.7). And so he knows that we’re going to be afraid, even though we have no reason to be.

So what does he do?

He doesn’t just say, “Stop being afraid”—though he does do that (Lk 12.32).

He gives us his peace. He bequeaths it to us, a gift from the one who always gives the perfect gift for every occasion.

Peace he leaves with us. His peace he gives unto us. Don’t let your heart be troubled, he says, and don’t let it be afraid (Jn 14.27).

Throughout the Scripture God tells his people not to fear their enemies (Dt 1.21; Dt 31.6), or their circumstances (Gen 21.17; 1Ch 28.20). Why not? Because I am with you, he says (Dt 31.6; Isa 43.5). Reach up, take my hand. I won’t let you be destroyed.

But he does tell us to fear—not enemies, not circumstances—but him.

Fear God, and keep his commandments (Ecc 12.13).

And be at peace, no matter how violent the storm.

Part 7 Part 8

Photo by Keith Misner on Unsplash

7 Stabilizing Principles in a Chaotic World, Part 5

July 26, 2018 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Number 4: Significance / Permanence. Some things matter more than others. Care about those.

On July 19^th, 2018, Michael Drejka confronted a woman in a convenience-store parking lot because her car was parked in a handicapped space. The woman’s boyfriend, Markeis McGlockton, came out of the store, saw Drejka in a hostile confrontation with his girlfriend, and pushed him to the ground. Drejka drew a concealed weapon and shot McGlockton in the chest, killing him.

Some observations. McGlockton shouldn’t have parked in a handicapped spot. He also shouldn’t have assaulted Drejka—though I think every man understands why he did, and I suspect that a great many women want a man like that.

But the death penalty? For a parking space? And a shove? Does anybody want to make that argument?

People who carry guns in this country—legally—typically have to have training. And a core principle in that training is that you don’t draw your weapon unless it appears that you’re about to have to kill somebody. And you don’t kill somebody unless that person is an immediate threat to human life or of serious injury. It’s a really big deal, and you don’t trivialize it with shallow heroics.

In the long run, only the important stuff matters. And very little is really the important stuff.

This applies to more than gun use—although of course the lethality of firearms makes decisions about their use supremely important.

It applies to any significant investment of your time and resources, most of which are not renewable. You don’t invest your time, or your strength, or your emotions in trivial things.

Now, it may appear that people have to do that. Everybody watches a little TV, plays a little Dutch Blitz, rolls around on the floor with the kids.

But I would argue that those things are not trivial. Recreation, within reason, is an important part of stewarding your well-being. And playing with your kids is absolutely not trivial; I hope I don’t need to convince you of that.

So when you see something that upsets you, you need to decide whether it’s important enough to call for any of your resources. Is it worth going further down the road of upsettedness, or do you just brush it off and get on with your life?

I’d suggest a couple of principles that can help us decide.

First, does the issue have any long-term significance? Does it really matter?

That rules out pop culture, and sports, and a whole lot of other stuff. Let me go out on a limb and suggest that it rules out a lot of politics, though certainly not all of it. If you’ll look back over past elections and ask yourself how much difference they really made, you’ll find yourself saying “not much” to most of them—and that even includes the presidential ones. Really now; would Thomas E. Dewey or Adlai Stevenson have brought the world to a fiery end? As I’ve noted before, partisans claim that every election is the most important of our lifetime, and that simply can’t be true.

What is of long-term significance? Well, at the top of the list would be anything that’s eternal. That would include the fate of your soul, most obviously; but it would also include the internal relationships of the church, since we’re all going to be roommates forever. That means that I can’t say things to fellow believers in a moment of irritation on social media about an issue that isn’t eternally important. Well, I can; but I shouldn’t. And it would also include our relationships with those outside the church, since Christ has commissioned us to reach and win those people. So I can’t say anything to unbelievers in a moment of irritation on social media about an issue that isn’t eternally important.

Lessee; no believers, no unbelievers. That’s pretty much everybody, isn’t it?

Watch your mouth. Or your keyboard.

Second principle: Is your time, or effort, or angst going to make any difference? Really; will getting upset change anything? Will forwarding that meme about putting Hillary in jail? Really?

Sometimes getting involved makes a difference. Maybe you’ll decide to quit throwing plastic in the ocean (a venomous practice if ever there was one). Maybe you’ll be propelled into action by a post you’ve read. Assuming the action is constructive and moral, then good. Have at it. And if getting stirred up gets you there, well, okay.

But investing your emotions, and your mental energy, and your time, and your communication abilities in something that doesn’t matter, or something that you’re not gonna change?

Nah.

Do something important.

Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

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7 Stabilizing Principles in a Chaotic World, Part 4

July 23, 2018 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Number 3: Giftedness. You can’t do everything, but you can do something. Do what you can.

A consequence of providence is that God has directed in your life as well as in the life of the planet. Your conception, birth, and life circumstances are not random or accidental; they are purposeful, and better yet, those purposes come from a good and great person, whose interest in you is entirely benevolent.

There are people in Scripture of whom that is said specifically. Jeremiah comes most easily to mind (Jer 1.4-10); God created him for a specific purpose. Of course, we’re not all formed for the same purpose he was; but if you’ll think about the arc of the biblical storyline, everybody fits into the story, bringing it to its next level of development. Purpose runs through all of it.

Now, we’re not part of biblical history; we’re a couple of millennia later. But the biblical story itself indicates that we’re part of the plan too. First, Jesus clearly thought of those of us who would believe on him later, and he prayed for our success in his plan (John 17.20-26). And second, the extensive biblical material on spiritual gifts (Rom 12, 1 Cor 12-14, Eph 4, 1 Pet 4) indicates that the Spirit has gifted each of us individually according to his purposes for us in his church, the body of Christ (1 Cor 12.4-11).

The fact that there have been some odd teachings about spiritual gifts over the years doesn’t mean that spiritual gifts themselves should be downplayed or viewed with suspicion. God has gifted you—if you are a believer—in specific ways to enable you to serve him.

You’re good at something. Or somethings. By divine design, and for powerful purposes. You may need to get some experience before you become really facile at what you’re good at (2 Tim 1.6), but the gift is there.

What does all this have to do with the chaos of the present?

Everything.

Perhaps you’ve experienced an event where everything was moving so fast that you just froze. Had no idea what to do. There are people whose professions put them in those situations all the time. EMTs arriving at a multi-car accident scene—what do you do first? They’ll tell you that they have to fall back on their training; they have to stay calm and work through the processes that they’ve been taught. Survey the scene to ensure that it’s safe to enter. Then survey the victims to determine which ones are beyond hope. (There are ways to do that, the details of which, for the sake of the squeamish, I won’t go into here.) Then move to those in need of the most rapid intervention—typically, those not breathing.

And so on. Do what you’re trained to do, one thing at a time. Make the difference you can make.

I suspect you’re not an EMT, but you’re very much in a parallel situation. You come across things every day that you find grievous, or fearsome, or enraging. How do you respond?

Well, you can be a sucker, and just get angrier, which is what the social-media poster likely wants you to do.

Or you can do something. You can make a difference.

What can you do? Well, that depends on who you are, and how God has gifted you.

Are you a bulldog, with a character that radiates rugged persistence? Then find a need that’s going to take some time and energy to accomplish—just one need—and work on that.
Are you characterized by mercy, a heart that breaks for the pain you hear about? Then pick one of those situations that’s within your reach—in your community, in your circle of acquaintances, connected to you in some way—and make the connection and help bring grace and peace to the hurting.
Are you more of a thinker than a doer? Then do some thinking about the thing that troubles you, and propose a solution or two, and get it out to the people who can make a difference. (As I’ve said before, if you’re not a thinker, shut up and do the things you’re good at. :-) )

You can sit there and stew, giving in to the fear or the anger or the frustration.

Or you can do some good, based on God’s kind providence in your life.

Which is the better choice?

Well, if everyone around you really is in the image of God, then I think the choice is obvious.

Bloom where you’re providentially planted.

Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

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7 Stabilizing Principles in a Chaotic World, Part 3

July 19, 2018 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1 Part 2

Number 2: Image of God. Everyone is infinitely valuable. Treat him that way.

God not only runs the world; he created it. From scratch. (Google ex nihilo sometime. The official meaning is “from scratch.”) All of it. Everything is from his hand, originally.

But not everything is of equal value. He created light, and darkness, and water, and dirt, and plants, and animals. They’re all worth something, because he decided they’re worth creating.

But humans are different. In the creative process, the creator set them apart. He did so in many ways—by creating them last, climactically; by eagerly anticipating what he was about to do; by getting his hands dirty in the act of creating them. And most clearly, by speaking of them as specially gifted—they are, he said, “In our image, after our likeness” (Gen 1.26-27).

You’re in the image of very God. You’re not God, but you’re like him in some ways, and that makes you infinitely valuable.

Now, we’re all fine with that part. But here’s the thing—every other human is like that too. The people you like, sure; but the people you dislike as well. Even the people you hate.

When Noah left the ark after the flood, God established a system of human government, including capital punishment; he gave Noah, and by extension other humans, the right to kill murderers. This is the same God who later told Moses, “You must not kill!” (Ex 20.13). Is God unstable? Self-contradictory? Forgetful?

Of course not. God gave a reason why murderers could be killed while others must not be: the murder victim was in the image of God (Gen. 9.6).

Now, that’s really interesting. Sometimes murder victims get killed for no reason. But sometimes they don’t. Sometimes there’s a very good reason–or at least an incitation. My great-grandfather Olinger was murdered in Missouri, back in the 1800s, in a dispute with his neighbor over water rights. The details of the story haven’t been preserved for my current family members, but I’ve often wondered if he did something to provoke his neighbor, in word or deed. Sometimes that happens.

Sometimes murder victims, well, kinda have it coming.

But God says the murderer still gets executed, because that murder victim, distasteful and unlikable and rage-inducing as he may have been, was in God’s image.

Broken, sinful, perhaps—from all outward appearances—worthless. But also in the image of God.

The implications of that are far-reaching.

The homeless person is of unlimited value. Even if he’s homeless because of his own stupid inattention to personal responsibility.

The illegal immigrant is of unlimited value. Even though he’s broken the law.

The political enemy is of unlimited value. Even though he’s obviously an idiot. And eeeevvvviiiillll.

Now, suppose I pay a visit to the United Kingdom, and I see a bust of the Queen, and I spit on it. (All my British friends, please bear with me for a moment.)

I’m going to get a response. It might be just a cocked eyebrow. Or it might be a verbal rebuke from a passerby. Or, more likely, it just might be a visit from a bobby.

Why? It’s just a piece of rock!

Well, no, it isn’t. It’s a piece of rock that happens to look like the Queen, God save her, and spitting on the image of the Queen is going to get you in a lot of trouble, deservedly, from the Queen’s devoted subjects.

So when you treat God’s image with disrespect, what do you think is going to happen?

If you ignore the plight of the homeless, or the need of the illegal immigrant, or if you treat your political opponent with disrespect, these actions are not without consequence. The God of heaven sees, and he knows, and he cares, and boy, you’re in a heap of trouble.

Now, this all screams for a disclaimer, the one you’re eagerly waiting for. There are ways to address the needs of the homeless without forcing taxpayers to foot the bill, and without being wasteful or creating dependency. And illegal aliens have broken the law, and there are consequences for that. And your political opponent might well have no idea what he’s talking about; that has happened. I’m not saying that socialism or lawlessness or moral relativism are necessary consequences of the image of God in humans.

But I am saying that the image of God matters, and that at the interpersonal level, you need to treat everybody—everybody—with that kind of respect.

If you’ll see all those around you in that light, the way you feel about them will change. And so will the way you respond to them on social media.

Frankly, I doubt that the chaos of the current culture will go away just because your perspective has changed.

But it’s a start.

Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

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7 Stabilizing Principles in a Chaotic World, Part 2

July 16, 2018 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1

So, here we go. Principles to deliver us from the fear and anger that characterize too many of us.

Number 1: Providence. There is a God in heaven, who directs in the affairs of people and nations.

The lunatics are in fact not running the asylum. All that stuff that’s got you twisted into knots? Well, the stuff that’s actually true—we’ll get back to that idea later—has come to pass through divine intention. That’s just a fancy way of saying that God’s done it.

That’s true of the stuff we like—God sends sunshine, and rain, and crops, and seasons (Psa 104)—but it’s true of the stuff we don’t like as well. God has his way in the whirlwind and the storm, the prophet tells us (Nahum 1.3).

Whirlwinds are nothing to mess with. In 1998 a tornado wiped out Spencer, SD. A week later I was there. The whole town was just gone. The water tank on top of the hill? Gone. The gas station? Gone, though the concrete pads for the pumps were still there. The corn silos? Gone. The telephone poles? Twisted off 2 feet above the ground. No buildings, except for 1 house that was inexplicably spared. And the whole thing lasted just 6 minutes.

At 8.30 pm there was a town, and homes, and businesses, and normal life. By 8.45 it was all gone.

Who did that? The mayor? The governor? The devil?

Not according to Nahum.

God did it. For reasons of his own, which we may or may not ever understand.

But you know what? There’s still a Spencer, SD. By the grace of God, and through the hard work of a lot of remarkable people, life goes on at Karen’s Beauty Shop and Trinity Lutheran Church and the baseball field.

It’s not likely that anything worse than that has happened to you; if it has, I haven’t seen you post about it on Facebook.

And if it has, then take courage in this: God is working his plan, for you and for everybody else.

And here’s the thing. God isn’t impersonal, or arbitrary, or unfeeling in all of this. He doesn’t throw the switch on the train track just to see what will happen, or just to shake things up for some warped form of amusement.

God cares. He loves—personally, individually, intimately, passionately. And with a wisdom you and I could never fathom, he conducts the symphony of your life for your greatest spiritual benefit and for his greatest glory. He knows what he’s doing, and he acts out of wisely directed love—in a way no one else you have ever known ever could.

This God—the creator of heaven and earth; the keeper of covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the one watching over Israel, who neither slumbers nor sleeps; the lover of our very souls—this God is directing your steps, and mine, and everyone else’s to accomplish his perfect, delightful plan.

No, the lunatics are not running the asylum. God gave us Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama. And most recently he has given us Donald Trump. Love them or hate them, they are all—all—gifts from a wise and loving God, perfectly prepared and perfectly directed for the nation that elected them. That doesn’t mean they’re good, or wise, or effective. But it does mean that he is.

So why live in desperation, or rage, or panic, or frustration? Is there not a God in heaven? Do you not trust him? Does he not give peace?

Maybe, if you have no peace, you have no basis for it. Peace comes not from the political process, or health, or leisure, or physical resources. Peace, peace in your soul, comes from above, not from outside. Peace comes from the Prince of Peace (Isa 9.6), by whom we have peace with God (Rom 5.1), and through whom we find peace even with our enemies (Eph 3).

Think on these things. Breathe them into your reading, and listening, and surfing. And see if maybe your perspective, and thus your reactions, come to reflect peace more than panic.

Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

Photo by Keith Misner on Unsplash

7 Stabilizing Principles in a Chaotic World, Part 1

July 12, 2018 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

Many of my Christian friends are angry. Or afraid. Or both. At least, that’s the way it looks in their posts on social media.

And that’s too bad, for several reasons—

There’s no reason to be angry or afraid.
We make really bad decisions when we’re angry or afraid.
We make lousy ambassadors for Christ when we’re angry or afraid. Our actions belie our profession.

In the history of the church, there have been many times when God’s people got angry when they shouldn’t have. Martin Luther was famous for getting angry—and while we might say that he often had some pretty good reasons to be angry—indulgences come to mind—he let things get out of hand with some frequency. He believed, as modern Lutherans do, that the body of Christ is really present “in, with, and under” the elements of the Lord’s Supper—and Zwingli didn’t. Zwingli thought Christ was “spiritually present,” but not physically present, at Communion. Luther consigned poor Zwingli to the fires of hell over that one, and in the harshest of terms:

Beware of this man Zwingli, and shun his book as the poison of the prince of devils; for he is entirely perverted, and has entirely lost sight of Christ.

Yes, he got angry when he shouldn’t have.

And God’s people have gotten scared when they shouldn’t have. The fact that Thomas Cranmer is well known for his numerous recantations seems to imply that in between his recantations were recantations of his recantations. It was all very complicated. And, apparently, scary.

But looking back at this history reminds us that God’s people are at their best when they could be afraid but aren’t—or when they could be angry but aren’t. Those are the times we celebrate. Those are the people we want to be.

And, as I’ve said, these are not times when we should be afraid or angry.

I’d like to suggest 7 principles that should drive our thinking, our feeling, our words, and our actions in a time when many people think the world is about to go over the edge.

Take a deep breath, focus your thinking, and get ready to change the way you see the world, the culture, and the rage of our day.

Maybe you can make a difference.

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

Photo by Keith Misner on Unsplash

Cry, the Beloved Country

March 8, 2018 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

I visited South Africa for the first time in the year 2000. I tell my friends, and my students, that you cannot visit Africa without leaving a piece of your heart there. I love many countries and people in Africa, but South Africa is as close to my heart as any. It has a stark beauty in its land, in its people, in its many languages, even in its accents.

My favorite place in the world, oddly enough, is not in my homeland; it is in South Africa—Dias Beach, at the Cape of Good Hope. It’s like no other beach—or place—in the world.

And so it’s hard to put into words how deeply my heart was broken by the news that the South African Parliament, which meets in Cape Town, has voted to expropriate farms owned by whites without any payment, to establish justice for apartheid.

It’s not certain yet; the proposed constitutional amendment needs to be approved by the Constitutional Review Committee, which will render a decision by August, and then be approved by 2/3 of Parliament. I’m not well enough informed on South African politics to guess on the odds of that happening. But I do enough theology to comment on the underlying causes.

For decades the South African government viewed black Africans as inferior and instituted a system of segregation and discrimination against blacks that it called apartheid, Afrikaans for “apartness.” It was similar in many ways to conditions in the Jim Crow South, though there were some differences in the particulars.

One law was that blacks were not allowed to own land. The predictable result was that virtually all private land was owned by whites. Under increasing world pressure, the white government abolished apartheid in the early 1990s, and former prisoner Nelson Mandela rode a wave of popular support to the presidency in 1994.

It was a precarious time. There were cries for retribution in the name of justice, and whites, whether landowners or not, were afraid. To pretty much everyone’s relief, Mandela rose to the occasion, declaring that there would be justice for all, but not revenge. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to hear testimonies of injustice and abuse under apartheid. The truth was both told and heard, and the explosive situation was handled deftly. Every white South African I’ve spoken to in the years since has told me that Mandela was a good man. They mourned his death alongside his black countrymen, who called him by the tribal honorific “Madiba.”

Mandela was a flawed man, like any other. He did foolish and sinful things in his younger days. But I have respected his conscious decision to rise above revenge to act for the good of his country. We all could benefit from more such men.

So South Africa prospered, unlike its near neighbor Zimbabwe, which raced headlong into revenge mode. Under the dictator Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe confiscated white-owned farms in the name of retribution and justice. The country swiftly descended into economic chaos, and societal chaos quickly followed. When I visited Zimbabwe in 2010 you could buy a 1 billion dollar note as a souvenir for a couple of US dollars; the Zimbabwean retailers wouldn’t even take Zimbabwean money, but our US dollars were welcome.

I don’t know what will happen in South Africa. The new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, claims the confiscations will be done in a way not to cause economic harm. I don’t see any way he can keep that promise. I’m afraid that South Africa is about to learn that killing the goose doesn’t yield any more golden eggs. And a great country will face a long period of economic and social hardship.

This is what sin does.

God created men and women—all of them—in his image. World history is an unbroken story of peoples in power abusing those out of power, denying their imageship. And that sin, like all sin, has consequences, and long-lasting ones at that—consequences that outlast generations. Apartheid set the stage for suspicion, hatred, revenge; and this generation and future generations will reap a bitter harvest.

My prayer is for grace, mercy, and peace for all the dear people of South Africa. May the gracious hearts of my many South African friends—black, white, and coloured, in places like Guguletu, Kuilsrivier, and Beverly Park—prevail to bring peace and mutual respect to their beautiful land.

Photo by John-Paul Joseph Henry on Unsplash