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ann arbor bumper sticker: i’m already against the next war
This is what I’ve learned to love about my hometown. Coming out of the Little Caesar’s Pizzeria with my hot & ready, and there in the parking lot is a lady–soccer mom kind of look–stepping into her Volvo with a bumper sticker, just one, carefully placed, black background, white letters: i’m already against the next war. I could drive through other cities, maybe even states and never find a bumper sticker like that. And I could drive through yet other cities and yet other states and find ‘em pretty easily. Places are particular. And if you happen to be a pastor in a particular place–which I personally think is the best kind of pastor to be rather than a roving one–it’s good, I think, to learn to love the particularities of your city. Even if maybe there are things about those particularities that rankle, I think it’s a good discipline to talk yourself into seeing the best in those things.
It’s called sympathy. Jesus was a sympathetic high priest. Presumably he would have made a sympathetic pastor had he also been one of those.
Sympathy is the capacity to have the same feeling as others. It’s a bridge building thing, sympathy. And God is a bridge building God.
Evangelicals who are living up the label are meant to be what? Evangels. And evangels, at their best, are bridge builders. We serve a God who wants to make peace with the human race. He’s got a mind of his own, and thoughts of his own, which are quite a bit higher than ours. There are certain things you can’t get God to do because of this. You can negotiate with this God if Abraham is an example of what God will allow. But the old gospel song is also true: your arm is too short to box with God. You don’t want to get into a contest of wills with him, at least not on the wrong issue. Because he will win, if only by outlasting you.
All that to say, truth is truth, God is God, facts are facts, and all that, but evangels are those who at their best when they are are bridge builders. And I don’t think we/they have been at our/their best over say, the last thirty years, here in the U.S. of A. We’ve especially not been bridge builders to the lady with that bumper sticker on the back of her Volvo, or was it a Saab? actually come to think, it might have been a Suzuki. I’m certain it wasn’t a Hummer.
Is there something in the sentiment of that particular bumper sticker that is in the sentiment, the lean, the predisposition of God’s heart? I’m already against the next war. Yep, I too think it’s possible that a war may be necessary at times. A war may be a lesser evil to some greater evil. But on the whole, if you scanned the war horizon, it’s not a bad thing, war, to be predisposed against. The people who know war from first hand experience tend not to be eager to have unnecessary ones.
Here’s what I’m trying to say in an extremely roundabout way: to be an evangel is different than having opinions that line up with the current culture of that breed of Christian cat called American Evangelical.
Can I get a witness?
September 23rd, 2008 at 8:54 am
Here’s my witness. It is difficult to be a conservative/evangelical in say a city like Ann Arbor. But you are doing a good job of building bridges in the city. Just keep building the bridges. Even though you keep many of your views close to your chest, you lean to those you are trying to reach and build bridges with. This is good. So we become all things to all people, so we may reach a few. If you lived in Grand Rapids, how would you reach them? If you lived in Charlotte N.C., how would you reach them?
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:08 am
Well said, Ken. Meanwhile, what are some brief examples of the blind spots you no longer have, and how did you discover them from reading “outside your approved reading list”?
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:33 am
“I do understand what love is, and that is one of the reasons I can never again be a Christian. Love is not self denial. Love is not blood and suffering. Love is not murdering your son to appease your own vanity. Love is not hatred or wrath, consigning billions of people to eternal torture because they have offended your ego or disobeyed your rules. Love is not obedience, conformity, or submission. It is a counterfeit love that is contingent upon authority, punishment, or reward. True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being.”
- Dan Barker
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I saw this bumper sticker on a recent trip to Raleigh NC:
Jesus Loves You
Everyone else thinks you’re an a**hole.
I’ll admit it made me giggle, but I do wonder why someone would display that on their car…
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Great entry! I live in one of those neighborhoods where bumper stickers (and yard signs) like that are pretty common (Normal Park, Ypsilanti). At first I’d find myself getting annoyed with them. They’re rarely fair and balanced (like Fox News). Usually pretty angry and in-your-face; unfair and unbalanced. I’d find them irritating, unless I generally agree with the sentiment expressed [in which case the unfairness is simply good humor]. But once in a while I’d get a chance to actually meet these neighbors–and they were rarely as obnoxious or angry as their bumper stickers and yard signs. And even when their views were “out there”–it didn’t seem to matter so much anymore. That’s one of the cool things I’ve learned being a pastor and leading lots of classes and discussion groups: how not to be threatened by people who disagree with me. How to say (and mean) things like “Wow, that’s really interesting” when you hear the strangest ideas expressed. How to really hear what a person is saying without getting so bogged down in whether they’re exactly right on this or that particular fact. Realizing that it’s usually much easier to love a person into right thinking than it is to argue them there. In fact, I’m not sure if I’ve ever successfully argued anyone into any meaningful change of mind, whatsoever. Not that I haven’t tried.
September 24th, 2008 at 5:50 am
A friend of mine–Jack, I’ll call him–plays organ every Sunday to mostly show God he’s still in God’s game. Still likes him. Still gets a kick out of worshipping him. And Jack is. Well. He’s a pistol. He’s got a pretty hard edge on him: calls the Roman Catholics names, calls the Pentecostals names, has it in for homosexuals, has it in for people who support abortion. And he comes from an Evangelical background. But he doesn’t conform to the stereotype. For example, he detests and has no respect whatsoever for our current president, accusing him of murdering our young people and others in another senseless war. But here’s where the evangel part–the bridge part–comes in. He volunteers in the elementary school as a teacher’s aide. He’s a reading tutor for fourth and fifth graders. He loves it! He’s just about the only man in the place, certainly the only old man. The kids are fascinated. Everybody thinks he’s great because he’s there to help. And he actually does. What he does with the children actually helps them read better. Now here is an example of a guy stepping outside his comfort zone to do something loving and something simultaneously practical for some of the least powerful among us–children. Here’s a guy who demonstrates his love. God’s love. He doesn’t just have feelings. He actually does something useful with them. And he doesn’t do it because of some church program or evangelical zeal. He does it because he thinks he can help people who could use it.
September 24th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Mark, are you playing around, or do you really believe these quotes?
The human Christ Jesus has shown us his respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, and this has been freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, but you have to risk a little faith to experience that reconciliation. He had the authority, but he came to serve. There is no conformity, he transforms. There is submission, but only to each other out of sincere love for what he has done. He has the authority, he has removed the punishment, and he gets the reward because of the sacrifice. If there ever was the ultimate win-win scenario, this is it.
September 24th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Oh, and I forgot to mention that Jack is 80 years old. His wife died about a year and a half ago, and it has been tough sledding since then. And before he volunteered to help fourth and fifth graders a few weeks ago, he wasn’t particularly fond of children. Other people’s children. But now they’re growing on him. He’s telling me stories of the “kids-say-the-darnest-things” variety. He’s jazzed that they like him, and he’s jazzed that he enjoys them. It’s like he has renewed purpose and energy and life is exciting and interesting again.
September 24th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Gem, I’m fascinated by your response. You have articulated what I used to believe when I was a believing, born again christian. Now my belief is that God has always had the ability to forgive, and has always forgiven anyone who has come to him with true repentance and contrition in his heart, without the shedding of any blood to make it possible for God to forgive. That’s anyone, anywhere, at anytime.
Seek God while he’s here to be found,
pray to him while he’s close at hand.
Let the wicked abandon their way of life
and the evil their way of thinking.
Let them come back to God, who is merciful,
come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness.
Isaiah 55:6-7 (Mess)
The belief that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin, is a false belief about the nature of God. Genuine repentance and contrition is all that is needed for forgiveness and justification before God.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right, persevering, and steadfast spirit within me.
Cast me not away from Your presence and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then will I teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted and return to You.
Deliver me from bloodguiltiness and death, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness (Your rightness and Your justice).
O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise.
For You delight not in sacrifice, or else would I give it; You find no pleasure in burnt offering.
My sacrifice [the sacrifice acceptable] to God is a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart [broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent], such, O God, You will not despise.
Psalm 51:10-17 (Amp)
He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves and were confident that they were righteous [that they were upright and in right standing with God] and scorned and made nothing of all the rest of men:
Two men went up into the temple [enclosure] to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee took his stand ostentatiously and began to pray thus before and with himself: God, I thank You that I am not like the rest of men–extortioners (robbers), swindlers [unrighteous in heart and life], adulterers–or even like this tax collector here.
I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I gain.
But the tax collector, [merely] standing at a distance, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but kept striking his breast, saying, O God, be favorable (be gracious, be merciful) to me, the especially wicked sinner that I am!
I tell you, this man went down to his home justified (forgiven and made upright and in right standing with God), rather than the other man; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
Luke 18:9-14 (Amp)
September 25th, 2008 at 8:24 am
I guess I can take this one step further and say that after many years as a “conservative” I’ve come to see the heart of Christ can be found in my city in ways that just aren’t there in the church as a whole. This city and its pagans have been housing the homeless, crying out against social injustice and rallying for peace for years before I gained God’s heart for those issues. I always used to chuckle to myself at the folks with their anti-war signs out in front of the post office on Liberty. Now I’m starting to believe that Jesus was a radical pacifist (regarding physical violence) and I’m pretty sure he’d give an amen to bumper stickers like that. It seems to me that the heart of God is everywhere if we have eyes to see.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:18 am
You know the part about being Christian that requires us to care and love our fellow man. To care about the guy who flipped me off again yesterday on my drive home because I have an Obama sticker on my hybrid car and he has drill here drill now on his land yhat. Or to care about the guy playing on my sympathies at the freeway exit holding his cardboard sign while I wonder if he makes more than I do but doesn’t have to shave. I’m still working on that love part of being Cristian. I would much rather walk alone in the wilderness and be with the nature part of creation, than spend a day in a crowded city with the human part of creation. How do I begin to enjoy people the same way I enjoy being away from people?
September 25th, 2008 at 11:55 am
“We should seek by all means in our power to avoid war, by analyzing possible causes, by trying to remove them, by discussion in a spirit of collaboration and good will.” – neville chamberlain, prime minister of england, in lead-up to world war 2. (sound like anyone you know running for president?) dave, have you considered that chamberlain’s choice not to declare war on germany after the invasion of czechoslovakia was immoral and unloving? that it perhaps cost millions of lives? or bill clinton not doing anything about rwanda? was that what jesus would have done? yes weve bungled some stupid wars lately, but lets not forget the history of genocide. its one thing to turn the other cheek, and quite another to let tyrants slaughter innocent people. ken, are those bumper stickers going to look so cute after iran nukes israel because we sat on our hands and let them?
September 25th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Jake, I don’t know what your background is, but I was speaking to the value of a sympathetic understanding of those who might have a bumper sticker like “I’m already against the next war.” Me being on this evangelical kick of mine. I do think there are many in the current American evangelical landscape who are very and predominantly sympathetic to what I infer to be your emphasis on the war question, which seems to lean toward the dangers of not doing military interventions. Do you think it’s also helpful to be sympathetic to this other perspective that emphasizes the dangers of going too readily to the war option? Being sympathetic to that point of view or rather the people who hold that point of view for the sake of the gospel, that is? You also mention bungling some stupid wars recently. What did you have in mind there and what are the negative consequences of those wars that you see? If you’re talking about Iraq, I’m guessing that American evangelicals would have been very supportive of that war, on the whole. Do you think that was wise or not? But my real concern here in this post was the gospel. Do you see any downside for the gospel (reaching people who are not already in love with Jesus) when the culture of the American evangelical commmunity seems to lean in the direction of your comment (warning against the danger of not doing military action) Just wondering….
September 25th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Thanks for responding Mark. By the way, you sound quite Christian in what you say.
I agree that God have must have always had the ability to forgive and that he can forgive anyone who has true repentance and contrition in their heart. The significance on Christ shedding his blood is that the life is in the blood. A good example of forgiveness is the man crucified with Christ. All he said was remember me, and Jesus had the authority to say that he would be in paradise with him that day. But when all is said and done, the significance of what Jesus did was in that he was willing to give his life for his friends and enemies. Are you saying that you believe that Jesus did not need to die?
I believe that God began forgiving mankind the day we turned away from him. It took awhile for us to get to the point that he could begin fixing us and this process continues through every generation. Christ’s death and resurrection means that we have been set free and we are no longer bound by the old rules. His ugly, shameful, brutal death had nothing to do with God, and everything to do with us.
September 26th, 2008 at 5:50 am
yes. we shouldnt rush into any war. i think there are just wars and unjust wars. im not sure if evangelicals are associated with being hawkish on war. hard to say. are rumsfeld tenet and cheney evangelicals? i think thats who people associate the rush to war with. my concern with most of what you have to say is that evangelicals not swing from one extreme to the other because thats whats popular these days. conservatism is on the decline, liberalism is on the rise. so lets jump on the liberal bandwagon and slam the conservatives for the sake of the gospel (or for being popular). did you speak out against the war in 2003 or just after it started going sour? if the war improves and iraq stabilizes will you be in favor of it? as an evangelical do you speak up on anything unpopular with your liberal ann arbor crowd? please name something. it seems like youre preaching to the choir.
September 26th, 2008 at 5:58 am
Jake, I tend to think of war a bit like divorce: “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.” Could it be that war is permitted, and sometimes necessary, because humans have hard hearts? Maybe Christians would have more credibility on the war issue if they approached it like divorce. Try to find an alternative; get a counselor (talk); only go forward with it as the last resort, and with heavy hearts.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Acknowledging Ken’s point that the intent of his post was not about the Christian perspective on war…I’ll try to respond to your question Jake. I agree that circumstances where individuals or nations are being abused/tortured/slaughtered is a difficult one for the pacifist perspective. I heard the best teaching on this from Rob Bell in a sermon he did last year and put forth the idea that there is a difference between being passive and being a pacifist. Jesus put forth brilliantly creative ways to respond to oppression and injustice in a non-violent way. I don’t know what the alternatives might have been in Rwanda, but suppose we as a society were to put our most brilliant minds together to find non-violent solutions to a crisis like that instead of coming up with the most creative ways to kill others? I think Jesus is telling us, like he does in everything else, there is another way….his way. I don’t think the values Jesus taught had exceptions at the macro level of war and I guess I’m not willing to accept that there is such thing as a justifiable war. That may seem like foolishness. If so, then I think I’m on the right track.
September 26th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Jake, I do think Evangelicals are associated as being pro-war. And I think many surveys have shown that Evangelicals on the whole are more pro-war than non-Evangelicals. I think that’s a shame. Yes, some wars may be necessary, but I’d rather err on the side of not wanting to go to war (I’ll admit I was wrong in 2003 about the necessity of invading Iraq). Shouldn’t Christians be the ones urging restraint when our collective blood is boiling (like after 9/11)? I’m guessing your “stupid wars” comment refers in part to Iraq? According to most Just War Theories, the following conditions must apply (from wikipedia, of course): 1) the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain; 2) all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective; 3) there must be serious prospects of success; 4) the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition. I don’t know about you, but I’d say we didn’t satisfy at least three of these four conditions.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:43 am
Gem, I’m saying that God has always been, is right now, and always will be, infinite in all His attributes, including His offer of forgiveness and justification to all who have sincere contrition in their hearts. None of God’s infinite attributes have ever had, or will ever have, an expiration date. All expiration dates that men have put upon any of God’s infinite attributes, including his mercy and forgiveness, are heresy.
March 17th, 2009 at 3:12 am
“Maybe Christians would have more credibility on the war issue if they approached it like divorce. Try to find an alternative; get a counselor (talk); only go forward with it as the last resort, and with heavy hearts.”
Actually, Christians would have more credibility on the subject of DIVORCE if they approached it the way President Bush approached the war in Iraq…
March 17th, 2009 at 3:19 am
“As an evangelical do you speak up on anything unpopular with your liberal ann arbor crowd?”
They don’t. But they’re trying to be cool. Which, of course, is the most UNcool thing you can do.
Ken is too smart to be locked into either ideological box. Don is too smart to question Ken’s good judgement on this.
Yeah, Ken is currently going through his ‘liberal phase.’
Cut him some slack. If the past is ANY kind of prologue, this too shall pass.
BD
PS Vineyard Ann Arbor is NOT cool. There, I said it. Sorry guys. You’re good people.
Just not cool… haha