Rated R Movies

I wrote the response below to an email by a new member of the on-line Wild at Heart yahoo group.


God exists in paradox. He is all the way East and all the way West all at once. There is no sin in Him yet He created a being that fell and authored sin. He is everywhere, all the time, and yet Adam and Eve are seemingly strolling alone in the Garden when tempted by Satan. There was a time when believing the earth wasn't the center of the universe meant the church had to torture you, now its ridiculous to believe otherwise.

We do need to cling to gospel truth in the face of any opposition but what I often see people cling to is their own interpretations of things. If we simply live in relationship with God and let Him reveal Himself we will find ourselves abiding in a state of dependency and wonder, where the supernatural is natural. If we insist on keeping God in a box that we can get our minds around we will limit our understanding of God and thereby limit our ability to transform into His image.

I know it pains many Christians to hear me say this but I'm more often offended by what I hear from the pulpit than what I hear in a rated R movie. We expect the movie to be tainted by Hollywood's infantile understanding of God, and it actually stands out when they get it right. We are not on guard in church, when the word from on high is pronounced upon us. In fact its not the least bit conducive to independent thought. We sit there as preachers slander God with wrong ideas about His wrath, and what it means to fear the Lord, or just their complete faith in sin avoidance strategies. Can there be anything more hypocritical than a passive, panti-waste behind a pulpit telling me to be a nice guy with one breath and with the next telling me how much God hates gays. It's no wonder gays think anyone who disapproves of their life-style is afraid he is one himself. But that's a topic for a different email.

I actually only disagree with maybe 1 in 10 services I attend and even as I sit there fuming about something I can't stand I know that someone in that audience is being mightily blessed because they are seeing something God has for them. My focus gets distracted and I'm not open to hearing God's blessing, because I've been distracted by the parts of it that offend me. If we are in tune with God, Christ filters our world and we can see anything and not be affected by it. The degree to which we get distracted by the thorns and don't see the rose is the degree to which we are looking through our own eyes and not God's.

In other words I do agree with the extra-biblical statement, "garbage in-garbage out," but I also believe in Christ's words, "it's not what goes into a man that defiles him, but what comes out."