In the just plain wrong department file this story:  A Baptist church in North Carolina kicked nine members out for voting for John Kerry. Protestant churches have a bad habit of making all kinds of stupid stuff (i.e. unbiblical) tests of faith or fellowship and this is just another. Making political affiliation a test of fellowship is wrong. I’m not a big fan of the milquetoast Jesus, nor of the political Jesus. He was neither, although some try to portray Him that way now. 

John Zimmer at Letters from Babylon has a great post, The Prodigal Brother contemplating my favorite parable of Jesus: the prodigal son. There are a couple of major lessons in the parable, one for the son and one for the brother. The son’s lesson is about receiving God’s love and forgiveness, and the brother’s lesson is about extending God’s love and forgiveness to others. They are both hard lessons to really learn and understand.

To go with your Good Friday post, here is a painting: 

“Christ on the Cross”, by Diego Rodreguez de Silva y Velezquez.

Oil painting on canvas from 1632, now in the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain.

In honor of Good Friday, some Christian links:

Eric from In The Agora meditates on the meaning of Jesus’s words on the cross: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani.

Kim at the Upward Call considers suffering by design: “Not only was it suffering by design, but also by obedience. Jesus embraced the pain. He chose it – obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:8). ” Kim explains the design and its importance.

Coffee Swirls surveys the wondrous cross and Isaiah: “In the spirit of just how simple the gospel message truly is, I will let this post speak for me today, as Christians observe Good Friday to commemorate the passion (the suffering) of Jesus Christ.”

Rebecca at Rebecca Writes talks about what the resurrection proves to the world: “The Christ we take to the world is not just another prophet or teacher, and not just a humble servant, but the one whom God has shown to be the very Lord of All–the Son-of-God-in-power–by his resurrection from the dead.”

Tulip Girl notes “At this stage in my life, so much of my reading and studying is filtered through the perspective of mothering. This includes my studying of the Bible and theology. I find the deeper I dig into God’s Word, the more light it shines on my life–and how I ought to mother.” I feel the same way about fatherhood. While I stop there, Tulip Girl doesn’t and describes her thoughts on how to restore gently and carry burdens.

Mark Byron’s Edifier du Jour is from John 17. Mark’s take:

We too often look at salvation as the end of the process; our ticket’s punched for Heaven and all’s right with the world. It is the end of one process but the beginning of yet another, the process of taking that worldly soul and re-manufacturing it for godly uses. That process will sand off some of the hooks that the less-savory things of the world like to attach themselves to; the world will start to she-dog about the removal of those hooks, but let it.

Oddly enough, my Sunday School teacher said pretty much the same thing this past Sunday — too often all we seemed concerned about is salvation, for ourselves and others as if that is the finish line, when we should be just as concerned about sanctification, our spiritual growth in Christ.

And if that isn’t enough for you, then the Christian Carnival should help.

Christian Libertarian – that’s how Josh Claybourn describes himself. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I think that Christianity with its emphasis on faith is more libertarian than works (following the law) based religions.

What are the beliefs of Christianity (at least from my point of view) on law? Well, God does have laws. There are laws you have no choice about — the physical laws that govern the universe. They are the same everywhere and universally obeyed by all of creation without any possible choice. 

But there are also other laws, where we do have choice. Let’s call them moral laws, and we can keep them, or we can break them. Up to this point, some other faiths would be agreeing with me. But here’s where Christianity comes in — nobody follows moral laws perfectly. We are all sinners is a basic Christian teaching. And what is the penalty for sin? Death. Now I happen to think that there are immediate consequences for vice and virtue, and there are deferred consequences. But what’s clear is, under God’s law, every person on the planet has transgressed against God’s moral laws, and the penalty for doing so is death. I see dead people, and they don’t even realize they are dead. 

So if we were to institute God’s law as our own, we’d have to execute everybody on the planet. So really, what would be the point? And quite frankly, it seems awfully presumptuous to pre-empt God. Since no man is saved by the law, why then should we try? And what would our plan of salvation be?

What then should our laws be based upon? Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is a good start. Human laws should be for our own use, not our own good. If God does not compel good, how and why should we, especially since our means are so much less. And as our means are so much less, so too should our laws be. 

To be sure, there is overlap between God’s moral law and what should be human laws – thou shalt not murder comes to mind. But who’s going to enforce thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s spouse or stuff? Or love God with all your heart, or love your neighbor as yourself? Jesus called out the last two as the wellsprings of all the commandments, and is there any real way to humanly enforce these laws?

Now don’t take this to mean that I don’t think following God’s laws isn’t important — I just think that is between ourselves and God, with the help of our fellow children in Christ, not the local constable and magistrate. The law doesn’t save. Repeat that after me: the law doesn’t save — Jesus saves. It’s okay if humans don’t outlaw everything that God does. By all means we should never shirk declaring what’s right and what’s wrong nor should we lose sight of the power of our example.