Waking Up

One of my favorite pastimes has been arguing.  I love being in a place where I am confronted with a situation and I need to wrestle over or defend truth.  As charismatic as I am, I am sucker for a good old doctrinal teaching.  In fact the search for doctrine and orthodoxy was one of the primary things that had driven me for years when I was at the International House of Prayer.  It is clear to be seen across the United States at least that there is very little clarity and agreement on what the word of God says.  Amidst a sea of voices, opinions, sincere preachers, skeptic professors, honest and confused orators, and eclectic authors there is no real sense of cohesiveness.  America is a protestant nation and the church is more divided than our political parties.  I love the church and pray that the day hastens when we are one, but for the moment there is dire need for clarity.

Upon moving to Japan a little less than a month ago my world has begun to shift concerning the effort and energy of my passions.  A few weeks before I left Rob Bell released his book Love Wins.  This book challenges the traditional view of hell and supposedly boasts claims that when all is said and done hell is emptied and everyone turns to Christ as a result of being compelled by Christ’s love.  Naturally this book has been the focus of much controversy, argument, debate, and division.  Because of my schedule being stretched by completely changing my life I really had no time to look into it.  I love arguing and wrestling with these kind of teachings  and a small part of me wanted to pull the book out and dissect it and spend time with my friends defending orthodoxy in our small circle at the Roasterie and maybe by posting a jarring blog that maybe ten people would read.

Now that I am in Japan my heart has seemed to shift away from that and am getting confronted by the meaninglessness and hypocrisy that can come so easily from spending a life of analysis and critique, even if it is for a good cause.  Especially if it is because of truth.  With this I am not saying that the thirst and fight for orthodoxy is a bad thing, it’s not and is desperately needed in this hour, I am saying that it can be dangerous.  I could write and talk about at great length the need for orthodoxy and the shamefully disastrous way many streams in the Body of Christ go to great length to scoff at doctrine, theology, and orthodoxy.  Yet orthodoxy becomes nothing removed from praxis.  As James so eloquently put, “Faith without works is dead.”

I now live in a country where the Christian witness is nothing but a smoldering flame that the masses pass as they walk pass temples and porno shops on their way to fourteen hour workday that concludes with a trip to the bar and getting home for a few hours of sleep to repeat the cycle the next day.  I am not saying this in a condemning way but just matter-of-factly.  If you know me at all, you know that I could talk about ways the U.S. is in dire need of help.  On top of that I now have the privilege to teach Bible, amongst English and history, to kids who prior to coming to the school knew nothing of Jesus.  Their parents, culture, education system, and national philosophies have no room for Christ.  In a coffee shop somewhere I would be compelled to discuss the need for the church to be a light, discuss answers to the “Does God care about people who haven’t heard” questions and accusations, or talk about the way god judges sin and ebb and flow into bringing it back to the compassion of God.  I have never wanted to be a missionary or an evangelist, yet this is what I have become.

I have emerged from years of prayer and study to realize that things I have been studying and looking through are actually real and affecting real people.  I look around and our goes every witticism about a theological point and I am gripped with a lost nation who I cannot even communicate to.  I have left my ivory tower of eloquence, ideas, and words and am entrusted with young ones whose destinies I am now responsible to lead towards the light in a world where the knowledge of God is so incredibly rare.

I had discussed Rob’s position, examined the word, had the arguments and fought so dearly for ideas and my position that I had forgotten that eternity is real and the people I pass on the street are real people and not just background scenery.  With this I give a call for those who fight for orthodoxy.  Fight with all your might! Study, read, and dissect seeking God’s face and heart like it is treasure.  And amidst the wrestle, amidst the analogies, the prayers on the microphone, the conversations remember the people you speak of are real and not just background characters.  God is shaking the nations.  The knowledge of God is needed.  Our lives are not our own, they belong to Christ.  I do not write this to condemn but to alert.  God in his sovereignty and kindness led me to this place where I have to stare into reality more closely than I ever had to.  For this I am grateful.  There are storm clouds on the horizon, may we seek to respond rightly in word, thought, and deed in this hour.

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