Wednesday, January 24, 2018

“Jubilee Theonomy”

“Jubilee theonomy,” I totally snagged that from Pastor Wilson, a timely phrase indeed because I was just thinking of writing about jubilee and what I call the Great Divide between alleged liberals and conservatives.
Jubilee for those who don’t know is, “a special year of remission of sins and universal pardon. In the Book of Leviticus, a Jubilee year  is mentioned to occur every fiftieth year, during which slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest.”
Now in my way of thinking we are living in perpetual jubilee, Jesus Christ is our jubilee. As prisoners we have been set free, no longer slaves to fear, our debts forgiven, and the mercies of God are now particularly manifest. Praise the Lord!
Why then do we not relate to one another in this same spirit? Why are we still taking hostages, making wage slaves out of people, and burdening them with excessive debt? Why are we living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world and yet the top 3% hold all the wealth? Why do we as conservative Christians so often dismiss the poor as lazy, ignore the cries of women who have been abused, and mock those who try to speak of racism?
Why are we so blind to the fact that all things are not equal, that people do not all have the same opportunity, and that toilet water tends to always flow downhill? That is to say,  government policies often create poverty. Drugs for example, never enter a community without permission from somebody’s corrupt or incompetent leadership. Look at Indian reservations, some of the poorest place in the country. That’s what excessive Gov often creates.
Why then do we blame the poor? If a man doesn’t work he shouldn’t eat. Guess those people, unlike me, just made really bad life choices. Too bad you don’t have the Lord’s favor like I do with my private jet and prosperity ministry…..funded off the backs of lonely widow’s social security checks.
Theonomy for those who don’t know,  “posits that the Biblical Law is applicable to civil law, and theonomists propose Biblical law as the standard by which the laws of nations may be measured, and to which they ought to be conformed.”
That’s all very well and good, but traditionally evangelists, fundamentalists, conservatives, have been quick to condemn sexual sin, especially the sexual sins of the little people, because when it comes to their own, they have nasty habit of denying it, justifying it, or covering it up. Why do we not apply our theonomy to other sins like usury? Theft? Abuse? Corruption? Racism? Pharmakeia?
Seriously, inquiring minds want to know, why? I mean, all in good humor here, but I myself would much prefer to speak of sexual sin too, rather than Mexican drug cartels, predatory lending, organized crime, and the staggering number of women who have been abused in the churchian world and not heard or protected. The horrific number of raped children, both boys and girls, the desperation that can send people running towards both homosexuality and abortion.
Yes, that’s some ugly stuff! Taking responsibility as Christian conservatives for the collective misery we have enabled and created in the world ain’t so easy. You have to humble yourself, lean into grace, realize you aren’t perfect. No plea bargains either, like trying to declare the other side is worse. Flat out, they often are! This boondoggle they created between Obamacare, pharmaceutical companies, and the opioid crisis, the biggest public health threat to hit us in a hundred years, is quite a sight to behold.
A sight to behold. A totally preventable, completely predictable, tragedy of epic proportions.
Believe it or not, I tend to lean very conservative in my politics, opinions, my theonomy. However, my loyalty, my heart, is not to a political party or an ideology, it is actually resides with those at the bottom of the food chain, those Jesus Christ would call the “least of these.” Yes indeed, there are some issues there, too. Sin does not curve around victims of abuse, drug addicts, the homeless, placing them in this magical zone of sin-lessness. People at the bottom of the swamp aren’t all fuzzy kittens of purity and grace.
However, they are often victims of grave injustices, of the unacknowledged sin of all that toilet water that came downhill and washed them right off the beaten path.
“Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. “
Excuse me for stating the obvious here, but the world is plumb full of law breakers who failed to love and the collateral damage of that truth is strewn all over the place. To sit up all high and mighty, as many do, weilding a little sword of truth, claiming to be in possession of biblical thenomy with a giant log in our own eye, just doesn’t cut it for me. It smells like axe body spray, I mean hypocrisy.
As I have written before, my heart is with the least of these, it always has been, likely it always will be. The reason why I like many conservative ideas and ideals is becasue I can see the benefit many of those ideas bring down to those who struggle.
So why than are conservatives, especially conservative Christians, not leading the way when it comes to social justice? Why have conservatives so often ignored the cries of those who are hurting? Why are we not leading the anti poverty initatives, the racial reconciliation, the #Metoo movement?
The undeniable truth to me is that far too often the theonomy of the conservative heart is built around pride, predjudice, and privilege. Jubilee for me and not for thee.

ladies

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for reiterating "Owe no one anything, except to love each other ..." In that strange-not strange way that you probably have experienced, this little bit of text has shown up several times this morning in quick "random" succession, tied up with the study of Matthew 18:21-35 our little Sunday morning class is doing this week.

    Thank you, as well, for your interesting, at times heart-rending, blog. It's rare to run across another person with whom we agree and disagree so profoundly, at the same time. Or maybe it's not rare at all, maybe we do that all the time, and we just don't know it.

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