broadcast christianity

I was hitting the buttons on the radio yesterday and got stuck on one of these Christian talk radio channels. Some guy was the host, and a gal was called in. Apparently she was the expert, maybe she belonged to one of these congressional watchdog Christian organizations, or maybe she was a media correspondent in the white house or something.

Anyway, they were talking about the current goings on in congress—debates over current tax bills, trying to convey how aghast you would be if you ever saw Ted Kennedy in action, stuff like that. The last thing I heard them talk about (the last thing I heard because I couldn't take any more) was how this new tax bill was bad. They expressed a feeling of betrayal because the guy who drafted it originally said it would be like the current franchise tax, but when it came out it wasn't. (Her phrase was, "The devil is in the details.") The franchise tax is on net profit, whereas this new one is on gross profit. This basically means they tax you on the way in instead of the way out, which means that even if you had tons of expenses, even if you had a loss for the year, you would still end up paying this tax. As the owner of a small consulting company, I am well aware of how devastating this can be. It's like the self-employment tax. If you've never paid self-employment tax as a consultant, you don't want to. It hurts. It hurts because you pay it off the top, even if you're in the hole, and even if you're not in the hole this tax could be double or triple your income tax. So like I said, I got stuck listening to these guys.

The last thing I heard them say was, "This is a bad bill. It's bad for small business. It's bad for America."

I looked at the radio to see what frequency it was on. Yep, that's a Christian radio channel. And when I turned it off, I just stared down the road and wondered, "What is Christian talk radio about? Taxes? Disposable income? Is the Christian community the defender of small business? the enemy of taxes? the bane of Ted Kennedy?"

I used to listen to a lot of Christian talk radio, that and Conservative talk radio, which is the exact same thing except for the commercials. I know why they talk about what they talk about. It's because they have a market for it. There are a lot of listeners out there who consider themselves Conservatives, which some people say is the same as being Christians.

I don't like listening to it anymore. I have to listen to somebody go on about how the DaVinci Code is an assault on our faith (which must be really weak if a book/movie can take it out), or how the homosexuals are destroying the moral fabric of our society (as if we needed help), or how whatever new world order political installment is finally going to usher the beast in, or hear which politician I need to nag to save the American economy.

I wonder if Jesus had set up a radio talk show what it would have been about. Or, more likely, if He called in as a special guest. Jesus definitely was plugged in to culture. (And to say he was plugged in to culture is to say he was plugged in to politics and religion as well—everything in that world was comingled.) But it seems like he took a different approach. There were all these debates going on with what to do about the pagan world that had encroached, swallowing up both their government and their culture.

The Zealots objected to taxation on religious grounds, so they started a grass roots movement to take their government back. They believed that they were God's chosen nation, that God was King, their only Lord and Master, and that their land and resources belonged to God alone. They resisted paying taxes because to them it was giving to Caesar what belonged to God. This is kind of like what I imagine we'll see when they take our tax deduction away for giving to the church. It's just a matter of time.

The Pharisees wanted to purge the nation of all the sin so God would rescue them as He had done with Nehemiah. They believed that so many principles in Scripture were rejected by their society, some rebelliously, some out of ignorance by the rabble who knew nothing of the law. So they believed it was vital that God's true people unite in defense of the precepts He gave them in His Word. To them it was a cultural battle, us vs. them, and the goal was to crowd out sinners, to eliminate or at least isolate the sinners from the culture at large. God would turn back to them and deliver them from this very antagonistic government when they had achieved a high enough level of national purity. So they were big on praying in public. And they threw their weight around in other ways, too.

The Essenes kind of had the same opinion as the Pharisees, but they were purists. They just decided to check out. They totally withdrew and lived in monastic communities as ascetics and celibates. The whole thing was such a mess that they wrote it off. Even the Temple.

The Sadducees on the other hand decided the best thing to do was hold an office, so they shacked up with the Romans. These were basically the chief priests and elders, with one foot in the State Court, one in the Temple Court. To them it was important to work together to forge a future, even to ensure the survival of God's people.

Everybody seemed to know that their homeland was in a real predicament, that a major storm was swelling (AD 70 was in fact just around there corner), and there were all these different angles, different organizations that sprang up, each fighting the good fight on a different front, in a different way. None in complete agreement as to what should be done, but all united around the idea that God wanted better for His people, and that something had to be done about it.

Enter Jesus.

Jesus didn't join the campaign to take the government back. Jesus didn't run for office. Jesus didn't complain about taxes. Jesus didn't withdraw and write everything off. Jesus didn't rally against the moral deviants. Instead, Jesus aligned with John the Baptist, which will have to be the topic of another post. Interesting guy...to say the least.

Jesus and JB basically dove in to the religious-political-cultural scene head first, and summarily rejected all the current plans. It was too late to win by tax exemptions. No office was going to have enough power to break the oppressive system of principalities and powers ruling the high places—even King of the World. Taking the government "back" was no good because it would just replace an evil uncircumcised tyranny for an evil circumcised tyranny (remember the line of kings?). Instead, they started talking about this other kingdom, and how you have to completey change the way you see to be a part of it.

And Jesus didn't just talk about a new kingdom, He lived it. It's the kind of kingdom where prostitutes and tax collectors are prominent citizens, along with sinners, poor people, terminally ill, homeless, children, widows, people suffering from the consequences of their bad choices like blind, lame, lepers, half-breeds, and all kinds of downtrodden and persecuted folks. So that's who He embraced.

This made a lot of people mad because they already had explanations for all the ills that had befallen their nation, and they located the blame in various people and groups of people. But Jesus came along and did the unthinkable with these very people who had brought all this calamity on their good land. He ate with them. He touched them. He allowed them to touch Him. He healed them. He forgave them. In a word, He made peace with them. And by doing this, all those parties, with all their messages, with all of their campaigns, were all coming unraveled. Not completely. But each platform had one or a few of their planks removed. Which is what Jesus was into. Removing planks. From eyes.

Jesus' message was a very far cry from the messages of all the other Political Action Committees of His day. Their message was, "We have to take the world back for God." Jesus' message was "God has to take you back for the world." This was the message Jesus was born to give. It's the message that was preordained for Him even before He was born. He was to be called Jesus, which in Aramaic is Yehoshua meaning God-Saves. "And you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.”

To Jesus the predicament wasn't the sin all around God's people. To Jesus the predicament was the sin in God's people. That's why He would go around saying to His own people, not the pagans, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is available." That's why He didn't urge His listeners to call their representatives, because the kingdom wasn't going to come out there, but in here. "It is within you."

Worst of all, Jesus realized that it would take more than a vote or a revolt to turn the thing around. Somebody was going to have to die. And it was going to have to start with Him.

I think if Jesus was our first guest today on Life Perspectives, He would probably have much the same thing to say to us as He did to the ancient Palestinian culture, because it was a similar time in many ways. I doubt He would complain about taxes or bills or governors or presidents or social deviants or cultural wars. I imagine he would weep over his own people not being willing to simply accept him. I imagine he would encourage his listeners with something like, "The church is not at her best when she is accumulating power. The church is at her best when she is giving power away. My church is not about taking a stand and making their voice heard. My church is about finding those who have no voice and standing with them." And I imagine he would do more than talk about it. I imagine he would show us how. I imagine He would even go so far as to lay down his life.

And that, I imagine, is a Christianity worth a broad cast.