The Church Disarmed

 ... cannot be the Church Militant.

Wife kitteh and I are currently participating in a 12-week small group course on evangelism based on the work of the group, Evangelical Catholic. Wife kitteh accurately accused me of simply auditing the course as I haven't been doing the readings or exercises between sessions. Instead, I go to the sessions cold and wing it.

Ohioan would recognize this behavior. :-)

This morning, I went through the week's readings and exercises and finally was able to put my finger on what is really bothering me about the class and the diocese. The Babylon Bee said it quite well in "6 Ways Jesus Failed To Love His Neighbor — And How We Can Do Better - Guest Article by Christianity Today."

Who is Jesus Christ? The Gospels tell you, but there is something important missing from this biblical account. Despite its lofty intro describing how "The Word was with God and the Word was God," it fails to enlighten the reader that this "Word" it refers to is most likely LOVE. That's what God is. He's love, and that's it. The entire Bible is actually just a book about love, and the rest of it should be largely disregarded. Love really is everything. Did Jesus really live up to the standard of LOVE set by his Heavenly Father? Tragically, he didn't.

I've ranted endlessly on this blog against the "God is love" pablum we're fed from the pulpit week in and week out.

The "God is love" sentiment is self-negating. If God is love, then there can be no hell. How can you reconcile hell and unconditional acceptance? You can't. If there is no hell, then what's the point of Jesus? He died on the cross for our ... err ... sins. And if He hadn't? No difference. You weren't going to pay for your sins, even if such things existed. After all, God is love.

It doesn't work. If He exists, if He made a world with nasty bugs and uncaring predators and hospice care for dying parents, then He has some hard edges. He has some expectations. He told you what you needed to do to stay safe. If you choose to slam your hand in a car door, don't blame Him when it hurts. Don't say, "I can't believe in a God that would make it hurt when I closed the car door on a body part!"

What today's homework session showed me is how the modern Church has edited the Gospel and simply removed any of the edgy parts. Our bishop likes to talk about radical inclusion, but, like the Bee mocks in their article, that's his words, not Christ's. Here's one of the passages we were asked the read this week for the class.

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber. But whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice, as he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.”

Although Jesus used this figure of speech, they did not realize what he was trying to tell them.

So Jesus said again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came [before me] are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.

Look at the way He describes the secularists who advocate for sin and degeneracy. They are thieves and robbers who come to steal and slaughter. That's not inclusive and it's not pacifist. It's completely orthogonal to "God is love."

Something has to be orthogonal to God is love otherwise love has no meaning at all. As Andrew Isker pointed out in The Boniface Option, you can't have love without hate. If I love my family, I hate the things that threaten it. If I don't hate those threats, then what does it mean to love? Can I love my family and also love a pack of pit vipers trying to slither into the house and bite them? At some point, either the pit vipers or my family are going to have to die. Do I kill the vipers with love or do I use a shovel?

Loving your enemies means trying to bring them to Christ, but if they keep after you and yours, you'd better have that shovel handy.

Because the Church blows right past those words and focuses on cute, little lambs being saved from the dark, scary forest by Jesus who carries their silly, little wooly bodies back to the sheep fold, we are totally unequipped to deal with the thieves and robbers who come to steal and slaughter.

All the thieves and robbers need to do is use our Sacred Words and we fold like damp laundry, unable to see them for who they are. They tell us they are inclusive and full of love and just want equity and justice. Meanwhile, our daughters are mutilated and poisoned, the marginal communities are left illiterate and sexually degenerate and our society is being overwhelmed by millions upon millions of invading illegals.

In every case, the thieves and robbers preceded their slaughter and destruction with a vow to be affirming, diverse, equitable and inclusive. We've disarmed ourselves because we think "(t)he entire Bible is actually just a book about love, and the rest of it should be largely disregarded. Love really is everything." 

Apparently, love is abject surrender.

Our version of the Holy Family. They're reflecting on the different ways love is love. No sign of thieves or robbers there. All is sweetness and light.