A Call to Love and Wisdom

After my last entry, my "very close friend" gave it a read through and responded to me. As per his request to remain anonymous, I have placed his email in its entirety here as my next entry - omitting any personal references to himself, name or other personally sensitive information.

Thanks Anonymous!

Anonymous references a few articles in his email to me. These articles can be found at the following links below:

Derek Webb's Article: www.patrolmag.com/times/992/how-shall-we-then-vote

Mark Driscoll's Blog: www.theresurgence.com/md_blog

* * * * *

Caleb,

I love reading your blog.

Fromthe timing, it sounded like you wrote today's entry based on our email thread. I hear your call to reason, and I'll raise that call (poker terms now) to Love. Not the kind of mushy, sentimental "love" that decides to simply not talk about stuff, living in a crowded room of "white elephants". No, the kind of love that Jesus presented, where he challenged people in real discourse to THINK and FEEL as Yahweh does. In effect, I would offer that we, you and I and those who agree with your thesis in your entry, are calling for Wisdom.

Wisdom is often described as "knowledge gained through experience". The bible talks about Wisdom first as Fear of the Lord. Then we say that this kind of fear described here is not a kind of groveling fear. And I agree that biblical Fear of the Lord is not SIMPLY groveling fear. It is groveling fear, and then something else: trust in God's promise to not actually destroy us as we deserve. Maintain that groveling fear of Yahweh (as the great scientist Egon Spangler offers a wonderful word picture: "Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.") and add to that a tacit knowledge of God's kindness and affection for you, and you're getting towards biblical Wisdom.

We want people to start all discussions about basically anything with a right Fear of God. This produces epistemic humility, and yet confidence in our Creator's affection, faithfulness and loyalty to, Himself first, and to us through secondary causes.

Fear of God, Wisdom, shocks us into a higher allegiance. As both the articles I cited in my email to Selina point, we are NOT citizens of the USofA, we are Sojourners in the USofA, and therefore participate in their community life. But out identity is in Christ, it is hidden with God in Him until He should be revealed, and we are truly FIRST, citizens of Heaven (and the new Earth, not some spiritual cloud world. . .)

This means we owe our THOUGHTS and our FEELINGS first to our King. He is to shape them, and we are to obey him first. This means, as Derek Webb's article states (which I encourage you to read): ". . . it would likely be sinful if we were all reaching the same conclusions on how to best love our neighbors, so there's plenty of room for a difference of opinion there."

I highly respect the biblical moral values you see Obama advocating. I also highly respect the biblical moral values that McCain advocated. For those who voted with a biblically shaped clear conscience for either candidate, I applaud them for their integrity and faith and correct delight in  those biblical virtues and ideas which each candidate possessed or espoused (and each did, with some overlap between them, but mostly each covered different areas).

To your main irritation, I concur. Those who votes based simply on party lines, because of "christian" pressures (either offensive voting or defensive voting), those are the people I would challenge: be very careful you are not committing idolatry in your hope in a candidate. For those who voted McCain, your idolatry may look lilke inordinate despair. "All our hopes for the Mission of God to renew the USA are gone," this is a wicked and unbelieving position. Repent. Jesus is King and he appoints wicked and just rulers all over the world, throughout time, for His purposes.

For those who voted Obama, your idolatry may look like inordinate and misplaced hope. "All our hopes for the Mission of God to renew the USA are going to happen," this is too a wicked  and unbelieving position. Repent. Jesus is King and he appoints wicked and just rulers all over the world, throughout time, for His purposes. As Mark Driscoll's blog pot preaches (which I also encourage you to read): "for those [who] have gotten sidetracked for the cause of a false king and a false kingdom by making too much of the election and too little of Jesus, today is a good day to practice repentance. . ."