God's not a liberal, He's a communist!
My coworker (Balkan Brink) this morning wrote a great blog entitled, God’s a liberal, but I personally am pretty sure that He is a communist, or at the very least a socialist. He sure as heck isn’t democratic! In a democracy it seems that everyone labors for their own personal benefit. In socialist and communism, everyone (at least in principle) works for the good of everyone else. In socialism, its about the group, not the individual. It’s not about me in socialism and communism, its about us. You do not have to have a two digit IQ to quickly see that socialism/communism is heavenly and churchly stuff. It’s what the Kingdom is like.
Of course the earthly expressions that we have seen in our lifetime so far of socialism and communism have been pretty sad expressions of these systems. It seems that they are always tainted by the greed of those in power. It clearly doesn’t work that way with God, because He is not greedy, although He is terribly jealous. And He definitely is running a dictatorship (theocracy) not a democracy. He is the only person making corporate decisions here!
It seems that church and religion are far less about God and His Kingdom than they are about me and me. I think this is the primary reason we fall into idolatry all the time. Let’s face it, Jesus ain’t gonna do what we want Him to when we want Him to, ever. So instead we focus on being attractive, cool, spiritual, smart, religious, faithful, witty, philosophical, educated, connected, technological, experienced, paid well, successful, famous, in the spotlight, influential, etc, etc none of which are necessarily bad in of themselves, but are golden calfs of worship in most people’s lives . . . at least the people I hang with. Perhaps I hang with particularly false gods oriented folks, but I don’t think so. We generally are pretty average sinners.
The scary thing . . . and the beautiful thing is that God does not work like this. He is the Kingdom of God, and all He does is for the Kingdom. No selfishness, or self-addiction here. This entire issue reminds me so much of my Russian friend Illiya. We were in my Lada one day, driving toward his dacha out on the edge of town. He was bragging to me how he had bought this little piece of property after Perestroika, and how he had planted trees and built a little shack/cabin there, and on and on he went. I finally told him, “Illiya, you have become a capitalist!” This is probably the most negative word you could have called anyone in Russia 10 years ago. “I certainly am not!” Illiya retorted. “Yes, you are.” I confidently told him. A Communist would have taken that land and used it for everybody’s welfare. You purchased this property and are developing it for the welfare of your own family (primarily). And back and forth we argued for the better part of 30 minutes. He finally said, “Ok, I am a capitalist, but just don’t tell anyone.” I told him that his secret was safe with me.
Of course the earthly expressions that we have seen in our lifetime so far of socialism and communism have been pretty sad expressions of these systems. It seems that they are always tainted by the greed of those in power. It clearly doesn’t work that way with God, because He is not greedy, although He is terribly jealous. And He definitely is running a dictatorship (theocracy) not a democracy. He is the only person making corporate decisions here!
It seems that church and religion are far less about God and His Kingdom than they are about me and me. I think this is the primary reason we fall into idolatry all the time. Let’s face it, Jesus ain’t gonna do what we want Him to when we want Him to, ever. So instead we focus on being attractive, cool, spiritual, smart, religious, faithful, witty, philosophical, educated, connected, technological, experienced, paid well, successful, famous, in the spotlight, influential, etc, etc none of which are necessarily bad in of themselves, but are golden calfs of worship in most people’s lives . . . at least the people I hang with. Perhaps I hang with particularly false gods oriented folks, but I don’t think so. We generally are pretty average sinners.
The scary thing . . . and the beautiful thing is that God does not work like this. He is the Kingdom of God, and all He does is for the Kingdom. No selfishness, or self-addiction here. This entire issue reminds me so much of my Russian friend Illiya. We were in my Lada one day, driving toward his dacha out on the edge of town. He was bragging to me how he had bought this little piece of property after Perestroika, and how he had planted trees and built a little shack/cabin there, and on and on he went. I finally told him, “Illiya, you have become a capitalist!” This is probably the most negative word you could have called anyone in Russia 10 years ago. “I certainly am not!” Illiya retorted. “Yes, you are.” I confidently told him. A Communist would have taken that land and used it for everybody’s welfare. You purchased this property and are developing it for the welfare of your own family (primarily). And back and forth we argued for the better part of 30 minutes. He finally said, “Ok, I am a capitalist, but just don’t tell anyone.” I told him that his secret was safe with me.