Friends: Paraphrasing, and with apologies to, 2 Corinthians 3:17: “Where the Spirit of the Lord isn’t, liberal, woke arrogance can reign.” How about that presidential prayer service? Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #950

January 28, 2025

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Ghosting the Spirit

By Bob Walters

“Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel …” – Paul, Ephesians 6:19

The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., is an Episcopal church which, in a continuing demonstration of doctrinal benightment, fearlessly makes known its politics.

Mariann Budde, the Cathedral’s bishop, is suddenly the poster girl for the flailing anti-Trump “woke” left wing of American politics. Last week she used the Cathedral’s traditional day-after-the-inaugural prayer service attended by the newly-sworn-in President and his family not to proclaim from the pulpit the truth of Jesus Christ, but liberal ideology.

“Wait,” you may be thinking. “All she did was call on Trump to 'have mercy.'''

That bears closer examination.  What Budde wielded was a barely-cloaked verbal stiletto stabbing at Trump’s common-sense inaugural proclamations regarding “only two genders, male and female,” and deporting criminal illegal aliens. It was the Episcopal church doing what it does, backing “social justice” devoid of common sense.

And, may I add, preaching without making known the mystery of the gospel.

Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, the black minister who gave that buoyant prayer at Monday’s inauguration ceremony, called it “theological and spiritual malpractice.” For her part, Budde was instantly off on a TV talk show tour, a hero of mainstream media.

Budde’s prayer service plea cited “kids who were scared” because of Trump’s gender proclamation.  Migrants doing hourly labor feared deportation. “Show them mercy,” she said to the President, in a tone dripping with arrogant condescension.  To my ear it sounded ironic, coming as it did from a church that for decades has backed abortion rights. Where is the church’s mercy for the unborn?

This is the embedded hypocrisy – writ large – of modern social justice pleas.

Pastor Sewell, in an interview (LINK) Wednesday evening, said, “[Budde] had the opportunity to preach the gospel, to talk about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. She had the opportunity to bring people into the faith.  It was a salvific moment.  Instead of using the authority of the word of God to preach the message of Christ and to draw our President closer to Jesus, she used it for … malpractice.”

I was reminded of Vice President-elect Mike Pence, in 2016 in the audience for a performance of the musical Hamilton in New York, being chided by one of the cast members – from the stage during a curtain call – about Trump’s policies.

Perhaps Budde’s “mercy” plea lends an appropriate and humane perspective to the politics of the moment. But while I’d like to see Trump in church more, this kind of “gotcha” social gospel “preaching” is what keeps people away from the Holy Spirit.

Here, the just-inaugurated President and his entire family were listening to a Christian bishop who could not find it within herself to preach the gospel in the National Cathedral.  It may as well have been a Democratic party caucus featuring AOC.

I know folks here in town who through Mike Pence, a devout and deep-thinking Christian, have a prayerful handle on President Trump’s need for Christian growth.  I wish he could have found the Spirit at the National Cathedral.

Too bad he was ghosted.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) grew up Episcopalian in the 1960s. Jesus came later.

Friends: In a busy week and even busier New Year, is America heading toward Christian revival with a Third Great Awakening? Is college football a bellwether? 

Have a great week, and may God bless the USA.   Bob

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Spirituality Column #949

January 21, 2025

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Are We Waking Up?

By Bob Walters

“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my father in heaven.” Jesus instructing the Disciples, Matthew 10:32

Monday this week is about as busy a single celebratory day in our nation as I can remember: Martin Luther King Day, the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump Round Two, and college football’s championship game, Ohio State vs. Notre Dame.

There is no doubt in my mind that all three comprise – in various corners for various loyalties and opinions – both good news and bad news, celebration and derision, heartfelt joy and seething opposition.

That we are a divided nation is truly nothing new; that the modern legacy media and internet hot takes foment the division should be obvious to all. President Trump is the hottest of hot buttons of current importance. King’s holiday should be about equality and character – that was his dream – but the anti-racism cohort sees only color.  That those who do not love Notre Dame or Ohio State are generally rooting against them is a common reactive dynamic of sustained and envied success.

But I don’t especially want to write about culture, politics, or sports. Everyone can make what they will of MLK, Trump, and the CFP (College Football Playoffs.) Yet, let’s talk about Jesus Christ, because college football is talking about Jesus Christ.

If you haven’t seen it, here is a link to Riley Gaines Barker’s recent public Instagram post, LINK “Something's happening in our county”. She catalogues nine specific nationally televised instanced during post-season bowl coverage of coaches and athletes not just “thanking God” but overtly praying and sharing the Gospel.

It’s one thing when athletes point to heaven or thank God or Jesus for their success.  Innocent enough, I suppose, and there’s no need to judge their hearts or sincerity. But I’ve always wondered: what does that say about their understanding of God’s righteousness? Right relationship with God isn’t about winning football games; He roots for everybody, I think. I’m sure you have your own opinions about that.

Anyway, my great friend and mentor, minister Russ Blowers, used to say, “God loves to see His kids play.” I like that.  People indeed pay attention to sports, and a sincere, clear, and rich gospel statement of thanks not for a win but for one’s life and Christ’s sacrifice is a compelling and far-reaching witness. The Father in heaven smiles.

It wasn’t just Christian Liberty University’s coach sporting a “Jesus Won” t-shirt on the sidelines at the Bahama Bowl.  The link above includes coaches and players from Boise State, Texas, Notre Dame, Arizona State, and Ohio State inserting into their post-game interviews and actions unmissable representation and witness of Jesus.

America’s First and Second Great Awakenings in the 1700s and 1800s lit the fires of Bible truth throughout the nascent Colonies and United States. The 1900s saw the Azuza Street Revival, Billy Sunday, Billy Graham, the Jesus Movement and the growth of huge churches but it was never overall dubbed another “Great Awakening.”

I wonder and pray if right now – when Bible sales are at an all-time high despite polling that suggests overall religious interest is down – may be a ripe time for revival.

College football is certainly awake to the love of Jesus. May our slumber cease.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) admires Riley Gaines Barker’s tenacity and faith.

Friends: When Christians partake of the communion bread and cup, what are we nourishing? Have a great week! Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #948

January 14, 2025

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Food for Thought

By Bob Walters

“Where else would we go?” Peter, to Jesus, John 6:68

John 6 is a busy chapter in the Bible, full of stories we know well. 

Jesus fed the 5,000 (John 6:1-13). then left, alone, for the mountains (v15). That night Jesus walked on the stormy water (v16) of the northern Sea of Galilee, out to the boat where his fearful and astounded disciples were saved from the weather, their fears, and as Jesus accused them, their lack of faith.

Jesus said to them, “It is I, do not fear” (John 6:20).

The next day many from the crowd of 5,000 went looking for Jesus. They caught up with Him near Capernaum on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee and asked when he had arrived. Jesus, ever alert to the self-indulging queries of humanity, provided a lesson rather than an answer: “You seek me not because of the miracle I performed, but because you ate and had your fill” (John 6:26). 

Jesus reproached them of following Him only for a free lunch – another feast of loaves and fishes – not because of their faith in Him. Faith is God’s coin of the realm.

Jesus goes on (John 6:27-59), telling them to seek bread that does not spoil, i.e. the bread of God – Him, Jesus – and that the work of God, their work, is “to believe in the one he has sent,” … meaning himself. Our “work” is to believe in Jesus.

Unlike the manna God sent to Moses and the Jews in the desert – bread that spoiled in a day – God sent Jesus to all mankind as the bread of eternal life that does not spoil. Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life.” Adding, “He who comes to me will never be hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35, 54)

Jesus declares that his flesh is everlasting life, and that the Spirit will live only in believers who eat His body and drink His blood, and then they will live forever.

Eat Jesus? Drink His blood?  It was a “hard teaching” (6:60) and many “disciples” left.  The Twelve however, stayed. Peter expressed their faith perfectly: “Where else would we go?”

As we encounter the bread and cup of Christ today, we can express our love for God and each other, and ask the same question as Peter: “Where else would we go?”

I believe the Spirit of God, of Jesus, lives in believers.  And that by following the last supper commands of Jesus – to remember Him when we eat the bread and drink the cup as an act of devotion and faith in Jesus – we are participating in the life of God, and feeding the Spirit of God and Christ who lives within us.

Unlike the physically filling feast of loaves and fishes, communion is a very small meal. But just as Jesus says that faith only the size of a tiny mustard seed can grow large, this small meal of wafer and cup nourishes our faith and blossoms into our magnificent and eternal life with God, through our salvation in Christ.

The bread and the cup of communion feed our faith as we share the love of the Spirit who lives in us, and of the believers around us.  Where else would we go?

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) presented this as a communion meditation Sunday.

Friends: Folks look at the Holy Trinity as something that needs to be split and defined rather than understood as a relationship and holy mystery.  Let’s hold it together. Have a great week, and all the best for 2025. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #947

January 7, 2025

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Splitting Image

By Bob Walters

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.” – Hebrews 1:3

Pam and I are fortunate to have several savvy, sincere, and biblically literate Christian friends and teachers across the various cohorts of the life we lead together.

Feel free to drop an “Amen” if you can say the same thing.

Our New Year’s Eve gathering with some of our so-inclined church pals last week was a party, not vespers, but as invariably happens – amid family updates and chatting about life in general – a faith and scriptural issue popped up that sparked a lively post-dinner doctrinal conversation among a few of us still sitting at the table.

A lady we have known for years who is active in Bible studies, women’s ministry, and local missions lamented how many Bible studiers she encounters who refuse the aspect of the Trinity that names Jesus as God. Yes, I know … basic stuff.  And any of us who have been around “newer” Christians are well-acquainted with the question.

She noted, “They want to know, ‘If Jesus is God, where was God while Jesus was on the earth?’ What do you say?” I have a reputation in our Sunday school class of talking too much, so I took a shot at an answer because I can’t help it. To wit …

The Trinity as One – Father, Son, Spirit – is among my favorite teaching topics. The Trinity, of course, is a mystery of mathematics, physics, and personhood, how three beings can be one and one being can be three.  To me it is easily explained that if indeed “God is Love” (1 John 4:8), and if we can agree that “love” requires relationship, then it proceeds logically that God must be a relationship. Voila! God is one…and three.

And if indeed humans were and are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image’”) – for all the ways that notion can be considered – it further proceeds that we are created in that love of God’s relationship.

Why three?  This is what works for me. Three is the smallest number of a community (George Bebawi), God himself is a society (G.K. Chesterton), and we, even as fallen sinners, are restored to God’s divine community through our faith in Jesus and acceptance of His gift of salvation. But the math? Yes, 1+1+1=3. But 1x1x1=1. I am content to “multiply” my blessings and figure God “adds up” love however He likes.

To me the issue we were discussing at the table comes down to those who stubbornly demand human definitions of holy things that need to be known in faith.  It is, to me, reasonable to take God at His word.  We can ask of Him all the questions we can conjure, but everything about Jesus is designed to demand our faith, not proof.

I’m afraid the best evidence for Jesus and God’s laws, even beyond scripture, is written on our hearts, ala Hebrews 8:10, Romans 2:15, Psalms 40:8, 2 Corinthians 3:3. And I couldn’t help but think of George’s observation that Western Christianity tends to focus on “Father and Son,” often ignoring the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

We can’t argue faith and the Holy Spirit into anybody. One can witness and lead by example, but the Spirit does the heavy lifting of changing hearts and minds to accept God’s truth and the reality of an eternal realm humans are not yet equipped to fully understand. We glimpse eternity, in faith, all the time … yet it is still outside of time.

So, mysteries abound, but our faith must cohere into oneness with God, oneness with other believers, and not split the divine relationship in which we were created.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) enjoys the mysteries God presents. Praise Jesus.