Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Spin Master

Our Presidential election has become hype and sound bites with no reference to a larger reality as to why or why not we should act in any particular way. Most of the media has proven untrustworthy, embarrassing itself with its patronizing prejudice. Our post-modern, relativistic world has nothing real to stand on, and the ‘jesus’ of the modern church is so incredibly small he offers no answers to the ‘isms’ that are destroying us, to say nothing of international relations or of the great issues we face with the environment of our beloved planet.

So where does that leave us? The real battle in the United States today is the battle over spin. Who can become the Spin Master? Who is best at dazzling urgency? Who can touch the raw nerves of fear? Who has the best commercials, or personality, or style—today? Who can twist the filtered news unto their own agenda? What a sad tale. But what do we expect when our culture believes there is no ‘reality,’ and the church’s ‘jesus’ is little more than a tribal deity? I suspect most of us are so overwhelmed with the incessant crap, or so bored with the latest side-show, we just tune out and try to make the most of our lives. Who knows what to believe anyway? For my part, I would despair were it not for the Jesus of the early Church.

Here is my political platform: Jesus has included the human race in his relationship with his Father, and in his anointing in the Holy Spirit, and in his relationship with each and every human being, and in his relationship with the whole cosmos. The human race—including the Church—stands called to walk accordingly.

The basis for our concerns for social justice, for the health of the environment, for the end of poverty in all its forms (including the ultimate poverty of not knowing Jesus’ Father), for the end of racism, sexism, and all prejudice is Jesus himself—and the fact that he is sharing his heart with all of us. In him, the Father, the Holy Spirit, the human race, and the whole cosmos have been brought together in real relationship forever. His presence is therefore both a promise and a warning. Since he is the one in whom all created things have their being and life and meaning, any personal, racial, sexual, international, global, or environmental violation of the good and righteous relationships he has established in his own being is doomed to hurt like hell and to produce chaotic misery. And since he is the one in whom all creation has a blessed place—including each and every human being—to walk with him, to place our own ideas and agendas at his feet for light is to participate in his rightly-related world of wholeness.

Come, Holy Spirit. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear.

10 comments:

  said...

Are you hopeful that before the bodily return of Jesus there will be ANY improvement of conditions in this world?

C. Baxter Kruger, Ph.D. said...

Of Course.

Unknown said...

Hi Baxter
I appreciate your comments. This came together this morning

If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it!

All of humanity has been spiritually fixed! Our spirit and His Sprit are in union! We all belong! The problem, most don’t know it, so they try to fix a fix that has already been fixed.
Those who do not know or believe try desperately to override their true inner desire by living from the lies of the knowledge of good and evil. Those who proclaim to be godly in the name of Jesus use this same knowledge in trying to fix themselves and others in order to please God.

It is this deceptive knowledge system of right and wrong that spins out standards and expectations which we use in our own existential judgments.

We (I) all need to wake up to the faith that is already in us, have our minds renovated so that our will and emotions may live from the objective reality in us, not the knowledge of good and evil, but Jesus, who has fixed us all.

Thanks again JG

Timothy J. Brassell said...

Sounds like you've eaten your Trinitarian "Wheaties"! :-)

This is one of the best political and historical commentaries I have heard this year - and ever!!! I say "one of the best" because your essay on "A One Page Summary of the Church" is as good and flowing out of the same passionate heart and Reality of the Father, Son and Spirit along these lines!

I join you in praying that prayer along with Jesus!!

bill winn said...

SPOT ON! I also see the tricks and lies of the evil one in our political system in the U.S. We are constantly being told that we do not belong or are "not" something that we long to be. From not being beautiful to not being forgiven or embraced by the Father, we are forever being told the lies of "I am not". Here is where politics can be used as a tool of the evil one; we are told that we can "belong" in a political party and that if we adhere to its tenants or beliefs we may have worth and esteem. So we begin to link our worth, sense of community, and belonging with our political affiliation. So now when anyone disagrees with our political views we perceive that as an affront to our very worth and being. We also begin to see others, of a different political view, as strange or less than us. The enemy has tricked us into finding a false sense of our ontology in calling ourselves a Republican or a Democrat. Instead we should rest in the Christo-Centric Ontology we have in the Incarnate Word and see every man, woman, and child as they really are- our brothers and sisters in our Adoption IN Jesus.

C. Baxter Kruger, Ph.D. said...

Well said John, Tim and Bill-will-you-teach-me-fish-please-Baxter-Winn

bill winn said...

Ha ha I have a bad feeling we'll have our posteriors handed to us in a couple weeks. Get your menhaden colored Mediators ready. Click on my avatar for a menhaden pic.

By the way I'd vote for that political platform- straight ticket baby! I hope I live to see the truth about Jesus and us IN Him invade all aspects of our lives especially medicine and politics.

Pastor Paul said...

Hi Baxter,
Great commentary on the inadequisies (sp) of our and all political systems. All political systems of this world fail and recycle over and over again to fail once again. ( Re: my wonderful MSU Political Science degree used once again :-). The only system that will work in perpetuity is the one based on love. God's Love.

No presidential candidate of ANY party can bring about all the wild promises he or she makes. It takes a 2/3's majority of our lawmakers in Washington to approve ANYTHING he or she may try to impose. All the campaign retoric is just fluff.

None of these candidates can change the heart or live in it.

So, this leaves us with the ultimate solution from the foundation of the world, Jesus Christ in us the hope of Glory and His eternal life for all. Billy Graham was right when he said, " Christ is the answer!"

God Bless you and keep on FISHING...for men that is!!!

You too Bill.

love all of you,

Paul Kurts

Jerome Ellard said...

Loved this by Pastor Paul: "So, this leaves us with the ultimate solution from the foundation of the world, Jesus Christ in us the hope of Glory and His eternal life for all."
What an awesome thing to KNOW! And there is the challange: to share this "knowing" with others via the myriad avenues God has given us. We humans are a messy lot - few of the avenues available to us (yes, even politics!) are paved with gold. Mostly, these avenues are filled with pot holes, right? Would we realize our need in a "perfect" world? When we think we live in that tidy, righteous place, God becomes our co-pilot. In the messy, real world, we are utterly dependent upon Him, for breath and being, and THAT humble understanding is the mindset we need when we participate in politics. For we are CALLED to participate in politics, because politics is part of life here on earth. Politics is just one phase of the struggle we are part of here - and God works through struggle, blood, sweat and tears. Paul (the apostle) like us all, was a citizen of a heavenly country, but he was also a Roman citizen, down here in the dirt. The challange for Christians is to participate in the real life struggle of politics as Jesus' light and salt.

Ron said...

Dear Baxter. One hundred percent agree and very mind opening thoughts that uncover truths so beautifully. But do we continue being involved in the two political ways of thinking currently popular in our culture? Ron Morgan