Sword of Peace

My parents always tell me that my world views are too ideal. 

Having an ideal perspective of the world does not let you see the world for how it really is. But what is wrong with focusing on idealism rather than practicality?

After I read Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne, I lent it to my dad, who is currently reading the book. We had a discussion about it the other day, and he told me that he didn’t agree with what Shane was saying. He believes that he is to ideological. In his book, Shane talks about the Jubilee, where slaves were set free and debts were cancelled every 49th year. My dad said, well nobody actually released their slaves or cancelled debt, so what is the point. This is impractical. He thinks that Shane’s approach to following Jesus is not practical. Yes this is true and that’s the way it should be…. here is my point.

As followers of Christ, we are called to love our enemies, to be perfect as God the father is perfect, and care for the sick and needy.

Are any of these goals practical?

1) loving our enemies: Is this practical? How difficult is it to love our enemies? What can we gain personally by loving our enemies? This seems more of a hassle than something that could benefit us.

• It is true that this is next to impossible and impractical from a world view point, but through Jesus, this ideal command can move mountains

2) We are called to Be perfect

Matthew 5:48: Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

• Is this even practical? of course not, but we are to aim at being perfect. We are to have an ideal sense of perfection and strive towards being more like God himself.

3) Jesus also calls for us to care for the sick and needy. Is this possible? There are so many people who are poor, sick and needy, we will never be able to help them, why should we try?

• I’ve heard too many people misquoting Jesus when he says that the poor will always be among you. This is not an excuse to do nothing about the situation, as Jesus also called us to take care of these people
• Taking care of the whole world’s needs may be a very ideological goal, but that is what God calls us to do.

Now I want to take the time to argue that people with ideological goals are the people who make a difference in this world. Just look at Jesus, Mother Theresa, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King. If they had went about making change in a very practical manor, they would have inevitably failed. Their vision, their goals were ideal.

College students are usually accused of being ideal. Many are passionate and want to make a difference in this world. I wish that people wouldn’t grow old and become comfortable and practical. I often say to myself “Man I have to be as radical as I can be now, because I know that one day I will settle and lose that charisma”. Hopefully, I will never sell out. Maybe someday I’ll give up being an anarchist or an idealist and buy into our society’s practical worldview. I pray this will not happen!!!

I am currently reading Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You. 

This is a brilliant book. Tolstoy is bold and offensive in his attack on the state’s use of violence and how Christianity has been corrupted over the years; and frankly, I love it. His passion for the gospel is evident throughout this disjunct work. Tolstoy is very opposed to any christian creeds/doctrines, the religious nature of corporate worhsip, and the state’s involvement in religion.

I love how he often refers to military uniforms as clown uniforms, and says that the military masses are brainwashed into murder for a piece of scrap cloth or ribbon.

But aside from his extremely critical and bold proclamations against the state’s use of force, Tolstoy had no faith in human institutions for bringing peace to the masses. He believed that liberal, conservative, socialist, and communist revolutions will only lead to more oppression and violence once they establish themselves as the new system of governance; and ultimately, he is exactly right. He saw this before the collapse of communism in the 1900s. Tolstoy also believed that a society which does not rely on the mainstream system of government will eventually be currupted and taken over by the government in power (which is what happened to the anarchist societies in spain in the 1930s). I think with Tolstoy’s tremendous faith in God, he was able to see that human institutions will never bring about the Kingdom of God.

With this I want everyone reading this to understand that no matter who is elected president in the 2008 election, and however much change they promise, they will be working within a system that is outside of the Kingdom of God. I think God is calling us to make change through the church so that Christ will be revealed in our works towards social justice. We do not need to trust in the false promises that are the government of the United States.

I have these periods every few months where I am in severe doubt. My faith is practically zero, and I become an agnostic leaning towards atheism. They usually last a week or two, but they are very rough on me. I want to give up everything I believe in.

What triggered my doubt this time was a youtube video of an old muslim saying that the earth is stationary and the sun rotates around it. He was also saying that the sun was 3 times smaller than the earth, and a whole bunch of other stuff. But his main point was that if it’s not in the Qu’ran, it’s not true.

I then began to think of how people defend creation science. As a person who studies science and teaches science, this is absurd. If you believe in creationism, that is fine; but it is in no way a science. You need a great deal of faith to believe in creationism, because it totally goes against science and common sense. 

I then proceeded to post on how stupid of an idea creationism is and how it is rediculous for anyone to believe it. But then I realized i would offend a few of the authors of this blog and I realized that my post had nothing to do with the sword of peace website. It was just an all out front against creationism. This is not what I want to do here.

My faith is slowly returning at the present moment.