I've been saddened and disappointed by some political statements I've seen made by my fellow Christians lately. Maybe you have too. I'm not willing to go into specific political issues here because I have zero desire to moderate a war on my blog comments or Facebook wall, but I do have something of an exhortation for those of us who profess to follow Christ.
May we maintain a tender heart and an open mind. It is only with a soft, pliable heart that Jesus can do His work in us. When we harden our hearts against one people group or movement or political party, we are shutting down Christ's ability to display the gospel through us. Let's be realistic, no one political party is right on every issue and it's foolishness to believe so. Can we humble ourselves enough to recognize that "our party" might be wrong about some things? Can we seek to understand each other and have compassion instead of being so quick to vilify and write off others' opinions? Can we allow the gospel alone to direct our political opinions, rather than some blowhard talk radio host or cable news commentator?
If we believe the gospel, then we believe in the ministry of reconciliation we've been given. (2 Cor. 5:18-20) Have we forgotten this? Have we forgotten that Jesus said "blessed are the peacemakers"? How can we lob grenades at other people like we do and claim that any of that comes out of Truth or The Bible? People should be hearing our politics and saying "Wow, I just don't know if that much mercy and justice and love is possible!"
Guys, this might surprise you, but I've heard that there are Christian conservatives AND liberals. (Gasp!) So if we are to seek unity as the body of Christ, how could we possibly be so arrogant as to just dismiss the other side as a bunch of idiots? If you've ever gotten on Facebook or huddled up at a party to rail on "the left" or "the right", then you've just slammed a bunch of your Christian brothers and sisters. I can tell you as someone who lives in the middle politically, I've gone home in tears after the hateful words people spewed, not knowing the beliefs or opinions they took such delight in trashing were my own. It's unkind and it's unChristlike. I'm all for healthy discussion and I know that we will not all come down in the same place on every issue, but for the sake of our country, for the sake of the Church, and above all for the sake of Christ, we must do better by each other.
Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. 1 Peter 3:8-9
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
What We Can Do
I attended an information session last night with an officer from the Human Trafficking Task Force in our area. During the Q&A, someone asked "what can we do as a community?" and I think we all felt a little deflated when the answer came. "Not much. Education and awareness. Support the shelters that take in victims. I wish there was more." Well, if you know me, you know that got my wheels spinning! I came home and started jotting things down, and I wanted to share what I came up with, especially for my friends that were at the session and may also have left feeling a little bit helpless.
1. While human trafficking abroad is often a tangled web of debt, deceit, kidnapping, and often parents selling their own children, human trafficking on the domestic front looks a little different. (Not that those things don't happen here, but it doesn't seem to be the norm.) Traffickers/pimps prey upon vulnerable people, and runaways are especially susceptible to being trapped, tricked, or forced into prostitution. There is also a connection to foster care: this is just one statistic I found, but in 2012, but over 50% of trafficking victims in California were or had been in the foster care system. So what can we do? Know your kids' friends, and know your friends' kids. Be a safe place for them. Encourage your children to reach out to and befriend the kids with tough home lives. Know that that may be messy, and you may have kids in your home who are needy and rough around the edges, but be a place of love and acceptance and belonging for them. If they have a place to land when things get bad at home, they may be less likely to be persuaded or coerced into prostitution.
1b. Consider foster care or foster care support. The system needs more loving families who will invest in these children, love them, and hopefully keep them away from bad outcomes like abuse, trafficking, homelessness, and drug abuse. If you're not quite ready to be a foster parent, consider going through training at an agency like Arrow to do respite care, where you regularly take in children overnight or for the weekend to give foster families a time of rest.
2. Know your neighbors. Trafficking depends on secrecy, and our tendency as a culture to hunker down in our own homes allows traffickers to hide in plain sight. Be the weirdo that takes banana bread and introduces yourself to your neighbors, even though you've all lived there for years. Learn their names. Get to know their stories. If you see something suspicious, call law enforcement. This site has a great summary of red flags to watch for to identify sex or labor trafficking.
2b. Notice people. What could happen if we really saw the woman who is polishing our nails or the man bussing our tables, instead of viewing them as just another person in the background? Look at them, speak to them, and value them as dearly loved children of God. Again, if something seems suspicious, alert law enforcement.
3. Support local organizations that are already fighting human trafficking. If you are local to me, here are a handful of organizations (if not, just search online.. odds are there is a place where you can plug in):
Mosaic Family Services
Safe Haven
ACH Child and Family Services
Traffick911
Rescue Her
You could donate to any of these organizations, or look on their website for volunteer needs. Each one does something a little different, from sheltering victims to street outreach to education and awareness.
4. Shop fair trade/ethically made products. I've written about this before (here, here and here) but pay attention to what you buy and where it came from. It requires a lot more time and energy, but it's worth it to avoid the exploitation of people.
5. Change your perspective, then share it. This is probably not something you'd think of, but the culture has to change, and that can start with us. A few shifts to make between your own two ears:
- What is a prostitute? Is she a whore who enjoys having sex for money? Our officer last night estimated that 80% of the prostitutes he sees are forced or coerced into the industry in some way, be it physical abuse, financial dependence, threats against her or her family, or something else. Change your view: a prostitute is more often than not a victim who needs prayers and rescue. Why does this matter? For one thing, I have to believe that at least some men pay for sex because in their minds she is okay with it. I HAVE to believe that if at least some men knew the realities of what is happening to those girls, they would stop buying sex. And prostitution/trafficking simply cannot survive without buyers.
- What is a pimp? I'll admit to enjoying me some rap music on occasion, but I wince now whenever I hear lyrics about pimps. Would we still sing along with those songs if you replaced the word pimp with trafficker? It is NOT cool to be a pimp, it is not something to aspire to or glorify. Don't go along with it, and be brave enough to correct people that do.
- Know that pornography plays a part. (This article explains some of the connections between porn and trafficking.) Statistics are varied, but studies suggest that at least 50% of Christian men and 10-20% of Christian women regularly view pornography. You may think that what you look at in the privacy of your own home doesn't hurt anyone, but that is just not true. Beyond the moral implications of porn generally, there is really no way to know that the pornography you consume is free from exploitation. So, stop watching it (if you can't, seek help) and speak out against it. Also on this note, talk to your kids early and often about the dangers of pornography. It's a scary subject to tackle, but I've read that the average age of first exposure to internet porn is 11-12. Yeah, we've got to talk to them about it.
6. Support anti-human trafficking legislation. Write your representatives and tell them that this issue matters to you. Keep an eye/ear out for upcoming legislation in this area, and encourage your representatives to vote for it. Polaris Project has a great section on the state of current laws and what is being proposed.
7. Pray. The thing that struck me the most last night is how difficult it is to get a victim to "outcry" - to admit that she is being abused or trafficked. It's even more difficult to get her to testify against her trafficker and even more difficult to get her into a good aftercare/restoration program. Pray for their strength and courage, and for their complete healing. Pray for law enforcement, for the organizations that fight trafficking, and even for the traffickers and buyers.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, just a starting place. I would love to hear ideas that God may have planted in your heart as well!
1. While human trafficking abroad is often a tangled web of debt, deceit, kidnapping, and often parents selling their own children, human trafficking on the domestic front looks a little different. (Not that those things don't happen here, but it doesn't seem to be the norm.) Traffickers/pimps prey upon vulnerable people, and runaways are especially susceptible to being trapped, tricked, or forced into prostitution. There is also a connection to foster care: this is just one statistic I found, but in 2012, but over 50% of trafficking victims in California were or had been in the foster care system. So what can we do? Know your kids' friends, and know your friends' kids. Be a safe place for them. Encourage your children to reach out to and befriend the kids with tough home lives. Know that that may be messy, and you may have kids in your home who are needy and rough around the edges, but be a place of love and acceptance and belonging for them. If they have a place to land when things get bad at home, they may be less likely to be persuaded or coerced into prostitution.
1b. Consider foster care or foster care support. The system needs more loving families who will invest in these children, love them, and hopefully keep them away from bad outcomes like abuse, trafficking, homelessness, and drug abuse. If you're not quite ready to be a foster parent, consider going through training at an agency like Arrow to do respite care, where you regularly take in children overnight or for the weekend to give foster families a time of rest.
2. Know your neighbors. Trafficking depends on secrecy, and our tendency as a culture to hunker down in our own homes allows traffickers to hide in plain sight. Be the weirdo that takes banana bread and introduces yourself to your neighbors, even though you've all lived there for years. Learn their names. Get to know their stories. If you see something suspicious, call law enforcement. This site has a great summary of red flags to watch for to identify sex or labor trafficking.
2b. Notice people. What could happen if we really saw the woman who is polishing our nails or the man bussing our tables, instead of viewing them as just another person in the background? Look at them, speak to them, and value them as dearly loved children of God. Again, if something seems suspicious, alert law enforcement.
3. Support local organizations that are already fighting human trafficking. If you are local to me, here are a handful of organizations (if not, just search online.. odds are there is a place where you can plug in):
Mosaic Family Services
Safe Haven
ACH Child and Family Services
Traffick911
Rescue Her
You could donate to any of these organizations, or look on their website for volunteer needs. Each one does something a little different, from sheltering victims to street outreach to education and awareness.
4. Shop fair trade/ethically made products. I've written about this before (here, here and here) but pay attention to what you buy and where it came from. It requires a lot more time and energy, but it's worth it to avoid the exploitation of people.
5. Change your perspective, then share it. This is probably not something you'd think of, but the culture has to change, and that can start with us. A few shifts to make between your own two ears:
- What is a prostitute? Is she a whore who enjoys having sex for money? Our officer last night estimated that 80% of the prostitutes he sees are forced or coerced into the industry in some way, be it physical abuse, financial dependence, threats against her or her family, or something else. Change your view: a prostitute is more often than not a victim who needs prayers and rescue. Why does this matter? For one thing, I have to believe that at least some men pay for sex because in their minds she is okay with it. I HAVE to believe that if at least some men knew the realities of what is happening to those girls, they would stop buying sex. And prostitution/trafficking simply cannot survive without buyers.
- What is a pimp? I'll admit to enjoying me some rap music on occasion, but I wince now whenever I hear lyrics about pimps. Would we still sing along with those songs if you replaced the word pimp with trafficker? It is NOT cool to be a pimp, it is not something to aspire to or glorify. Don't go along with it, and be brave enough to correct people that do.
- Know that pornography plays a part. (This article explains some of the connections between porn and trafficking.) Statistics are varied, but studies suggest that at least 50% of Christian men and 10-20% of Christian women regularly view pornography. You may think that what you look at in the privacy of your own home doesn't hurt anyone, but that is just not true. Beyond the moral implications of porn generally, there is really no way to know that the pornography you consume is free from exploitation. So, stop watching it (if you can't, seek help) and speak out against it. Also on this note, talk to your kids early and often about the dangers of pornography. It's a scary subject to tackle, but I've read that the average age of first exposure to internet porn is 11-12. Yeah, we've got to talk to them about it.
6. Support anti-human trafficking legislation. Write your representatives and tell them that this issue matters to you. Keep an eye/ear out for upcoming legislation in this area, and encourage your representatives to vote for it. Polaris Project has a great section on the state of current laws and what is being proposed.
7. Pray. The thing that struck me the most last night is how difficult it is to get a victim to "outcry" - to admit that she is being abused or trafficked. It's even more difficult to get her to testify against her trafficker and even more difficult to get her into a good aftercare/restoration program. Pray for their strength and courage, and for their complete healing. Pray for law enforcement, for the organizations that fight trafficking, and even for the traffickers and buyers.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, just a starting place. I would love to hear ideas that God may have planted in your heart as well!
Monday, March 23, 2015
What my kids have taught me about... Cheap Grace
Motherhood has opened up a whole new level of understanding of God for me. I think most of us feel that way about love - you really understand how God loves us when you experience that for your children - but I find it to be true in so many other areas too.
Cheap grace is a doctrine made famous by my man Bonhoeffer. It's always been a slippery one for me to understand because when we decide to follow Christ and receive His grace, we are promised that there is no more shame, no more condemnation, and that nothing we can do can add to or take away from the cross. But. There is cheap grace and there is costly grace. This is shown over and over in the gospels when Jesus invites people to follow Him. There is always a cost to the follower, whether it is selling all their belongings, leaving their occupations or families, or facing very real persecution. Remember that he said "So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:33) Grace is freely offered to all, yes, but it is not cheap. And much of the time, we treat it as cheap and therefore meaningless, and it prevents us from becoming true disciples of Christ.
Take my children, for example. This is a pretty typical scenario these days. When my daughter does something like hit her brother, we do the standard "you hurt your brother, tell him you're sorry", and a she'll offer up a halfhearted apology and run right along and keep playing. For a while this was happening constantly and finally I heard myself tell her, "it's not enough to just say sorry, you need to quit doing it!" Then I wondered if what I had said was right. Don't we teach that a simple confession is enough to receive forgiveness? How is obedience linked to grace?
Contrast that with my son. He is my no means a perfect child, but his tendency when he does something like hit his sister is to immediately start crying out "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm soooo sorry!" It takes me by surprise almost every time. I forgive both of the kids the same, of course, but the dynamic is different. I find that my heart is more soft toward my son in those moments because I see that he understands what he has done and he offers his apology without prompting from me. And I wonder what that might be telling me about God and grace.
Bonhoeffer says, "Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian 'conception' of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins... no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin."* My daughter tends toward cheap grace. She does not want to acknowledge her wrongdoing (I should confess that she gets this from me) so she glosses over it with a quick meaningless apology. Bonus points if she can deflect the blame to someone else so that it's really, really not her fault. She knows forgiveness will come anyway, so there is no real need to recognize her own guilt, much less actually try to do things differently. But if she loves me and trusts me to guide her on this journey to becoming a responsible adult, she will need to at some point get over her stubborn self and do what I ask of her.
When we're talking about our relationship to Jesus, this is pretty major. If we've declared that Jesus is our Lord, what does it say about that decision if we constantly refuse to change or acknowledge our own brokenness? This doesn't mean walking around with our head hung in shame, but we must recognize that God's grace is not cheap. It cost Jesus His own life, and in return He calls us to lay down our own lives. "In the gospels the very first step a man must take is an act which radically affects his whole existence."* This is no mere 'asking Jesus into your heart', this is costly grace. Obedience and submission are still A Thing, even though we've been granted this marvelous grace that pardons all our sins past and future. Actually BECAUSE we've been granted this marvelous grace then we realize that it is worth laying down anything we thought had value before, because it is all rags in comparison to the living God who loves us so.
* Bonhoeffer quotes taken from The Cost of Discipleship
Cheap grace is a doctrine made famous by my man Bonhoeffer. It's always been a slippery one for me to understand because when we decide to follow Christ and receive His grace, we are promised that there is no more shame, no more condemnation, and that nothing we can do can add to or take away from the cross. But. There is cheap grace and there is costly grace. This is shown over and over in the gospels when Jesus invites people to follow Him. There is always a cost to the follower, whether it is selling all their belongings, leaving their occupations or families, or facing very real persecution. Remember that he said "So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:33) Grace is freely offered to all, yes, but it is not cheap. And much of the time, we treat it as cheap and therefore meaningless, and it prevents us from becoming true disciples of Christ.
Take my children, for example. This is a pretty typical scenario these days. When my daughter does something like hit her brother, we do the standard "you hurt your brother, tell him you're sorry", and a she'll offer up a halfhearted apology and run right along and keep playing. For a while this was happening constantly and finally I heard myself tell her, "it's not enough to just say sorry, you need to quit doing it!" Then I wondered if what I had said was right. Don't we teach that a simple confession is enough to receive forgiveness? How is obedience linked to grace?
Contrast that with my son. He is my no means a perfect child, but his tendency when he does something like hit his sister is to immediately start crying out "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm soooo sorry!" It takes me by surprise almost every time. I forgive both of the kids the same, of course, but the dynamic is different. I find that my heart is more soft toward my son in those moments because I see that he understands what he has done and he offers his apology without prompting from me. And I wonder what that might be telling me about God and grace.
Bonhoeffer says, "Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian 'conception' of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins... no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin."* My daughter tends toward cheap grace. She does not want to acknowledge her wrongdoing (I should confess that she gets this from me) so she glosses over it with a quick meaningless apology. Bonus points if she can deflect the blame to someone else so that it's really, really not her fault. She knows forgiveness will come anyway, so there is no real need to recognize her own guilt, much less actually try to do things differently. But if she loves me and trusts me to guide her on this journey to becoming a responsible adult, she will need to at some point get over her stubborn self and do what I ask of her.
When we're talking about our relationship to Jesus, this is pretty major. If we've declared that Jesus is our Lord, what does it say about that decision if we constantly refuse to change or acknowledge our own brokenness? This doesn't mean walking around with our head hung in shame, but we must recognize that God's grace is not cheap. It cost Jesus His own life, and in return He calls us to lay down our own lives. "In the gospels the very first step a man must take is an act which radically affects his whole existence."* This is no mere 'asking Jesus into your heart', this is costly grace. Obedience and submission are still A Thing, even though we've been granted this marvelous grace that pardons all our sins past and future. Actually BECAUSE we've been granted this marvelous grace then we realize that it is worth laying down anything we thought had value before, because it is all rags in comparison to the living God who loves us so.
* Bonhoeffer quotes taken from The Cost of Discipleship
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