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Accurate rapture flow chart

There's an inaccurate Rapture Flow Chart floating about the Internet. And while I don't believe Harold Camping's prediction that Jesus will return for Christians who await his Second Coming on Saturday May 21, 2011, I do believe he will return.

Here is my napkin-and-ink-pen flowchart for who will be raptured:

Click to see larger.

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Parable: A dead battery amid tornado debris

As I sat in church this past Sunday recharging my spiritual batteries, my truck battery was slowly dying.

I had left my headlights on. It was cloudy, so I turned them on, but I’m used to driving a vehicle that dings when you’ve left your lights on. The ’57 Chevy pickup doesn’t do that.

So when I hopped in and turned the key … nothing. I tried to jump it off, but it wouldn’t take a charge. So I pulled out the battery and headed to the nearby auto supply store. I swapped the old battery for a new one and headed back to the truck, hooked up the new battery and turned the key.

Still nothing.

This is the point at which I have to call my dad, who informs me I’m not getting a connection. I’ll need to clean off the contacts. But since I have no sandpaper handy I’ll have to try pushing it till I can get it rolling downhill and try to crank it in second gear.

While on the phone and messing around under the hood I noticed a car stopped. Great! Somebody’s going to help me!

No dice.

The passenger is taking a picture of me.

That just adds insult to injury, I thought, before realizing she was actually getting a shot of the house behind me that was home to a law office. It had most of its roof ripped off by the April 27 tornadoes that blasted through Alabama.

“Great,” I told Dad. “Now I’m in somebody’s picture of tornado damage under the hood of my truck, and they’ll paste it all over the Internet.” (I just did a search. Couldn’t find it.)

I hung up the phone and assessed the situation. I’d have to start pushing the hunk of steel up a slight incline before I got to the downgrade. Further, I’d have to go through a stop sign, so it would be best to time it when no one was coming.

Easy enough. It’s not a well-traveled street.

So I started pushing. Then let it roll back. Push a little farther, roll it back. I finally had it, and was ready to make my move. And, of course, a car was coming. I had to stop at the sign. And, of course, the car turned at my street rather than drive past – meaning I never needed to stop at all.

But by this point I was atop a hill, so far less pushing would get me rolling. And just at that moment an older man on a bicycle happened by. “Need a push?” he asked.

“Sure.”

We got it moving and VRRROOOM! It was running. Home I went.

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Should Christians Boycott Businesses That Don’t Think Like Us?

There was a big ruckus when I was in high school over Procter & Gamble supposedly being a company that gave some of its profits to the Church of Satan. I knew it was true because my cousin knew a guy who saw company officials admit it on “Phil Donahue.”

The story hinged on the company’s logo, a man in the moon with long flowing hair and beard that looked out onto 13 stars. The company denied any devil-worship – and has sued Amway multiple times over the past three decades for allegedly keeping the story alive.

The point some Christians latched onto was that buying products from a company that donated part of its profits to the Church of Satan was furthering the work of the enemy.

In the P&G case, evangelical apologist Bob Passantino, said that Christians risk discrediting their faith in the eyes of others with such behavior. “It's not just a stamp we're wasting. It's our credibility. Our credibility is on the line. People might think if Christians are stupid enough to fall for this falsehood, maybe early Christians were gullible enough to fall for the resurrection story.”

But the question remains: Are we wrong to knowingly give money to people who do things with it we find objectionable?

The Apostle Paul, though previously having told early Christians to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, wrote that he felt perfect freedom in doing so. Why? Because an idol isn’t really a god, and he gave thanks to the true God for providing the meat before he ate it. Whatever anybody else did or thought wasn’t his concern.

Well, to a point. He did note that people of his day should feel free to eat meat without asking where it came from – but if someone specifically told them it had been sacrificed to idols to leave it alone “for conscience sake.” And that wasn’t for your conscience, but for the other guy’s – so he wouldn’t think you were endorsing his idol.

So that seems to clear up one thing: If you buy a product and some of the profits go toward something objectionable – but you don’t know it – there’s nothing to worry about. But what if you do know about it?

There’s no real guideline here. But look at the opposite circumstance: preferring Christian-owned businesses over non-Christian ones. I’ve seen Christian business directories and ads and signs containing the icthus (Jesus fish) – but would God want me to prefer those companies over any other?

After all, Jesus was criticized by religious leaders for associating with sinners: IRS agents, whores. (So if you ever wore one of those wristbands asking “What Would Jesus Do?” – there’s your answer. And point of clarity: I am NOT saying you should “do business” with hookers.)

How will people who don’t know God’s love ever find it if someone doesn’t show it to them? If all the Christians in a community agree not to use Larry’s Transmission Shop because Larry doesn’t believe in God – or heaven forfend! – believes in a different god, poor Larry’s got no hope of ever meeting this God that all the good Christians talk up so much.

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Victoria Jackson's anti-gay statements are not following the Bible

Victoria Jackson, the Saturday Night Live actress turned outspoken Christian, has ticked several people off with her criticism of Fox TV's Glee for including a kiss between two male characters.

Jackson has been a Christian since the days she was on SNL in the late 1980s-early 1990s, reportedly once telling Al Franken, who had asked her why she looked downcast, that she was saddened that everyone else on the show was going to hell.

In an HLN interview (See video) defending her statements that homosexuality is a sin, Jackson repeatedly quoted the Bible, and held one up, saying, “Well, it doesn't matter what I think. What matters is what the Bible says."

One thing that it says is, "What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?" That's the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthains 5:12 (NIV). The context is that the church in Corinth was putting up with — and even celebrating — a man who was sleeping with his father's wife.

The apostle shamed them for this, continuing: "I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people — not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. "

Jackson isn't alone in her rants against the "secular humanism" and "liberal agenda" that are "destroying our country." Lots of Christians have gone before her. Lots will come after. Problem is, Christians are told specifically not to judge those outside the church. And if the makers of Glee are "outside the church"— as Jackson herself asserts — then the Christian Victoria Jackson has no business judging them. If another "inside the church" breaks Scripture, that's whom she's to correct. And if that person doesn't listen, she's not to associate with them.

I'm all for Christians trying to positively affect the culture, but it seems as though most of them are doing it by trying to make people who aren't Christians behave as if they are, which is clearly unscriptural, or they make schlock entertainment, such as the Left Behind books and movies.

Victoria Jackson once sat in a car with a cat at the wheel in a famous SNL skit. It drove her off the cliff. Now it's Jackson's misappropriation of Scripture at the wheel.

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Alabama Governor Robert Bentley stirs debate with Christian comments

Shortly after he was sworn in as Alabama's 53rd governor on Monday, Robert Bentley spoke at Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once served as pastor. He told the crowd, on the 25th anniversary of the federal holiday honoring King's birthday, that he is governor of all Alabamians regardless of party affiliation or color.

Then, reports The Birmingham News, he said something that raised eyebrows.

"There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit. But if you have been adopted in God's family like I have, and like you have if you're a Christian and if you're saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister.

''Now I will have to say that, if we don't have the same daddy, we're not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."

Birmingham Rabbi Jonathan Miller sent Bentley a note requesting a dialogue and inviting the newly sworn in chief executive to speak at his synagogue, Temple Emanu-El. Other Jewish and Muslim leaders expressed concern about Bentley's personal beliefs tainting his governing.

As an evangelical Christian, I agree with Bentley's statement, but not the way he delivered it.

The perception from those who don't share his and my faith can understandably be one that causes worry. One recent gubernatorial candidate in Alabama, Ten Commandments Judge Roy Moore, is among a group who seek to bring Christian rule to government (dominionism).* I don't believe Bentley is in that camp; he just chose to speak his beliefs at an inopportune time and without considering how they'd be heard by non-evangelicals.

The Apostle Paul and Jesus himself didn't say the same thing the same way to everyone. Jesus spoke in parables to crowds, then explained them to his inner circle -- and to us reading his words millennia later. He healed one man and told him not to tell anyone and healed another and told him to tell everyone.

Paul said he tried to be all things to all men so that by all possible means he might save some. When you are "governor of all the people," as Bentley had just said in his inauguration address that he is, you should state your beliefs in a method that won't put off large numbers of your constituents. It's easy for me to not fear Bentley wants to make Alabama an "evangelical state," but it isn't easy for non-evangelicals to not fear.

If the shoe were on the other foot, I, too, might fear.

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Photo: Alabama.gov

*Apologies for the Wikipedia reference, but it actually was the only objective piece on the subject I could find.

UPDATE: Bentley apologizes

Give back to the community?

It's the latest buzz phrase for urging civic responsibility: Giving back to the community.

It sounds good. After all, who is opposed to building a Habitat for Humanity house or volunteering at a shelter? Nobody would knock someone for helping teach an adult struggling with illiteracy to read. Still, something about the phrase has rubbed me the wrong way -- and I couldn't put my finger on why.

There's the shaming aspect of it: The community has given to you; it's you're responsibility to give back, and how dare you not do so? But that's not what bothered me. It was something else, and it was not until I was in church this morning that I figured it out.

"Now let us give back to God our tithes and offerings," the minister said as the collection plate was about to be passed.

And that was it: I wasn't offended to be told to "give back to God," but I was offended at "give back to the community."

It's not that I don't think "the community" has given me anything and that I don't want to give anything to it. Rather, it's the mindset. I like doing things to help others. I covet opportunities to do so. But I don't do it because I feel the community has done something for me and I, therefore, owe the community something back. I do it because God has given me everything I have -- loaned it to me, really -- and I want to use what he has given me to show his love and his face to others.

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Photo: U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration