An Open Letter to American Churches

"Is not this the fast I choose: releasing wicked restraints, untying the ropes of a yoke, setting free the mistreated, and breaking every yoke?

Isn't it sharing your bread with the hungry and bringing the homeless poor into your house, covering the naked when you see them, and not hiding from your own family?

Then your light will break out like the dawn, and you will be healed quickly.  Your own righteousness will walk before you, and the Lord's glory will be your rear guard.

Then you will call, and the Lord will answer.  You will cry for help, and God will say, "I am here!""

Isaiah 58:6-9

Hi, y'all.

It's me.  Eric.

I know you're probably struggling right now.  A lot of us are, including my church.

We want nothing more than to fill the pews on Sunday, so that people have a chance to praise God and hear His Gospel proclaimed.

But, if we're honest with one another, we want those pews to be filled with people who are mostly like us.

You know, people who are generally middle-class, with polite manners and proper etiquette, who know that church must include coffee and who can navigate even the thickest hymnal like a pro.

We forget that with growth inherently comes change.

As Christianity has grown, so too has Christianity changed.

More importantly, as the influence of God Himself has grown in the world, so too has that influence changed.

We used to hear God speaking to us through a burning bush, calling and redeeming an exiled murderer to become the liberator of God's children.

Now we claim to hear God speaking to us through a bishop who says that voting for a particular political party puts your eternal salvation at risk, or through the hundreds (if not thousands) of anger-led pastors participating in yet another "Pulpit Freedom Sunday."

What happened?

When did our salvation become dependent upon how we vote?

Instead...and I know this is a radical notion, even though it is fully in line with Scripture, why don't we agree that doing what God wants is what our salvation is dependent upon?

Because...in Scripture, that gets spelled out for us pretty well.

There's Micah 6:8, that says what God requires of us, is to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with him.

There's Matthew 22, where Jesus says that the two greatest commandments are to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind," and to "love your neighbor as yourself."

And there's the passage from Isaiah that begins this letter.

So maybe...just maybe...we get God's attention not so much by how we vote, but by actually living the values we purport to preach.

After all...if we live out the Gospel...if we are transformed by it and redeemed because of it and renewed for it, then we will, in fact, share our food with the hungry.

We will, in fact, share our shelter with the shelterless.

We will, in fact, share our lives and love with those who have known only hate and degradation.

And for that, Isaiah says, we will be forever healed.  We will, I believe, find salvation.  For when we cry out to the Lord, He will reply with what have to be three of the most assuring words of any language:

I.

Am.

Here.

How did this turn into my colleagues threatening you with your salvation over your vote?

Yours in Christ, from someone who believes in you,
Eric