Evangelical Court of Justice

Feb 26 (Reuters) – Jesus of Nazareth Makes a Surprise Appearance at the International Evangelical Court of Justice

Last month in two controversial decisions, an en banc meeting of the International Evangelical Court of Justice found two purported and self-proclaimed Muslim followers of Jesus guilty of heresy.

By a split 5-4 decision, Mahmoud Ahmed was found guilty of heresy for proclaiming Jesus as Messiah, but for failing to undertake ritual baptism.  Justice Smith of the Southern Baptist Convention wrote the dissenting opinion in which it was pointed out that it was theologically possible for an individual to submit to virtual baptism based upon desire, but only if such desire was characterized by at least three of the four indicia for reliability under the Weitzman Test.  The dissenting Justices concluded that not enough evidence was presented at trial to determine whether or not the test had actually been met.

The case of Muhammad Serfas was less controversial and decided by a more unified Court with a margin of 7-2.  Serfas also claimed to be a follower of Jesus, but questioned the full divinity of Jesus.  Defense counsel presented historical evidence chronicling the Church’s 2000 year struggle to understand, define and develop a coherent theology of the Trinity.  Writing for the majority, Justice Radcliff concluded that though the historical evidence was interesting, it was not dispositive and that the doctrine of the Trinity had been well-settled in numerous post-enlightenment systematic theology texts and as such Serfas had actual and constructive notice of his sin.

This morning however, at the combined sentencing of Ahmed and Serfas were each faces either life imprisonment or the death penalty, Jesus of Nazareth made a surprise appearance to testify as a character witness on behalf of the defendants.  He noted that he was born to an impoverished family in occupied lands, hunted from birth, and though completely innocent, he was adjudged guilty and then killed by the empire and religious authorities of his day in the most painful and humility fashion yet devised by man.  Jesus stated that he had not only served his sentence, but the sentence of Ahmed and Serfas.  In what can only be described as riot type conditions, the Court demanded that Jesus offer proof of his identity.  As silence fell upon the courtroom, Jesus held out his hands, took off his shoes, rolled up the cuffs of his pants and then raised his shirt to reveal where he had been pierced for our transgressions.

The courtroom erupted again, this time with cheers and taunting.  After a short and hasty conference, Chief Justice Porter ordered the bailiffs to arrest Jesus and charged him with contempt of court.  He was handcuffed and whisked out of the courtroom for fear that his disciples might once again take up arms against the state.

Jesus is now being held pending official charges by the International Evangelical Conference prosecutor for blasphemy and apostasy, the highest crimes under the Committee’s Constitution.

Jesus and Non-Violence

The other day a friend posed this question:  Is non-violence a viable strategy to reach Muslims for Jesus?

The answer lies in my experience, which shattered long held prejudices and suggested something entirely different…

For five brief, but powerful days I found myself in Saudi Arabia talking to Muslims about one thing – non-violence and Jesus.  Yeah, yeah…that sounds like two things, but that’s my point – they are one. Without exception, everyone I met in Jeddah engaged in conversations about non-violence and the teachings of Jesus. However, the Muslims I know and love either question or flatly reject the death and resurrection of Jesus as a historical event and struggle to grasp our western Christian concept of vicarious atonement. Initially, I found myself deeply conflicted and inexplicably set upon correcting their theology until I realized that this isn’t even my theology! Is Jesus more concerned with a correct set of theological beliefs or with commitment to him? Perhaps making disciples of Muslims, as well as Christians, Jews, Hindu’s, Buddhists and others means a commitment to non-violence, to the teachings of Jesus and ultimately to God.  Do I simply explain the life, death and resurrection of Jesus in theological terms or is there something much more powerful, much simpler at play?  Perhaps Jesus didn’t come to change God’s idea about humanity, but to change humanity’s idea about God?

Centuries of violence and untold suffering has resulted from our attempts to define Jesus of Nazareth in theological terms, but he came and turned all our notions of God, all our notions of power and all our religious rituals on their head.  You’ve heard it said…but I say love your enemies!  This dictate to love even our enemies was the inauguration of the Kingdom of God on earth that Jesus proclaimed.  He didn’t leave us with idle prophetic utterings, but he died—not  only for his friends, but so that his enemies and our enemies would become his friends and our friends, that we would be one, so that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in Heaven.  It is only when we adopt the love of God and a willingness to admit that it is better to be killed than to kill, that we actually allow ourselves to be disciples of Messiah Jesus.  Non-violence is not a doctrine one accepts, but a commitment to the golden rule and a complete and total submission to our Creator.  We don’t simply make declarations of peace, but we fight for our neighbor–the oppressed, the poor, the broken.  The goal of our relationships to family, friends and even enemy are forever transformed.

So is non-violence a viable strategy to reach Muslims for Jesus or is it something entirely other?  My suggestion is that we set aside our strategies, submit ourselves to God and let our hearts be transformed by the love, mercy and presence of God which interrupted history some 2000 years ago and culminated in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

The question I now pose:  How does this privileged, white, oil and gas attorney sitting safely behind his desk move from his own theology of non-violence to enactment?

Shu Takeyama and the Atomic Bomb Part II – Blood Stains the Rising Sun

From the earliest moments of my childhood I was fascinated with war. Whether I was building a fort, recreating the glorious battles of old with plastic army men or simply daydreaming, I longed for the heroics of battle. The summers of my youth were spent in the jungles of our local creeks as we waged war with machetes and BB guns.

Where does this desire for battle come from? Is there something innate within my soul or are my collected experiences and surroundings responsible for embedding these images in my young mind?

One other memory from my youth, almost as powerful as that of war, was of the man Jesus of Nazareth. In childlike faith I remember trusting in him with a total abandonment that seems a complete impossibility for the man I now know myself to be. At age four I recall the fateful moment that my foothold gave way and I broke my arm while attempting to find my birthday present high atop my parents closet. In the midst of my agony and while desperately trying to avoid the doctor’s setting of my crooked arm I confidently assured him that I was not in need of his services that day –Jesus would heal me.

What strikes me now is how incompatible I find these powerful forces that were at work in the heart and mind of my youth. For almost fifteen years I lived with this apparent contradiction between the thirst for the glory of war and the love of a Palestinian Jew who lived some two thousand years ago.

I would like to be able to say that in studying the life of Jesus I came to understand what he meant be directing us to “love our enemies,” but it was rather a blood stained Japanese flag and Shu Takeyama that revealed to me the unconditional and liberating love Jesus had spoken of.

For many years the most treasured relic from my grandfather was a small blood-stained Japanese flag he removed from a fallen soldier. I never knew my grandfather. He died many years before I was born from an illness he contracted during the war. I suspect however that he knew something of the horror of war—things he would never share with his own children—things he would never want them to know.

Several years ago my grandmother revealed to my father some of what my grandfather endured during his time in the Philippines. While some men’s experience of the war was tempered by the distance modern weapons afford, my grandfather’s experience was like that of countless men. In foxholes and trenches my grandfather fought for his life in close combat with bayonet attached. Had he killed the man from whom he removed the flag? Did his bayonet, the one in my father’s dresser, draw the blood that decorates the symbol of the rising sun?

This past Christmas my father and I sorted through my grandfather’s military records and we found something quite surprising. It seems my grandfather had been awarded a Bronze Star for bravery in a combat zone. You may ask, what is so surprising about this discovery? The answer is simply that we never knew. Not only was it never displayed, but it was never found. I suspect that my grandfather’s silence and the absence of this 4th highest military award speaks deeply of his experience in war.

Perhaps in the midst of battle he came to understand what my friendship with Shu would reveal over four decades later. I don’t remember the day or the hour that Shu and I discovered that our grandfather’s had both fought in the Philippines, but I will never forget how the picture of the blood-stained flag raced through my mind and how an invisible bayonet pierced the violence in my own heart that day.

You see, in the not so distance past the very DNA that ran through Shu and I was poised to destroy one another in defense of American and Japanese nationalism.

Once again, it was the love of my friend, a man from another race that revealed to me what Jesus of Nazareth meant when he said “Love your enemies.”

Sun god

Where is the sun god in the simmering summer after the September before?

I search in secluded sanctuaries amongst the philosophers spouting theories

of enemies and terrors raging against the boundaries of my country ‘tis of thee.

I pound the steamy roads of brick or asphalt that lead to downtown cafes

where people pound down the elixir meant to numb the memory of the September

or tragedies since felt by deaths or divorce or dying or crying out of any

lost memories worth living for– where is the sun god in this simmering summer?

Looking I am confused and bemused at the periodical publications hailing

the misery of the age. Companies tumbling toward the market crash of yesterday’s

folklore when lines formed for soup and gangsters were the stuff of stories

still written. Where is the sun god when we need him to comfort and sooth our

splintered nerves? We would bow and pay you homage or maybe only apply

the liquid screen to filter you out. We might blast ourselves with informationless

hype from a world wide web of confusion and delusion and still we might

seek our only sun god———Maybe it’s a sun God we seek.

Toss the paper without news away. Give the vision on your widescreen

or small screen a lift down from its exalted status. Lift up only the sought after.

If you seek the fiery ball of light that warms you in summer and lights your

way in the winter of discontent, then know it’s not God’s sun that will guide you

except for you to see what has always been seen.

Look to the mountaintop. Forage through the dark to find the only truth; search your

heart to find the comfort of all seasons. Seek not sun gods. Seek God’s Son.

Shu Takeyama and the Atomic Bomb

October 5, 2008

Shu Takeyama died on October 11, 2002 from internal injuries caused by an accident on his beloved Ducati motorcycle.  He was one of my closest friends.  He was my brother.

Perhaps our friendship was somehow fated or ordained.  As a child, Japan was always near my heart.  I was fascinated by every aspect of Japanese life and culture. And somehow it became a part of my story – A story that started with an earlier generation.  As newlyweds, my parents moved to Japan in October of 1972, where my father worked as a Russian linguist in the United States Navy at Atsugi Naval Air Station until the Fall of 1974.  As an unborn child I spent my life from conception until about 8 months of age on the Japanese mainland and have often joked that I was “Made in Japan.”

I always looked up to Shu and over the years I tried to imitate him in so many ways.  He was great triathlete, a gifted mathematician and a compassionate friend.  During high school his house was my other home.  His parents were always welcoming and his mother continually lavished the finest Japanese cuisine upon an unsuspecting Okie.  I would often ask what I was eating and his father would laugh gently and explain that there was no translation in English.  Later through college and in the years that followed Shu would spend Christmas Eve with my family because he was our family.

Shu and I traveled a lot together in those early days, competing in triathlons and spending many late nights discussing the issues nearest to our hearts.  For years I desperately sought to convince him that my God was worthy of worship.  He continually rebuffed my best apologetics, adamantly demanding to know how my God could condone the use of the atomic bomb on his homeland.  In retrospect, all I offered were empty platitudes and a final retort that it was his country that was the initial aggressor.  Though Shu moved to the United States in middle school and had a genuine love for this country, he never saw himself forgiving America for the two final acts of World War II.  For him the evil of the atomic bomb was inextricably linked to the Christian religion.

And then something happened…

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Dear President-Elect Obama

November 4, 2008

The Honorable Senator And
President-Elect Barack Obama
713 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington D.C., 20510

Dear President-Elect Obama:

We have no reason to think this letter will ever it make it before your own eyes, other than perhaps because of the message it contains.  We have no prescriptive policy advice for you or legislation we deem essential.  Our only hope is to encourage what we already believe resides in your heart.

This election has seen stark shifts in traditional voting blocks, many of our friends and family believe that our vote for you is an endorsement of the worst evils and a desire to see the end of American freedom – whatever that may mean.

Though political rhetoric, fear, racism, lies and half-truths were likely present in the contests of the past, our generation has never lived through one marked by such ever-present fear and tension.  Over the past few months we have come to understand that the seemingly incipient racism we have witnessed was in fact always there – somewhere beneath the surface, but always there.  With each passing day the deluge of unrelenting emails would appear — castigating you as a Muslim, a Demagogue or even the anti-christ.  We believe that God is asking something different of us all.  He is asking us to forgive, to love our enemies and to go forward in our wealth, helping the broken and poor.

On behalf of ourselves and for friends who have unwittingly bought into this ideology of hate and fear we offer our deepest apologies and ask your forgiveness.

Now we ask, how can we encourage you?  Perhaps one of the most telling stories of the nature of God contained within the Bible or any other religious tradition is the narrative of Samuel seeking to anoint the second King of Israel.  Here is Samuel, God’s prophet and the most revered man in all of Israel, trying to determine which son of Jesse is to be anointed King.  Despite being trained by God to hear his voice and having been granted wisdom beyond compare – Samuel still stumbles.  Instead of seeing these potential candidates as God sees them, he looks to their outward appearance, focusing on their physical stature and charisma.  In one of the most powerful, yet kind rebukes in all of scripture God tells Samuel that he sees not as man sees, but that God looks at the heart of a man.

As our President you will face greater challenges of conscience than most men or women could possibly conceive in their wildest imaginations.  Your decisions will affect billions of people, sometimes for good and sometimes not.  Like Samuel you will stumble.  What we ask of you and what we hope tens-of-thousands will ask of you by endorsing this letter is that you let your heart be your guide.

While many of us believe that abortion is evil, we also believe that war, torture and the poverty of body and soul are equally evil.  Our hope is that we can work together, stepping across partisan, religious and doctrinal lines to address the pressing issues of our age – not with laws, but with human action. We expect this to be a costly endeavor, one which will require us to change dramatically how we live our lives.  In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus of Nazareth gave us a glimpse into the very character of God.  Through his birth, his life, his teachings and his death he offered us an alternative to the hate, fear and destruction contained within each of us.  In response, let us go forward and rebuild the places we have bombed.  Let us go forward and provide education and hope in the places that poverty and hopelessness continue to reign.  Let us go forward not with our own understanding, but with the hope that God has deposited in all our hearts.

We believe that God has deposited this hope within you.  We look to you and ask once again that you let your heart be your guide.  Our hope is not in the governments of our day, nor is our hope in you – our hope is in God alone.  It is with this hope that we offer our hearts to you in friendship and we affirm the words of John F. Kennedy, Jr. spoken to his fellow citizens of the world: “ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

Our prayers are with you.

Political Thoughts For a Church in Flux

Election day is quickly approaching and everyone wants to know who everyone else is voting for. But most people don’t really want to know who you are going to vote for — instead most seem to have preconceived notions about you and the boxes they think you fit in to. That’s the funny thing about our system — we have a limited number of boxes (two if we’re being honest) and we seem to inherit our stances more than anything else (from family, social groups, etc). Most of the time this is ok with people; it doesn’t seem that many take the time to seriously check up on who and/or what they support, towing the company line — so to speak — instead. It’s certainly easier that way. And it certainly explains all of the distortions, half-truths and outright lies being passed off as absolute truth.

This “box” situation changed for me after the last presidential election. Truth be told — the aftermath of that election made me cynical about our whole political process; I began to question it from the ground up (paying particularly close attention to the boxes I found myself in). From the get go, things I was seeing from elected officials didn’t add up (particularly considering the platforms I thought they had run on). And more important than all of that, the Holy Spirit was convicting me about the positions I thought were important thereby forcing a reevaluation of everything. It was back to the drawing board at this point; conviction required throwing off the (republican) mantle I grew up rooted in; it was time to look at the world through new, Kingdom eyes.

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How I Became a Muslim on September 11, 2001

Dear friends:

I became a Muslim on September 11, 2001.  I know that this is a strange statement, a very strange statement indeed, but please bear with me while I explain what I mean.  As you read below you will see that my life was a bit out of control on that day.  My perspective on that dreadful day was vastly different than that of most Americans.  I am in no way condoning the events that transpired that day and I believe that God fully felt our pain.  What I am suggesting is that we question whether our response and the response of our nation in the days, weeks and months that followed glorified a crucified Jesus.

The morning of September 10, 2001 seemed just like any other morning and I awoke to a promising future.  I had just begun my second year of law school.  I had a beautiful home near the college campus that I had restored with my own hands.  There was a woodshop in the basement, a study filled with books of knowledge and an adoring wife by my side.  Later that day however, my adoring wife, flew a plane loaded with her hurt, bitterness and fear into the towers of my heart – towers I had built upon the false hope of security, accumulation and the American Dream.  She would never return.  In the midst of this smoldering wreckage I sat helpless and desperate for the touch of a God in whom I hardly believed.

That day, a man—now one of my dearest friends— asked me if I wanted to join him the next morning for his daily prayer with God.  So on the morning of September 11, 2001, I walked through the darkness and dew covered grass to a small building behind my friend’s house.  For the next hour I witnessed for the first time that a man could not only pray to God, but also commune and talk with God as a man talks with his friend.  At the end of our time, my friend looked into my eyes with the piercing power of the love of Jesus and told me that he could not promise me happiness, but that if I would submit myself to God I would find joy. Then and there I decided that if I wanted to truly live I had to submit my whole life to God.

In Arabic, “Muslim” simply means, “submitted to God.”  So, in some strange way, in the very moment that misguided men flew planes loaded with hurt, bitterness and fear into the Twin Towers – I submitted myself to God and, in a sense, became a “Muslim.”

No longer could I pledge my allegiance to America or to the “Christian” institution under which I believed my beloved nation had been formed.  My allegiance was to the man Jesus.  I was and am now a man without a country.  What I found, was that in losing my national and religious identity, I had discovered my identity in God.  No longer did I have enemies, but now as a follower of Jesus the whole of the brotherhood of man had become my neighbors and friends.  God showed me that only in the place of full repentance and forgiveness could I truly live.  The story of God is the story of God with us.  The history of humankind is filled with stories of men and women who chose to forgive and love the very ones that sought their harm.  These stories are not only meant to be examples for us all, but they are the promise of our future.  A future in which Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindu’s and others set aside their respective religions and embrace each other in love and simply answer the call to follow Jesus.

The other day as I spoke to a friend about the non-violent Jesus of the Gospels, he simply responded that we lived in a fallen world, thus perhaps justifying our response to the 9/11 attacks.  I suppose the teachings of Jesus may seem a bit altruistic and even a bit naïve, but is it not the very power of God that reveals the naivety of man?

So, I ask us today, on this the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, to submit ourselves to God.  Let us go forth in the example of Jesus Christ and not only reconcile ourselves to the Muslim world, but seek true friendship.  Let us seek their forgiveness for our failure to love and bless those to whom we looked with enmity in our hearts.  My challenge today is that you find a charity or organization that is working to rebuild the places we’ve bombed and offer your money and your heart in the spirit of Jesus and let us build a world in which our children live as friends and neighbors with the nations of the world.

Blessings, shalom, salaam aleykum

Andrew

A Vision on Missionary Ridge

May 4, 2008 – Durango, Colorado

About 7 miles and 2500 feet of climbing from my house is a ridge that was the site of a very large forest fire in Durango about 6 years ago.  I rode my bike up there last fall and was struck by its desolate beauty.  I had planned for some time to take a long ride along the road.  In the end, though, I really just wanted to hear God speak.  So, I opted for a shorter mountain bike ride to leave ample time for some rest and reflection.  I hopped on my bike and rode uphill for about 45 minutes until I reached the gate that warned of the inherent dangers of entering the burn area. I continued past the gate for sometime and then, almost immediately as I entered the beginning of the burn area, I felt God say, “Andrew, you were once a burned-out forest.”  I was floored. I love it when He speaks and turns the ordinary into something extraordinary, confirming what my heart and His Spirit were inwardly telling me.

When I got to the top of the ridge I surveyed my surroundings and felt like this site represented the western church, or at least the church I grew up in.  The individual burned trees seemed to represent “mature” believers that had succumbed to the worries and distractions of this life, which lead “imperceptibly to death”.  But something amazing was happening.  The forest floor was now teeming with new life.  Young saplings were thriving everywhere.  I don’t know whether the saplings represent my generation or my daughters, but I saw in them God’s promise for the future of his Church.  I wondered whether I was a sapling or a burned tree.  Suddenly I realized it didn’t matter what I was because I knew God was going to bring new life to those old burned trees, in the same way He breathed life and gave movement to a valley of dry bones.

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An Open Letter to Break Silence

Dear friends:

For the past many weeks we have been bombarded with political advertisements, mass emails and forwards which plead with us to cast our votes for a particular candidate.  More often than not, the writers, politicians and various political action committees play upon our worst fears to illicit our valued vote.

In the midst of this deluge of political pleading for our attention, I am writing to ask something of you.  I am not writing to ask that you support a particular candidate or a particular position.  I am not asking that you vote Democrat or Republican.  What I am asking is this: will you vote out of hope?

For years I have been struggling to reconcile the principles and teachings of the man Jesus with the Christian values I so fervently believed growing up.  I asked myself, do the principles and teachings of Jesus apply solely to individuals or do they apply equally to nations?  Finally, some 18 years later, I have run out of excuses.  I no longer can claim to be the “realistic optimist” I once was.  No longer can I profess to believe in clever theological arguments which, when seen in light of human history and when evaluated from the heart, seem so empty.

When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. broke his silence and came out affirmatively against the Vietnam War he simply stated: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.”  I believe that the time has come for us.

So, will you join others of like minds and respond to the resounding echo of Dr. King’s words to break our silence?  Will you write your congressman and ask him or her to adhere to the principles and teachings of Jesus as they make decisions that so powerfully affect the world?  Will you ask them to follow the radical life changing principles he so clearly announced in his Sermon on the Mount?

Hundreds of letters to your United States Representative will go unnoticed.  Thousands will not.  Thousands of letters to your United States Senator will go unnoticed.  Tens of Thousands will not.  Do not tell them what you are against, but speak to them about what you are for.  Tell them not to go forward in violence, but to go forward in peace and humility.  In our physical wealth let us address the poverty and brokenness of the human condition both here and abroad.  Let us spend twice the money we spent on bombs, and rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq.  Let us seek to love our neighbor as ourselves by reaching out in a spirit of reconciliation to our Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and Atheist brothers and sisters.

Whether you believe the man Jesus is a historical anomaly, a great teacher, a prophet of old or whether you profess him to be Lord, his teachings are just as relevant today as they were some two thousand years ago.

Below are links where you can find the address and name of your United States congressmen.

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml

Andrew