I wrote the blog Truth or Trump in 2019. The premise was that Christians frequently invalidate their witness via their engagement with mammon. I illustrated how we all are subject to ideological, economic, and political manipulation via propaganda. Some are more prone to manipulation than others.
I have begun reconciling with one of my children who deconstructed and walked away from the faith in favor of leftist ideology. I say reconcile because I am guilty of viewing him through the lens of accusation and offense that characterizes so many “left versus right” debates. I called him a Marxist. He implied that I was a Fascist. At the end of the day all of our debates were rooted in the right to control “stuff” Karl Marx and bankers call it capitol.
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
1 Timothy 6:10
Nothing has really changed since the last election. The Donald is hyperbolically talking about 500 and 1000 percent tariffs on China, which produces most of our stuff, but apparently is charging too much for stuff we want. There are tariffs on NATO countries because they don’t pay their fair share for the weapons that protect our stuff from people we might need to kill because they want to take our stuff. Left and Right square off over who has the right to do what. Arguments are often framed as compassion for minorities and the underprivileged versus the rule of law and or the righteousness of God. At the end of the day, it always comes down to the allocation of stuff. Some are angry because immigrants without stuff risk their lives for the opportunity to get stuff. We should give them stuff because they don’t have stuff. Americans are mad because people without stuff are taking stuff from those who claim they have more rights to stuff because they were born in the land of plenty of stuff. The unspoken implication is that God demonstrates His preference for people via stuff.
At one point amidst our ideological jousting, my son posted a meme of Donald Trump immediately after he was shot. It expressed regret that the shooter had missed. I became offended and I blocked him for a few days. I had succumbed to the very media manipulation I claimed to oppose.
Woe to me! Luke 17:1-4
It occurs to me that one of the greatest threats within the body of Christ in the last days is,
“And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.”
Matthew 24:12
Lawlessness is looting and violence. The very first murder resulted from a dispute over whose stuff was better. Genesis 4 I’ve always emphasized “lawlessness” in my understanding of Mathew 24. Then I recognized that my love for my own son was growing cold because I regarded his worldview as lawless. Those who departed were never with us, 1 John 2:19 I reasoned. That lawlessness will increase is a pure matter of fact. It will not be rectified until The Day of the Lord. Jesus was warning against becoming loveless due to our unmet expectations of others.
Long story short, things came to a head and we started dealing with the root of our anger and frustration that we had been projecting onto media narratives.
Today I am listening and seeking to understand more than being understood.
The reason I mention it here is that I’ve been meditating on the fellowship the body of Christ seeks to cultivate. Biblical Fellowship is koinōnía – the share which one has in anything, intercourse, intimacy. I’m asking the Lord to reveal the root cause of what is preventing true koinōnía and the unity of the faith. Ephesians 4:11-14
I’ve been reading a book my son recommended that has helped to shape his post-deconstruction worldview. It is a book that I previously wouldn’t have touched with a ten-foot pole because its author is an admitted leftist. Reconciliation and understanding in my relationship with my son were my purpose. But the Lord is using it to answer my original question.
As it turns out, the book is well-sourced and solidly rooted in research. To paraphrase Henry Kissinger, history, as most of us know it, is the history of the winner, which is the state. The difference in Zinn’s work is that history is framed from the perspective of the losers, or what some Christians errantly call “the least of these” today. Zinn said his point is not to grieve for the victims and denounce the executioners… Victims, themselves desperate and tainted with the culture that oppresses them, turn on other victims. While not mentioned by Zinn, the history of the church, especially the English Reformation, is a perfect example. The words of Isaiah and Paul began to echo in my mind as I read. “No one is righteous, not one…” And Micah,
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
Micah 6:8
Zinn quotes,
“The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don’t listen to it, you will never know what justice is.”
Page 10
The first chapter covers the indigenous Haitians whom Christopher Columbus abused and murdered in the name of Jesus for gold, based on the God given authority granted to him in Romans 13. Adolf Hitler also cited Romans 13.
“Didn’t the first Christians share everything they had?” asked my son. “As a matter of fact, they did,” I said. It’s probably no coincidence that we are hitting on this very topic in our Bible study this week.
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Acts 2:42-47
Awe is Phobeo – terror, the Greek word from which the English word phobia is derived. More on fear in a bit
Political ideologies and historical narratives aside, money and possessions are always the root cause of love growing cold. It frequently manifests first in a loss of trust. This loss may be engendered by miscommunication, conflicting viewpoints regarding how something should be done, or spent, or genuine greed or malice. The accuser of the brethren then presents us with categories into which we divide ourselves. The accuser in Revelation 12:10 is katēgoréō in Greek from which we get the English word category. We are leftists, fascists, Marxist millennials, boomers, right-wing extremists, white supremacists, lawyers, plaintifs, and accused…
“You were trusted but you didn’t meet my expectations. Now you are untrusted!”
Distrust then manifests as fear. Fear of being duped, which in turn is fear of losing control, leads us to question our discernment. When our discernment is in question we can’t even trust ourselves. So we bear down and become more guarded against categories of people we imagine will take our freedom, our stuff, and our illusions of control. Others do the same. It is within the context of the preservation of stuff and control of it that our limbic system and amygdala interpret stuff as self and self-preservation becomes paramount.
“Oh no! They aren’t doing that to me! They’re not getting my stuff!” We say.
Lawfare and warfare are the end result
Hence, we keep coming back to the first step toward freedom as believers.
Deny self. Mathew 16:24
It’s easy to point the finger at the world and say, “What do you expect? It’s the world.” But Christians and Christian ministries are often no different. Sometimes they are worse. They might begin in sincere obedience to the Lord. Then their love grows cold as projects, buildings, supplies, positions, agendas, and capital to purchase and run it all overwhelm the original vision. People step on the proverbial toes of others and kick others to the curb in the name of countering any opposition to their agenda, which they have mistaken for God’s will. Like proverbial empty beer cans thrown in the trash when drained, we watch burned-out workers and volunteers disappear like silhouettes into a sunset, never breathing their names again. Victims of emotional and spiritual abuse are gaslit and dismissed in Jesus’ name, which has become synonymous with a given ministry, church corporation, or mission. Glorified self and personal pride are projected onto God as genuine moves of God are supplanted by fundraising as we market the God of our “stuff” ridden agendas in Jesus’ name.
The church ceases to be a spiritual society when it is on the lookout for the develoment of its own organization.
-Oswald Chambers-
-My Utmost for His Highest-
I served a ministry run by a guy I’ll call FP for over a decade. He began by pulling homeless and trafficked Honduran children off the gang-ridden streets of Comayagua. It was a beautiful thing. But building a home for kids without stuff in a foreign country without stuff was harder than FP expected. As time went on the children became marketing tools for their own provision. I was the video-producing marketer. “If I build it they will come”, he’d say. There were about twenty kids at first. FP prophesied there would be three thousand people living in his refuge. The actual number maxed out at eighty.
Construction on one building would begin until they ran out of money. So FP began “robbing Peter to pay Paul”. He’d advertise plans for another building. That money would, in turn, be used to complete the first project. The chain continued, and a miniature Ponzi scheme was born in Jesus’ name. The bigger the Ponzi scheme got the more weight FP had upon his shoulders. He began traveling 360 days per year as an itinerant Preacher/ prophet. A salesman by trade, FP had mastered the appeal to the love of self in others. “I see you going on a mission trip to Honduras!” he’d prophecy to the wealthy middle-aged women with low self-esteem. They would invariably weep because God had seen them and called them to missions. Oh, the significance!!
Then they’d write a check.
“The end justifies the means.” Said FP
“I’m saving children’s lives!”
Some people saw through the chicanery and began to confront him. “You don’t like how I’m doing it? Well, I don’t like how you’re not doing it! He bit back. That’s when image management became the priority. “Don’t touch God’s anointed!” FP’s wife, TP, warned. Of course, FP had his public relations henchmen, one of whom was me, to guard his reputation. “I’m his armor bearer!” I’d proudly proclaim. After all, I was helping to build a system to save orphans for God!! There is a website with myriad people calling FP out for abuse and false prophecy. I am all over it, anonymously defending the man who, at the time, I truly believed was the real deal. In truth, I was blind to the fact that I was falling for the same appeal to self.
“Your videos probably raised a million dollars!” He’d say.
Oh, the significance of me!!
“I didn’t know you thought like that,” Cathy says. “Neither did I.” Pride is blinding. We rarely see it clearly in ourselves except in retrospect after we have repented.
I’m not sure if FP’s depravity increased over time or if God simply opened my eyes. But we had to part ways because the spiritual abuse and deception became too much to ignore. There were points along the way where I thought the growing conflict between us would turn physical. FP had a violent temper and he saw no reason to repent. For a while, I thought it was my job to convince him to repent. Yet the Lord was after my repentance. I knew my time with FP was done. But the Lord would not release me while I remained in active offense. I remember standing in the chapel above the Refuge in Honduras we’d helped to build when I was prompted by the Lord to pick up two stones. I heard in my mind “You can throw them at FP and be just like him. Or you can release him to me and I will release you.” Weeping, I dropped the stones and forgave. A month later we moved to the mountains. That was six years ago.
Back to Acts 2
I suspect that the economic selflessness described in Acts 2 is not a picture of a system of economics to be implemented by the church in fulfilment of a Seven Mountains Mandate to change the world. Neither do I believe it is a purposeful rejection of capitalism in favor of Socialism and Communism as liberation / social gospel adherents assert. I don’t believe the newborn church in Acts 2 sold all their possessions to care for the poor because they pitied them. Rather they relinquished ownership of their stuff because they realized that no one on earth owns anything. Economic freedom begins with a clear understanding that God is the owner and provider of everything. The freedom and power to relinquish material possessions and the accompanying illusions of control only come with genuine and utter dependence on Him. That dependence is never a product of mere desperation. Rather, it is a product of absolute trust. That trust results in peace beyond understanding as it whispers,
“I know that I know that my Father will provide all that I need.”
Given that stuff seems to be the root driving force behind all politically powered lawfare and warfare, in and out of the church, it makes sense that God would begin the first church with the renunciation of all attachments to stuff. I suspect the fear of God that came upon the believers at Pentecost was the catalyst that initially fueled their detachment from stuff. The koinōnía that empowered the Acts 2 Church to fulfill its call is not possible amidst our obsession with the stuff of self-gratification. The freedom from self manifested in stuff and the control of it was the soil in which the teachings of the Apostles could come to life. They had the revelation that they were a family. Then
God, (not themselves) added to their number every day.
The reconciliation of all of God’s children – all of Abraham’s descendants, both Issac and Ishmael, is the ministry of reconciliation to which all in Christ are called. 2 Corinthians 5:16-21
As we will see, the early church fell on brutally hard times filled with suffering and persecution. Every Apostle was tortured and or martyred. Hence, I suspect the model presented in Acts 2 is not a method for economic altruism, let alone individual comfort, peace, and prosperity. Rather it was and is vital preparation for the endurance that was and is required for the coming days.
And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
Mathew 24:12-13
By the way, the featured images are not of lawless leftists or Neo Nazis wreaking havoc in the streets, but Philadelphia Eagles fans rioting over a football game that their team won.
