I’m sitting in the megachurch lobby again. On my right is a video kiosk repeating on a 30-second cycle the ubiquitous wordless vocal from Phil Phillips song “Home” (just turn on HGTV – it’ll be there on the next Home Depot commercial). On my left is the rockin’ “worship” of the 4th and 5th graders, as well as another video screen blasting the rockin’ “worship” of the grown-ups from inside the “sanctuary” that repels my soul these days. I’m inside a building supposedly dedicated to connecting with the God of the universe, and yet I can’t think straight because of all the cacophony. It’s just a giant audio blur, a din that beats against the brain and numbs my soul.
I have a choice whether or not to be here. That choice impacts my wife and children in various ways – some good, some bad. Being here is both a sacrifice and an endangerment. It’s just not simple anymore…even though the thinking and teaching here does indeed try to assert the simplicity and understandability of their position.
I usually look over the church bulletin when I arrive in order to get a feel for what I’ll probably choose to miss out on. Today it’s the beloved review of the end times based on the dispensational model the Plymouth Brethren forefather Darby created out of thin air in the mid 1800s. This was popularized among fundamentalists and evangelicals as “truth” in the Scofield Reference Bible, and then later reinforced by Hal Lindsay, Salem Kirban, and Tim LaHaye’s “Left Behind Series”.
It is the self-assured certainty from this relatively recent interpretation of scripture that causes brash teachers like Mark Driscoll to say that he drives an SUV because this planet is all going to burn up anyway so what does it matter if he contributes to its advanced destruction.
Rather than be caretakers of this planet – stewards like the mythical Adam and Eve – those who hold this interpretation of scripture are free to be rapacious jerks while absolving themselves of the evil. I am not at home here.
Whether or not this will all be burned up, I am not to live in fear or in wanton disregard of the planet.
Whether or not there is a one thousand-year reign of Jesus on a literal throne in Jerusalem with his followers acting as governors and mayors around the world, I am to treat others without anger, condemnation, or abuse.
Whether or not a single being known as The Antichrist is on the scene and about to wreak havoc through global domination and an ultimate Armageddon battle against the armies of God after having tortured and killed the followers of Jesus on the earth, I am to press on without fear, living in faith, hope, joy, and power as I choose to sacrifice my desires for the benefit of others and the expansion of the society of love founded by Jesus.
The speculation about the future is irrelevant. We are to be people of the NOW, the moment, the good that we can do while it is still today, amid the cacophony of the so-called “knowledge” being spouted weekly in multi-million dollar structures like the one I’m once again not at home in.
The Leap of Doubt 