This is a copy of a letter from me to a friend who had encouraged me to read the book Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebelious World, by Lee Camp. Some of the text has been edited for reasons of a personal nature, as this was a personal letter. Incidentally, I have since taken my decision and you are reading it on this web log.
Scott, Lee Camp employs Jesus’ example and teaching, and carries them to the logical conclusion.
This philosophy is a tough sell to anyone who is currently alive, or is likely to be alive any time soon, in our physical world.
There is a disconnect for disciples of Christ to espouse the doctrine of “Trust God, but buy insurance.”
This is the same thing that Lee Camp is demanding that we re-evaluate.
If we trust God, then we need only God.
If we buy insurance in order to underwrite ourselves against “Acts of God”, then we make a very loud and profound statement to the world about our trust in Him.
If we trust God, but carry guns, it is the same thing. The guns are an insurance policy against God or “Acts of God.”
As Christian political leaders take decisions about defense of local, state, & national interests, they will be placed in very difficult position of where their allegiance should rest.
Is the allegiance to “The Kingdom of Heaven” or is it to “One Nation Under God?”
You admitted that you struggle with the logical conclusion of Brother Lee Camp’s doctrine of pacifism.
But, guess what, this the exact same struggle that President Bush finds himself in.
You simply cannot fathom the extent of the world’s influence on a man who sits in the highest seat of carnal power.
satan must bring all his forces to bare on such men as these, because if they prove faithful to Christ, then satan’s tools, e.g. fear, rage, vengeance, hate, will become impotent. People will see that these carnal things are the weaker power.
There is so much to this, that it really disturbs me.
Christian men and women are seeking political offices every two years and they are often ill equipped to handle the forces of darkness that will be brought to bear against them.
I feel for them and I can imagine myself in “their shoes” and it sobers me up.
When we don’t truly count the cost of discipleship, i.e. absolute, utter, and complete surrender to Christ, then we leave a gapping hole in our armor, just over our heart. satan will exploit our neglect and we may bring dishonor, by our faithlessness, to Jesus.
Scott, I think that we concur, but that doesn’t make submission to God any easier.
Knowing what’s right and doing what’s right are not the same, and satan exploits this fact every minute of every day.
DSM
p.s. This book is forcing me to count the cost. Decisions, decisions, decisions….
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I will search for my part in that exchange for posting- as our dialogue has been life changing for both of us. Until then, check out these thoughts I discovered in the same vein. Its powerful stuff.
The Cross Is a Radical Thing
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Excerpt from A. W. Tozer
source: http://www.acts17-11.com/snip_tozer_cross.html
The cross of Christ is the most revolutionary thing ever to appear among men.
The cross of the Roman times knew no compromise; it never made concessions. It won all its arguments by killing its opponent and silencing him for good. It spared not Christ, by slew Him the same as the rest. He was alive when they hung Him on that cross and completely dead when they took him down six hours later. That was the cross the first time it appeared in Christian history.
After Christ was risen from the dead the apostles went out to preach His message, and what they preached was the cross. And wherever they went into the wide world they carried the cross, and the same revolutionary power went with them. The radical message of the cross transformed Saul of Tarsus and changed him from a persecutor of Christians to a tender believer and an apostle of the faith. Its power changed bad men into good ones. It shook off the long bondage of paganism and altered completely the whole moral and mental outlook of the Western world.
All this it did and continued to do as long as it was permitted to remain what it had been originally, a cross. Its power departed when it was changed from a thing of death to a thing of beauty. When men made of it a symbol, hung it around their necks as an ornament or made its outline before their faces as a magic sign to ward off evil, then it became at best a weak emblem, at worst a positive fetish. As such it is revered today by millions who know absolutely nothing about its power.
The cross effects its ends by destroying one established pattern, the victim’s, and creating another pattern, its own. Thus it always has its way. It wins by defeating its opponent and imposing its will upon him. It always dominates. It never compromises, never dickers nor confers, never surrenders a point for the sake of peace. It cares not for peace; it cares only to end its opposition as fast as possible.
With perfect knowledge of all this Christ said:
Luke 9:23 (NIV) “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
So the cross not only brings Christ’s life to an end, it ends also the first life, the old life, of every one of His true followers. It destroys the old pattern, the Adam pattern, in the believer’s life, and brings it to an end. Then the God who raised Christ from the dead raises the believer and a new life begins.
This, and nothing less, is true Christianity, though we cannot but recognize the sharp divergence of this conception from that held by the rank and file of evangelicals today. But we dare not qualify our position. The cross stands high above the opinions of men and to that cross all opinions must come at last for judgment. A shallow and worldly leadership would modify the cross to please the entertainment-mad saintlings who will have their fun even within the very sanctuary; but to do so is to court spiritual disaster and risk the anger of the Lamb turned Lion.
We must do something about the cross, and one of two things only we can do–flee it or die upon it. And if we should be so foolhardy as to flee we shall by that act put away the faith of our fathers and make of Christianity something other than it is. Then we shall have left only the empty language of salvation; the power will depart with our departure from the true cross.
If we are wise we will do what Jesus did: endure the cross and despise its shame for the joy that is set before us. To do this is to submit the whole pattern of our lives to be destroyed and built again in the power of an endless life. And we shall find that it is more than poetry, more than sweet hymnody and elevated feeling. The cross will cut into where it hurts worst, sparing neither us nor our carefully cultivated reputations. It will defeat us and bring our selfish lives to an end. Only then can we rise in fullness of life to establish a pattern of living wholly new and free and full of good works.
The changed attitude toward the cross that we see in modern orthodoxy proves not that God has changed, nor that Christ has eased up on His demand that we carry the cross; it means rather that current Christianity has moved away from the standards of the New Testament. So far have we moved indeed that it may take nothing short of a new reformation to restore the cross to its right place in the theology and life of the Church.
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