Who Wrote the Rules?

Does anyone else have outrage fatigue? I'm honestly tired of being upset. It's hard to get my outrage meter above empty nowadays. Every day seems to bring its own outrage. The outrage de jour is Chick-fil-A. If you are for LGBTQ rights, then you are supposed to be outraged at Chick-fil-A. If you aren't, then you are supposed to be outraged at people who are outraged at Chick-fil-A. Or maybe you want to go back to Aurora, CO, where the gun control debate fired up on all cylinders before the victims of the shooting were even buried. The rush to judgment was faster than Missy Franklin's record-breaking swim at the Olympic Games this year. And so... I have outrage fatigue. Which is too bad, really.

There is much more to be outraged at. I continue to bump up against the reality of hurting and suffering people. Friends of mine are bearing the weight of incredibly hard circumstances. Other friends of mine struggle to find meaning in a world that increasingly denies meaning. Yet other friends of mine woke up this morning to find that their bodies have deteriorated, their memories have dulled, and their homes will see only loneliness today.

Somewhere, a friend of mine is going to be made fun of, in particulars or generalities, because of his sexual orientation. Somewhere, someone is going to laugh off people of my generation because "we don't care." Somewhere, someone in my generation is going to blow off the wisdom of an elder because "they are irrelevant." Somewhere a friend of mine is going to curse his failing body because it keeps him from feeling productive in a society that demands men to be productive and busy until the moment they die. Somewhere a friend of mine is going to stare at a wedding ring that doesn't hold the same delight it once did, wondering where it all went wrong.

If I have learned anything in my short ministerial career (and I have... lots, in fact), it's that the struggle for God's justice on earth will not be won by my irritation at the news. It won't be won with me posting articles or even this blog post. It will be won when I set the laptop down and sit before the Lord in prayer. It will be won when I tell my neighbor that "gay" is not a synonym for "unfortunate." It will be won when my outrage fuels my compassion.

Outrage is a powerful force. Powerful enough to pick up a cross, powerful enough to stand in the gaps, powerful enough to spark a holy fire to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

It's a Conspiracy!

I have a confession to make. I love conspiracy theories. I believe very few of them, but I love a good conspiracy. And in times of war, economic distress and social disorder, conspiracy theories are easy to come by. In many ways, I envy conspiracy theorists. If anything, conspiracy theories make everything make sense. There are a handful of villains controlling everything, and it is their involvement in world affairs that have led us to this point. And I love to read them, watch movies about them, even check out the History Channel specials about them. It just seems so simple!

It does not surprise me that religious folks can be sucked into conspiratorial thinking. Consider the power of the Left Behind series to take conspiracy theories and attribute them to Satan or antichrist (including RFID chips and the like). Conspiratorial thinking requires us to believe in unseen power and to believe that there is an agenda going on. Theology proper requires us to believe in unseen power and to believe that God has an agenda going on. This is why the prophecies of the Old Testament and Revelation become fodder for modern-day conspiracy theorists.

If there is one thing that conspiracy theorists get right is that they generally understand the nature of power. They understand that human beings seek power over others (a condition leading back to Genesis 3), and that power is a corrupting force. Very few conspiracy theories believe that "they" (the people really in power) are benevolent. The psalms even decry this reality- "Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?" (Psalm 2:1). Psalm 2 was even appropriated by the Church to describe the adversarial relationship the disciples had with the religious leadership of the day (Acts 4:23-30).

The power of a conspiracy theory is simple- it causes fear. Conspiracy theories cause us to be afraid of the secret few running the world, the growth in power, the devil using democracy or whatever the theory is based on. And people's decisions can be easily managed by fear- our culture's response to fear is usually to buy distracting things.

But Isaiah 8 speaks into our tough reality with some warning words: "Do not call conspiracy everything this people calls a conspiracy; do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it" (Isaiah 8:12). Okay, so don't be afraid. Why not? Isaiah continues, "The LORD Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread" (Isaiah 8:13). I don't think that this means we should walk around looking up to heaven, scared of the day God will strike us down. I think that this means that God is the One who is ultimately in control. Jesus is Lord, ultimately, and it is Christ on the throne. The power that is guiding the world toward shalom (peace) is a benevolent one indeed, and one who subverts our human attempts at power and shows a different way- a way of service, of love, of compassion. It is no surprise that power structures have typically resisted the Kingdom of God- it operates differently. And so may we operate differently in our lives and resist fear.