Well I've been pondering and find myself confronted by a few choices (as others see it). Up there in the lead (apparently) is that of expelling the immoral from our ranks with the act of withdrawing from fellowship with 'naughtiness' on the basis that (according to Scotty the engineering officer/theologian from Star Trek) you cannae mix matter and anti-matter, neither can you mix darkness and light.
Following on from these we have the 'ignore it and hope the problem mends itself' choice, the 'tut loudly and look like you're thinking until people, amazed at your intellect, walk away and ask someone else' approach (which appears to be a very popular approach to the problems before us.
In addition to these we have the 'make all things acceptable' and then none transgress approach, an extremely good way forward for if there are no laws then no one can be condemned as a law-breaker and therefore holiness will be everyone's reality. No need to do evangelism or seek repentance and ask people to change - and everyone gets into heaven too - so another plus for this one (just joking honest!!).
Meanwhile . . . .
The foot soldiers gather in the trenches and wonder what to do. They've been trained for a conventional war with a line neatly drawn to separate good from evil. There's a 'no man's land' and we know where and how we play 'war'on this basis, we've always done it this way (more or less). Trouble is that we now have Asymmetric Warfare before us where there is no 'front line' and the enemy comes from wherever it wishes, even from within.
What we need is intelligence, that is information as to the risks, tactics, strategies of our likely enemies. We can identify them by their behaviour and we might even have a set of playing cards made (who would be the Joker?).
Armed and equipped by such intelligence we need a strong and intelligent leadership that will enable us to complete the task we have been given such that we have success. This leadership will issues orders that mobilise those engaged in the battle to be in the right place and doing the right thing. The problem is that this doesn't seem to be forthcoming and the results are becoming obvious as the tide of apathy and turning of the blind eyes lead the orthodox to certain defeat.
Where, oh where are the leaders? Reminiscent of Roger McGough's wonerful poem 'The Leader':
I wanna be the leader, I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader? Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee I'm the leader. I'm the leader.
O.K. what shall we do?
Sounds extremely familiar doesn't it?
2 comments:
In times of crisis God sends us leaders or makes leaders out of the likes of us. It is to Him true leaders pray, "What do I do next?"
He does indeed - so where do we look for the leaders in the situation we find ourselves in? We need sound theology, spine, gonads and compassion - but we really need them pretty quickly.
It's pointless having all these, "we want to include everybody," types when their reality is that it excludes many and divides those in other churches, separating them from us because we're 'apostate'.
Not a great deal of seeking but a lot of telling God what He MUST do!
Aaaaargh!
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