I grew up in a family of “Yellow Dog” Democrats, the last of our kind in 1980s East Texas. My childhood political leanings could best be summed up in the lyrics of Alabama’s classic tune Song of the South: “Daddy was a veteran, a Southern Democrat/ They oughta get a rich man to vote like that.” We assumed government had at least some role in helping give a “leg up” to those without access to basic needs and services.

Craig NashWe knew many of the people in our church disagreed with this, which is why we got anxious when the preacher started to sound too “political” from the pulpit. We suspected we were on “enemy ground,” even amongst those in our family of faith.

However, I came of age spiritually and emotionally in the 1990s and enacted the requisite youthful rebellion from my family at a time when the “Christian Right” had consolidated most of its power into the Republican Party. I became a more Christian version of Alex P. Keaton, Michael J. Fox’s character in Family Ties, who countered his hippie parents by embracing the supply-side economics of Ronald Reagan. We (the Christian Alex P. Keatons) embraced the notion it is the job of the church, not the government, to take care of the poor.

‘Government or God?’

I have neither the intention nor the theological and biblical chops to answer the “government or God?” question when it comes to taking care of the poor and feeding the hungry. If I had to give you my current position paper on the subject, I’d say Christians are called by God to feed the hungry. We also have a biblical calling to exercise wisdom, and I believe it is wise to use every tool at our disposal to help realize the kingdom of God in our midst, and one of those tools, among many, is government.

I will say, though, that when our churches seek to replace or replicate government services in an effort to “put our money where our mouth is,” we often miss the point. We read the stories of Jesus feeding the crowds, throwing parties and sharing meals with undesirables, and we often see these narratives as a mandate for us to feed people, to give stuff away.

When we read these stories in such a way, we give ourselves an opportunity to warm our own hearts at our good deeds: Aren’t we such good people? We are doing the difficult work of feeding people.

What’s really hard

But I don’t think feeding people is the really difficult work Jesus calls us to. What is really hard is inviting people into our worlds, our homes, our churches as equals. When I read the “giving” stories of Jesus, I sense the real scandal was in his giving up his position of power (Philippians 2, anyone?) to be on equal footing with those who he came to serve. Many of our efforts at charity do nothing more than reinforce the notion that we are the “haves” and those we are helping are the “have nots.”

And this is where I believe government services, operated well, can help us more accurately model the call of Jesus.

If we can render to Caesar by demanding that our civil society better takes care of “the least of these,” maybe we can more effectively render to God by inviting people into our worlds without the burden of us being the “helper.”

Practical goal

Here’s a practical goal for our families and churches: What if for every ounce of energy we spend this coming holiday season to feed someone or to help a family with Christmas gifts, we dedicated an equal amount of effort next year to push for better public schools and higher-paying jobs, or to increase access to nutrition benefits, or to provide more funding for child nutrition programs?

What if this were a form of “emptying ourselves,” by asking someone else, and not us, to be the helper?

Whether we believe government is evil, neutral or a force for good, maybe being “wise as serpents” means using it to empty ourselves of our savior complex, so that we can practice the radical hospitality Jesus calls us to.

Craig Nash is a child hunger outreach specialist and the No Kid Hungry regional coordinator for the Texas Hunger Initiative, based in Baylor University’s Diana Garland School of Social Work.

Our level of discourse in our country worries me. When you turn on the TV or the radio or, heaven forbid, look on social media, you find name-calling and disdain that should offend us.

Zac HarrelWords matter, and the tone we use to say those words matters. Our public discourse is so hardened, I turn the channel from cable news when my 2-year-old walks in the room. I have no idea what they are going to say or what she may hear. This year’s presidential election only made this worse.

The disappointing truth is there is no real difference between those who claim the name of Christ and those who don’t when it comes to television or social media and the things we say. Pastors and Christian leaders go on cable news and sound as hateful as all of the other guests. If they took their title off the screen, you never would know the difference. And with social media, we all have become cultural critics; we all can broadcast our opinions on politics and the news of the day.

Gracious, gentle speech

The Apostle Paul tells us in Colossians 4:6, “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Is our speech gracious? Is it seasoned with the salt of the gospel?

In 1 Peter 3:15, we are told to be ready always to give an answer for the hope we have in Christ and to do so with “gentleness and respect.” When we speak the truth of God’s word, we should do so with gentleness and with respect for those to whom we are speaking. The way we as Christians talk should be completely different from the world.

Gentle and gracious talk is not weak. It is not waffling on the truth. To be gentle and gracious with our words, especially when speaking the truth, is to be like Christ. When we refuse to speak with condescending and self-righteous tones, we choose to be obedient to the commands of the New Testament, which call us to speak the truth in love with grace.

Don’t buy the lie

We don’t have to buy into the lie that the loudest person in the room is right. We don’t have to buy into the lie that to speak the truth means we speak with contempt and defensiveness. When we speak the truth of God in the public square, we should proclaim the truth of the gospel, and our conversations should be filled with joy and grace, hope and gentleness, love and respect.

Most Christians would agree with this call. We should speak with graciousness and gentleness. Yet when we sign in to our social media accounts, we see the exact opposite. Many times, the way we talk on social media and the stories we share do not reflect the love of Jesus. Our posts and stories we share do not show graciousness.

Jump the disconnect

Why do we have this disconnect? One reason is we don’t have to look someone else in the eyes when we make that post on Facebook. We don’t have to see the emotional toll our harsh words have on someone else. As social media connects us superficially to other people, it disconnects us emotionally and relationally.

When we think about the words we say and the tone we use to say them, we must remember the Great Commandment given to us by Jesus. Do our words and the way we say those words show our love for God? Do our words and the way we say those words show our love for our neighbor?

What we say and how we say it matters. Jesus tells us in Matthew 12:34, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

What do your words and the way in which you say those words say about the state of your heart?

Zac Harrel is pastor of First Baptist Church in Gustine, Texas.

Before Election Day, I was talking with one of my pastors about the 2016 election and what long-term consequences it might have for the church in America. He told me about a political ad he’d seen that ended with the tagline “(Opposing candidate) failed, and now the world is unraveling.”

Jake Raabe“How upsetting it must be to be a child or young person who isn’t equipped to handle a claim like that,” he remarked. He’s right. The message from both sides has been the same: If the other candidate is elected, something terrible will happen.

Regardless of the outcome of the election, American Christians need to give serious reflection to the last year and the way we interact with politics in general.

Consider political interaction

The election of 2016 has divided churches, stoked hostility and allowed moral compromise to creep into our way of interacting with the larger culture. Both sides advanced mocking and ridicule. Both sides relativized wrong by claiming to be “not as bad” as the other. And both sides repeatedly failed consistently to uphold the rights and dignity of all persons in all stages of life. In 2016, the church repeatedly succumbed to these temptations from both sides of the political aisle, and the full ramifications of this will not be seen for some time.

Knowing we did a bad job of speaking to our culture in this last year, we as followers of Christ in the United States must reconsider the way we interact with politics.

If we made any mistake in 2016, it was taking the election too seriously. Like the ad my pastor told me about, both candidates repeatedly advanced a vision of the world that stands in direct contradiction to the Christian gospel.

From the right, we heard the world is moving in a downward spiral to destruction, and the left’s candidate would make that movement irreversible. From the left, we heard the world is headed in the right direction but would be halted by the candidate from the right, who would undo the progress the world is making. The two sides differ on the trajectory of the world but make the same claim: The movement of history depends on who is elected president of the United States in 2016.

Non-Christian worldview

The problem with speaking in this way is it presents a worldview separate from that of Christianity. Saying the world is headed for destruction is explicitly the opposite of what Scripture says the world is headed for. Saying we need a particular human being to save us from destruction is idolatry and mistrust of the living and active God, and I’ve seen an unfortunate number of Christians on both side of the political spectrum make this claim.

God can work through whoever is Americans elect as president, and claiming otherwise, no matter how much we dislike a candidate, is claiming a limitation on the power of God.

Future decided

The future of the world and the direction of history was decided 2,000 years ago on a hill outside of Jerusalem, when all of the powers of the world lost their control over humanity. The future of the world is settled; history already is written, and it doesn’t look like the picture that any political candidate has ever given us.

Christians must regain this perspective on the direction of the world if we’re going to engage our culture in politics in a way that is faithful to the gospel. We as followers of Christ should use every tool at our disposal to demonstrate his reign over the world through the betterment of the lives of all. Unfortunately, though, we far too often mistake the means with the ends and speak as though the history of the world depends on the latest election.

Believe it or not, the world will still be around in 2020, and there will be another election. Christians, let’s try to keep it in perspective next time.

Jake Raabe is a student at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary in Waco, Texas.

People don’t think I see them.

Jason DuntonFor whatever reason, the people in my church consistently are shocked I notice them on Sunday mornings. I see them come in early. I see them come in late. I see them singing. I see them not singing. I see them yawning. I see them wearing faces full of frustration, anxiety, apathy and fear. I see their posts on social media, ranting and posturing, engaging with one another in ways that can at best be described as unhealthy and unhelpful.

I do see them—and my heart breaks for them.

Fear rules

These are troubling times. I’m only 31, and it might simply be due to the fact I’m getting older and becoming more aware of the world, but I just can’t seem to remember a time when fear ruled the day more than today.

Fear of election results.

Fear of church giving going down.

Fear of social agendas.

Fear of each other.

Anxiety-riddled, crippling, immobilizing fear. The church certainly is not immune to fear. In fact, in some areas, we seem to be leading the way, and that wounds me deeply.

It shouldn’t be a shock to us that life is difficult at times, right?

Jesus said this plainly in John 16:33: “In this world you will have trouble ….”

Three phases of life

A professor in grad school would always tell me: “Life consists of three phases, and they repeat perpetually. You are either heading into a storm, in the middle of one, or coming out of one.” We’re going to get knocked down. We’re going to get beat up. This world has plenty of trouble for all of us to pass around.

But!

Thankfully, Jesus didn’t put a period at the end of that statement in John 16. Instead, he continued on to offer an immense, immovable assurance to all who follow him by adding, “Take heart, for I have overcome the world.”

So it seems when faced with trouble, we have a really important decision to make. We can tremble in fear before it, or we can grab ahold of Christ’s wonderful assurance to us and take heart that he has overcome it.

So what exactly does this look like in the life of a follower of Christ? How can one choose to “take heart” when facing the most terrifying of opponents?

Knees bowed

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or imagine, according to the power at work within us …” (Ephesians 3:20).

I’ve always had an active imagination. In fact, my mother loves to tell stories of how she would walk by my bedroom when I was a child and think it was full of children, but upon further investigation would discover it was just me—giving voice and life to every Ninja Turtle or Transformer at my disposal.

I often imagine what my future will look like in 10 years, 20 years, 50 years. I dream of retiring to Italy with my wife, of my daughter passionately embracing Jesus, of my ministry bearing eternal fruit for Christ’s kingdom. It’s easy for me to dream. I can imagine quite a bit.

These also are attributes of our heavenly Father. He is a dreamer. His imagination is unsearchable. Think about it. Everything we see, smell, taste, touch, experience—he thought that up!

The Rocky Mountains? He thought those up. The duckbilled platypus? All him. The flavors of the chocolate chip cookie? Praise his name, he thought that up! What’s also amazing is that he not only thought of everything, but he had the power to turn those thoughts into creation. What he imagined, he then created—from nothing. What power!

This is not news. God’s incredible imagination and indescribable power are literally the very first things we encounter in Scripture. The creation account in Genesis shines a spotlight on an almighty God who speaks and things come into being. He created the universe without lifting a finger but by simply saying, “Let there be …” and then filling in the blanks.

This is a power that should transform and fundamentally shape our prayer life. Our prayers should echo the immensity of that imagination and power. But more often than not, they become quite the opposite.

We struggle in praying for big things because we grossly underestimate the power at work within us. The same power that raised Christ from the grave now indwells us by his presence and Spirit. We do not have a little nine-volt battery of spiritual power inside of us, but an entire nuclear power plant of divine might.

We should anticipate with great confidence that God will overcome big sins, knock down insurmountable walls, and make us into radiant images of his Son. He is the calmer of the storm. He is the mountain mover.

Hands high

Nothing is more powerful than a hand raised in worship when the water is rising, the enemy is closing in or your heart has just been ripped out.

If you don’t agree, read about Horatio Spafford, the author of “It is Well with My Soul,” and try to be unmoved by a man who lifted his soul to the Lord in worship as the horrors of hell danced around him.

Worship is the response to who God is and what he has done.

In the darkest of nights, worship is the wrecking ball that shatters the gates of our enemy.

Charles Spurgeon said, “Prayer and praise are the oars by which a man may row his boat into the deep waters of the knowledge of Christ.” The mind of Christ is at peace in the assurance that there is none in heaven and earth like our heavenly Father, who is full of perfect strength and perfect love. And we know from 1 John 4:18 that perfect love casts out fear.

Follower of Christ, as we face of the cares of our day, the mountains that seem insurmountable, and the giants that shake our souls with fear, let us anchor our hearts to this: As long as he desires to get glory through the church and in Christ Jesus, we can be sure that God, in ways that are beyond our imagination, will magnificently exceed our expectations—to his everlasting honor and to our everlasting joy.

Jason Dunton is the contemporary worship arts pastor at First Baptist Church in Bryan, Texas, where he lives and loves with his wife, Joanna, daughter, Penelope, and English bulldog, Grubby.

As Civil Rights hero and Baptist pastor Martin Luther King, Jr. once stated: “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”

History is important; it shapes our views and opinions in more profound ways than we ever realize. We are products of our context, and our context is a result of historical developments. Our history as a people both warns us of our inherent “blind spots” and destructive tendencies and encourages us with reminders of who we are and where we have found success in our past.

As my dad says, it’s important to remember where you came from.

Baptist beginnings

So, where did Baptists come from? This question is fascinating and requires far more detail than can be provided here. The short version is this: In the latter part of the Protestant Reformation, a small group of ministers and parishioners in England became convinced baptism should be limited to confessing believers, rather than infants, and only baptized and regenerate believers were true members of the church, as opposed to everyone living within a certain region. These early believers faced fierce persecution from the Church of England, who saw these claims as a threat to both church and societal order.

Baptists in America didn’t fare much better. The Puritans who fled persecution by the Church of England sought to create a model “City on a Hill” that would inspire the rest of the world to follow their example. When dissenters began to question the practice of infant baptism, Puritans, like the Church of England, that a basic tenet of their new society was being threatened and responded accordingly. Early American Baptists like Roger Williams, John Clarke, Obadiah Holmes and others faced heavy fines, jailing, banishment and beatings.

In both England and America, religious authorities sought to “stamp out” the small and slow-growing Baptist movement.

Obviously, these attempts failed. Baptists in England faced significantly less persecution following the 1689 Act of Toleration, and American Baptists achieved significant religious liberty nearly a century later following the Revolution.

Avoided political power

To oversimplify a long and complex history, Baptists generally were wary of seeking political power for the next 200 years. In fact, no Baptist became president until Warren Harding in 1921. While they remained involved in individual issues such as slavery, prohibition and Civil Rights, Baptists largely avoided entrenched political power until the Modernist and Anti-Modernist movements of the 20th Century.

Today, through a series of cultural changes and struggles to adapt, Baptist life seems to have become centered around politics. From our early persecution to our struggles against—and unfortunately, for—slavery and segregation, Baptists historically have worked in spite of the government.

Why then, in 2016, are we speaking and acting as if we can only reach the world through elected officials?

Grasping for power

Listening to various “Christian” political radio programs and reading columns by various leaders, it’s been hard to escape a few common refrains. According to a multitude of prominent evangelical figures, Christians are losing political influence and must re-establish it by electing politicians who will further “Christian” causes through legislation. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has explicitly played off of this fear, promising that, if elected, “Christianity will have power.”

This is what I have found the most troubling in this particularly contentious election cycle: My Baptist brothers and sisters are seeking after political power.

We’ve been down this road before. Baptists were born out of a reaction against the mingling of religion and political power, which doesn’t work out well for anybody for very long. Christianity is designed in such a way that it does not need “power” of this sort to survive and grow. Jesus didn’t say Congress was the light of the world; he said we are. He did not say the Supreme Court is a city on a hill; he said we are.

Hinders the gospel

Christianity’s witness to the world cannot be furthered by political means; if Baptist history shows us anything, it’s that political power only hinders the gospel.

Should Christians be politically active? Of course. Baptists have a proud tradition activism against societal evils such as slavery and segregation. But there is an important difference between using our political voice as a tool to better the lives of others—as Myles Werntz recently wrote about—and seeking to become an entrenched political power.

Baptists should be the first among Christians to realize this, because our very existence is a testament to what happens when the two are confused. Baptists, remember your roots in 2016. Let’s avoid the mistakes and repeat the successes of the past.

Jake Raabe is a student at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary in Waco, Texas.

On Oct. 30, 2005, Kyle Lake walked into the waters of baptism as a pastor, writer, husband, father, brother, son, friend and wholly unique child of God. He walked out onto the Eternal Shore, leaving those of us who knew him with anguish, grief, laughter, anger and tears, with stories to tell and hopeful expectation for the day we will meet again—although not always occurring in that order.

The conduit for his early departure was a malfunctioning water heater, an incidental reach for a microphone and the laws of electricity written deep within the created order. What was most elemental, though, is that it occurred in the very waters that represent what actually happened to him in those moments—transformation from death to life.

About this time every year, we who loved him take to our blogs and to social media, call each other over the phone, or send texts and emails, to remember Kyle and to mark another trip around the sun without him. We tell stories about his life, how he pointed us to God.

A trail of crumbs …

It’s a trail of crumbs we are leaving, perhaps, designed to remind us where we are in relation to our own walking into the waters and onto the shore of God’s perfect presence. And every year, the story changes just a little. It’s not just that we have romanticized his life, which we certainly have. But we have been transformed, first by our years with him, and now by those without him, which allows us to see his life—and death—from different angles.

He would hate all this; most saints aren’t too keen on receiving the attention. But that’s OK. We would forgive him for not understanding; he never knew what it was like to lose someone like him.

And we would tell him this: We don’t worship you, but we rarely felt more alive, before or since, and in tune with the One we do worship when we were with you, and when you were teaching us to laugh and to give and to pray. So we will keep telling your stories, and re-membering you to each other.

Late or early

It’s difficult to tell whether it is late or early.

Over two thousand years have passed since Jesus promised to return and to make things right, to restore creation and bring peace and justice. But since Earth is somewhere roughly between 6,000 and 4 billion years old, that’s not really all that long. Long enough, though, for people of God to come into our world to change it, to leave a little of the Holy behind for us to pick up the pieces and point us northward. Kyle left a lot of those little pieces for us to observe and analyze—few as moving, though, as the final sermon he put down on paper.

The text was the famous, and infamously misunderstood, Jeremiah 29:11. Set in the context of exile, of pain and displacement, God’s plans for God’s people included “plans for hope and a future,” but zoom out from the refrigerator and bumper sticker verse 11 to the entire chapter, and God’s plan also included staying put when we would rather move on, planting gardens when we would rather escape to more fertile land.

What Kyle’s life looked like …

The sermon ended with a description of what that might look like, indeed, with what Kyle’s life did look like:

And here I think God is saying to each of us: “Abandon your plans of escape. And be where you are. Plant gardens and live and live well.” I don’t know what your planting gardens may look like but let me end there by trying to provide a glimpse into what that may be like: 

Live. And Live Well.

BREATHE. Breathe in and Breathe deeply. Be PRESENT. Do not be past. Do not be future. Be now.

On a crystal clear, breezy 70-degree day, roll down the windows and FEEL the wind against your skin. Feel the warmth of the sun.

If you run, then allow those first few breaths on a cool Autumn day to FREEZE your lungs and do not just be alarmed, be ALIVE.

Get knee-deep in a novel and LOSE track of time.

If you bike, pedal HARD… and if you crash, then crash well.

Feel the SATISFACTION of a job well done—a paper well-written, a project thoroughly completed, a play well-performed.

If you must wipe the snot from your 3-year old’s nose, don’t be disgusted if the Kleenex didn’t catch it all … because soon he’ll be wiping his own.

If you’ve recently experienced loss, then GRIEVE. And Grieve well.

At the table with friends and family, LAUGH. If you’re eating and laughing at the same time, then might as well laugh until you puke. And if you eat, then SMELL. The aromas are not impediments to your day. Steak on the grill, coffee beans freshly ground, cookies in the oven. And TASTE. Taste every ounce of flavor. Taste every ounce of friendship. Taste every ounce of Life. Because it is most definitely a gift.

It most definitely is.

Craig Nash is a child hunger outreach specialist and the No Kid Hungry regional coordinator for the Texas Hunger Initiative, based in Baylor University’s Diana Garland School of Social Work.

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

Eric Black“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

People were also bringing babies to Jesus for him to place his hands on them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Luke 18:9-17)

One story, two parts

Normally, we study these two stories separately, but what happens if we consider them together as two parts of the same story? What do we learn from them then?

The first story is included in a group of parables, and the second story is tied to it by the word “also.” See that insignificant little word “also”? Watch out for little words. They have much more power than their size and common usage suggest.

At the same time Jesus was telling these parables recorded by Luke, “people were also bringing babies to Jesus for him” to bless. Jesus was an opportunist. He used every opportunity he could to teach the deeper truths of life to the people who followed him.

Just imagine …

So, imagine for a moment a crush of people all trying to get face-to-face with Jesus for one reason or another—some to scrutinize him, some to be healed, some to be blessed, some to have their children blessed. Imagine the noise, the pushing and shoving, the dust kicked up by all those feet.

Imagine the haughtiness of those who expected others to get out of the way and the humility of others who never expected anything good to happen to them.

In the middle of all this crush and crowd and noise, Jesus said, “Two men went to the temple to pray.” This wasn’t all that unusual. The custom at the time was for men to pray twice every day, and the really religious prayed at least three times a day. So, these two men were doing their normal thing.

Two prayers

One man, a Pharisee, a very religious man, stood apart from the crowd. The Greek here means he stood apart from all the rest of the people. His prayer tells us why. He prayed: “God, I am so thankful I’m not like these other people, these sinners, especially that one over there in the back. I’m so good, I fast more than the law requires and give lots of money, too.”

This sort of religious arrogance told “all the rest of the people” they weren’t good enough to get close to God. This sort of religious pomposity kept “all the rest of the people” at the back. This sort of religious pride made Jesus sick.

The other guy—a no-good tax collector, a traitor to his own people, a kiss-up to Rome—stood at the back of the room. He stood way back there, and he wouldn’t even look up. Unlike the Pharisee, he didn’t dare raise his head, and in anguish he beat his chest, and with red eyes and gritted teeth he prayed, “God, have mercy on me.”

We religious types, we read this first story and stop. We smile and thank God we know the whole story, and we say, “That is how we should pray, ‘God, have mercy on me.’” And we congratulate ourselves on knowing the whole story.

More to the story

But Jesus isn’t done talking.

While he’s telling the story about the two praying men, people are bringing him their children to receive a blessing. This is what people did. Whenever a religious authority came to town, the people brought out their children to receive a blessing from the holy man. Jesus played the part well.

Unfortunately, the people weren’t listening to Jesus’ stories. They didn’t hear Jesus say the blessing is for the humble. They just kept pressing in, intent on what they wanted for themselves and for their children. And as they pressed in, Jesus’ disciples pushed back because they weren’t listening, either.

They weren’t listening because they were too worried about what positions they would hold in Jesus’ kingdom. And as the desperate crowd pressed in, they puffed out their chests as only a security detail can do and pushed back.

And Jesus said: “Uh, fellas, step off. Come here, kids.”

The noise level probably dropped a little, the way a crowd gets quiet when someone important is dressed down in front of everyone. In that quiet space, Jesus said: “These kids, they have what it takes to take a place in my kingdom. These kids, they don’t know yet to pretend to be righteous. So, don’t teach them your ways. Don’t take their innocence away from them. Instead, look at them, and return to yourself.”

I wonder how long the quiet lasted.

What about us?

In this quiet space, what is Jesus saying to us?

At one point, we were the humble tax collectors seeking mercy, but at some point, we forgot ourselves. At some point, we got too big for our britches. At some point, we became full of ourselves and moved right up in God’s face and dared to thank him that we’re so good. We dared to tell God that God owes us because we’ve been so religious, so devout.

In the meantime, the children would like to be blessed but can’t get to Jesus because we’ve taken up our positions in order to push back. The children, not knowing any better, just want to be close to Jesus, and here we are, in the way.

• The twenty- and thirty-somethings want to know their hard questions will be taken seriously.

• The teenagers want to sing the songs they know, the songs that stir their hearts.

• The children want to laugh and play and to know Jesus laughs and plays, too.

• They all want to do something meaningful without having to jump through all the hoops.

And what are we doing while Jesus tries to tell them stories? We’re complaining about the style and quality of the music. We’re putting our feet down to guard our turf, to make sure no one messes with our tradition. We’re trying to keep the ship afloat when the kids would rather swim anyway.

And pastors are expected to preside over it all!

What has happened to our faith?

When did we stop beating our chests and praying, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” and start thumping our chests and boasting about how good we are?

What will it take for us to return to ourselves?

Lord, have mercy, indeed.

Eric Black is pastor of First Baptist Church in Covington, Texas, and a member of the Baptist Standard board of directors.

I remember passing by the Democratic booth at the state fair when I was very young. I knew almost nothing about politics or world affairs at that age, but I prayed fervently for those Democrats as I walked by, because I knew Democrats were bad and they weren’t Christians.

Kyndall Rae RothausRarely can we recognize the hell-bound at first glance, but here I was, tiny little girl, facing an entire group of adults who had self-selected to be on the side of evil. I assumed they just didn’t know any better, so I prayed for their souls, that they would come to love Jesus.

I don’t know where I got the idea all Democrats were going to hell. I doubt any adult put it to me that bluntly. But I was an odd child who took things far more seriously than most children. I absorbed what adults said, probably without the grown-ups knowing I was listening. My mind always was active, drawing conclusions, and when the conclusions were sad, I felt it deeply and also felt responsible for doing my part to fix it. Hence my childhood mission to convert Democrats with my private prayers.

(I didn’t just target Democrats. I also wrote Bible verses on slips of paper and left them on random porches in my neighborhood.)

Fast-forwarding

Fast-forward to when I turned 18. I was with one of my best friends as she was registering to vote in Oklahoma, and she didn’t know whether to check Republican or Democrat. I was taken aback at how uninformed she was. I’m sorry to confess I might have laughed at her. I blamed her ignorance on the fact she didn’t have nearly as much exposure to Christianity growing up as I did. And so I explained with poised authority that the only right option was “Republican.”

Fast-forward to my early 20s. I met some amazing Christians who deeply inspired me with their sincerity, their compassion and their commitment to Jesus. I didn’t find out until much later they were Democrats. This was disconcerting, to say the least. I had to reckon with the fact as far as I could tell, there were people on the “other side” who somehow shared my faith.

Fast-forward to 2008. I found myself thinking Sen. Obama’s speeches made good sense much of the time, even though he was pro-choice. I remember watching his family walk out with him to accept the presidency and seeing all the beaming, tear-filled faces in the crowd and feeling the weight of this historic moment and thinking that regardless of whether you agreed with his politics, this was a fantastic breakthrough in American history.

I could go on, but the point is, I had to reckon with seeing good on the “other side.” Meanwhile the world around me was becoming increasingly entrenched in its polarization.

“Not really Christian”

I spent the last few years of my life as the pastor of a quiet little church on the outskirts of San Antonio. In a big city like that, it often felt like our little congregation was largely invisible. We inconspicuously said our prayers, celebrated births and baptisms, sang hymns, did mission work in Moldova and the Eastern Congo, volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, and so on.

When I transitioned to being the pastor of Lake Shore Baptist Church in Waco, I learned I’d moved to a church with a reputation. On the one hand, Lake Shore is known for its active participation in compassionate ministries all over Waco. On the other hand, I’ve been told there is a rumor around town we are “not really Christian.”

Of course, we are flawed, just like any church. We are made up of sinners, just like any church. Like most churches in Waco, we also read the Bible, preach the gospel, give our tithe, teach Sunday school, pray for each other and for the world, baptize believers, confess our sins, seek to follow Jesus, take communion and sing “Amazing Grace.”

No. 1 priority

If I had to boil it down, I would say our No. 1 priority is to love God and love our neighbor. We’re rather convinced that is the most important thing we do. Who knows where we got that idea, but it has stuck. We also try to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God. We care about the least of these, about visiting the sick and feeding the hungry.

It’s odd to think I’m now a part of a group that gets labeled as barely Christian, a group some Christians mock and other Christians pray for when the only significant thing that has happened to my relationship to Jesus over time is that it has deepened.

I am convinced the suspicions people have about us at Lake Shore are not spiritual but political. After all, the detractors don’t know our hearts. But Lake Shore is known to have a larger percentage of “liberal” constituents than your average Waco church. Thus we must not really be Christian.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump must be a champion of Christian values and ideals because he appears to support most of the Republican platform.

I’m not interested in a superiority game in which we try to prove whose Christianity is better. I’m not in the Christian faith to win or to prove myself. That’s not why I’m writing this piece.

Politics do not make us Christian

I am in the Christian faith because I love God, and I want to love my neighbor and because I am convinced God loves us all. The only reason I am writing this piece is to remind us that politics do not make us Christian. Christ is what unites us. Not Donald Trump. Not political campaigns. Not being on this side or that side of an issue.

We are united by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s start there, and see where else we might have common ground, despite our political differences. Let’s all re-examine what it means to vote “Christian.” Let’s be open to learning and averse to entrenchment.

Let’s be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. Let’s be merciful, for God is merciful. Let us consider how we may stir one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another, and all the more as we see the day approaching.

Let us get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Let us in humility value others above ourselves, not looking to our own interests but each of us to the interests of the others. In our relationships with one another, let us have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.

Let us love one another, for God is love.

Kyndall Rae Rothaus is senior pastor of Lake Shore Baptist Church in Waco. This article originally appeared in the Waco Tribune-Herald; reprinted by permission of the author.

I never will forget Oct. 15, 2013. The phone rang late that night, which never can be a good thing for a pastor. You expect to hear tragic news about someone in your congregation.

Zac HarrelThis phone call wasn’t about a church member, though. It was about my mom. She suffered a major heart attack and passed away almost instantly. You never fully recover from the shock of receiving news like that. The pain always is there. At least three years in, I have not found much truth in the saying, “Time heals all wounds.”

In the days immediately after the shocking phone call, my heart continually turned to the book of Job. I thought about verse 21 in chapter 1. It’s the famous verse that says, “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.”

The Lord was gracious to me in so many ways through my mom. She was such a gift of his grace. But in that moment, I realized all he had taken away, too.

“Blessed be …”

She never got to meet her granddaughter, who was born two months later. She didn’t get to spoil that child or see her grow and change and in many ways be an exact image of her. Those wounds still hurt, but my heart still proclaims with Job, “Blessed be the name of the Lord” because Jesus is my hope. His resurrection is the hope of my resurrection and my mom’s resurrection to come. God will redeem what has been taken away. Jesus is enough in this moment, in this grief.

The book of Job also convicted me about my own ministry to people in grief before I had experienced grief myself.

I am convinced Job’s friends are examples of what not to do. When we are walking with others through grief, we don’t have to have the right words. In fact, we don’t have to have words at all.

Job’s friends decided they must have an answer. They believed they must speak into the situation and tell Job the truth. These friends ended up doing more harm than good, and God rebuked them for their insensitive ministry.

No magic words

In my own ministry as a young pastor, I thought I needed to say something to fill in the silence that inevitably comes in grief. I was wrong. When I lost my mom, I didn’t need words. In fact, I probably couldn’t tell you anything anyone shared with me those first few weeks. What I do remember is who came by, who just sat with me, who called to tell me they were praying. I remember who was there.

There are no magic words to speak to those walking through grief. They don’t need an answer from you in that moment. They need you. They need you to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to be a physical representation of the love and presence of our Savior. Our presence is our greatest ministry to those walking through grief. Silence is not something we have to fill. Silence is an opportunity for us to sit and cry with those who are hurting. Powerful ministry happens in silence.

No timetable

There is no timetable with grief. It comes on without warning days, weeks, months—even years—after we lose our loved ones. The loss we feel is healthy. It is a longing for the redemption and reunion to come in Christ.

It has been three years since I lost my mom, and the grief still is there. It still is there when I see her picture or when I find a note with her handwriting on it or a gift she gave me 10 years ago.

In those moments, I don’t need someone to give me a bumper-sticker platitude. I need someone to sit with me. I don’t need the perfect words. I need someone to represent for me our perfect Savior, who is with us. Always.

Zac Harrel is pastor of First Baptist Church in Gustine, Texas.

One of the best things about parenting is the excuse to see animated movies without seeming weird. My family and I recently saw Kubo and the Two Strings, which is rendered beautifully in stop-motion animation. Set in Japan, the film tells the story of a boy, Kubo, who plays a magical shamisen, a traditional three-stringed lute with a square body.

Ellen Di GiosiaKubo provides for his widowed mother by telling stories in the village square, accompanying them on his instrument. As he plays, the strings’ vibrations coax colorful squares of paper from a stack, and they soar through the air, folding themselves into intricate shapes. Origami warriors—heroes and villains—do battle as he plucks and strums, drawing crowds eager to see and hear the story.

A mother’s love

Kubo and his mother live in a cave, hiding from the Moon King. After Kubo stays late one evening in the village, the daughters of the Moon King emerge and devastate the town. Kubo’s mother comes down from the cave and uses her final burst of magic to save her son. In her last moments, she urges Kubo to search for his father’s armor, which will protect him. Kubo takes a strand of his mother’s hair and keeps it close to him.

Kubo joins two new friends, Monkey and Beetle, who help him on his quest. His magical shamisen calls forth origami that leads the way and even creates a boat for his journey. He finds his father’s breastplate, and Beetle takes up the bow. Kubo learns that Monkey and Beetle are more than just friends. They are his parents—although their human bodies have died, they have transformed until the time they can be reunited with their child.

The magic cannot last forever, though. In the battle with the Moon King’s daughters, Monkey and Beetle are killed. The first of the strings on Kubo’s shamisen is broken, and then the second, and the third. Finally facing the Moon King, Kubo picks up his instrument. Remembering his mother’s sacrifice, Kubo pulls out the strand of her hair he has kept close to him since her death. He winds it around the pins at each end of the neck of the shamisen. Then he pulls the string from his father’s bow and does the same. Finally, he plucks a hair from his own head for the third string.

The magic of his shamisen returns. The music he makes when his family strings come together defeats the Moon King. He joins his village in celebrating Obon, when the people visit the graves of their ancestors and commune with their spirits. Once they have spoken with their loved ones, the spirits are housed in paper lanterns and set adrift in the river. His mother and father, having protected Kubo and said goodbye, are released.

A lesson for us

There is a lesson for us here. I am not suggesting we worship our ancestors. They are not gods; they were human, with all the frailty that implies.

But it is a gift of the church that none of us is without mothers and fathers. Some among us were mothered or fathered poorly. Some have faced abuse and scorn at the hands of people who should have loved them. Some have come to faith without the benefit of family lineage. When our biological parents fail us, we look to men and women in our churches and faith traditions.

All Saints’ Day is Nov. 1. Many Free-Church Protestants do not celebrate the occasion, because our understanding of the word “saint” is different than that of our Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican friends. But if we say we believe all God’s people are saints, then that’s all the more reason to celebrate the day.

The Sunday school teacher who showed you love in the third grade? She’s a saint.

The deacon who faithfully visited the nursing home every Sunday afternoon and let you tag along? A saint.

The friend who encouraged you in your walk during high school, when you felt you were the only Christian at school? A saint as well.

None of them was perfect, and they did not perform miracles, but God used them to influence your life and draw you closer to Christ.

Our own faith has power, but when added to the heritage we have received, the magic is multiplied. Members of our faith families were the makers of sacred music on strings that now stretch across time and space, whose slightest words and actions sent vibrations of God’s Spirit into the world, where they finally reached our hearing.

They tell a story—The Story—of gospel love and sacrifice, of redemption and pardon, release and resurrection. If our ears are open to hear, we will enjoy a music that shapes us and, joined with our own strings, has the power to change the world.

Ellen Di Giosia is associate pastor of faith formation at Woodland Baptist Church in San Antonio.

Dear American people,

I am deeply sorry for bragging about sexually assaulting women. Whether in that moment I was gloating about real events or unfulfilled fantasies, I was wrong. My actions toward women and my fantasies about them are wrong. I apologize for the lack of respect I have shown toward women.

Kyndall Rae RothausWomen are not objects who exist for my—or anyone else’s—sexual pleasure or need for power. It is clear we have a societal epidemic on our hands, from the prevalence of rape on college campuses to the sexual escapades of public figures such as Bill Clinton and myself. I confess I have contributed to the problem by repeatedly objectifying women and denying my own culpability.

Sexual assault is a very important topic, and it deserves my time and attention, and I will not sweep this issue under the rug as if it were some small matter. I acknowledge sexual assault is a serious crime that can have devastating ramifications for victims—including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, crippling self-doubt, sexually transmitted diseases, suicidal thoughts and more. Sexual assault should never be joked about. Not on television. Not at home. Not in the locker room.

Unacceptable in any form

I apologize for not setting a better example for our young men, and I want every person to hear me say this: Rape is unacceptable in any form.

In the past, my words have indicated I condone sexual violence, I act in sexually violent ways and sexual violence is something to be proud of. I want to be unmistakably clear about how wrong I was. Sexual contact without explicit consent is both wrong and illegal, and as a society we have to do better. We have to do better at eradicating sexism, supporting survivors of assault, educating our youth and setting an all-around better example in word and deed.

See these related columns:

• Editorial: How do evangelicals enable ‘locker room talk’ about women?

• Voices: Lord, make our world safe for women

• Voices: The revelatory election for U.S. churches

• Voices: No room for political fear

• 2^nd Opinion: On the erosion of our national character

I will start by changing my own behavior. I want to teach my sons not to rape and to teach my daughters that no one has a right to use or abuse them. And I want your sons and daughters to learn the same thing. I want every child—boy or girl—to be safe from sexual exploitation.

Embarrassed, horrified, ashamed

When I think about the way I have contributed to the culture of rape in this country, I am not only embarrassed. I am horrified and ashamed, and there is no excuse for what I said. I refuse to minimize what I have done, because what matters right now are victims of assault, not my image. I will not deflect the culpability away from myself, because I recognize that taking responsibility for my own actions is one of the first steps of recovery, and I want to demonstrate I am serious about respecting women and ending sexual violence. I will not lie about what I have done or twist the truth. I will not project my bad choices onto anyone else. I will not attack others as a way to avoid my own responsibilities.

I will stop insulting, mocking, and objectifying women. I will not discuss their bodies in sexual ways as sport. When I am feeling insecure, I will not use sexual dominance as a tool to boost my confidence. I will not “rate” women according to their looks or call them fat if they offend me. I will not brag about assault. I will publicly condemn assault, and most importantly, I will not assault.

I am so sorry for my base behavior. To victims of sexual exploitation everywhere, you deserve better. To women everywhere, you deserve better.

I was terribly wrong, and I apologize.

Kyndall Rae Rothaus is senior pastor of Lake Shore Baptist Church in Waco.

In my previous article, I wrote about the Baptist distinctive of religious liberty and the effect it had on me as I transitioned into the denomination. One would be hard-pressed to overstate the importance of the fight for religious liberty in Baptist history or the contributions made by Baptists in this field.

Jake RaabeBaptists were born out of religious persecution and found themselves unified from the beginning by the pursuit of freedom of religion. In America, Baptists stood at the forefront of the movement for separation of church and state, from Roger Williams decrying state-mandated religion to the Danbury Baptist Association’s correspondence with Thomas Jefferson invoking the first use of the phrase “a wall of separation between church and state.”

Needless to say, the contributions made by Baptists to religious freedom across the world comprise one of my favorite aspects of being part of the denomination.

Lost sensibility for freedom

After I wrote about this in my last piece, a Methodist friend remarked that, while he recognized that Baptists historically were proponents of freedom of religion, modern Baptists largely have lost this sensibility. Sadly, I think he’s right. Although individual groups like the Baptist Join Committee for Religious Liberty do great work in preserving freedom of religion, Baptist leaders and laity largely have ignored or even unintentionally threatened the cause.

One such way we harm the cause of religious liberty is by failing to defend the rights of religious minorities.

This election cycle has been a hard one for Muslims in particular, with major political figures calling for banning Muslims from entering the country and for increased policing of primarily Muslim neighborhoods. The idea that the government should treat one religion differently than others should be unthinkable to Baptists, who once were that scrutinized, singled-out group in 17th century England.

And yet prominent Baptists such as Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress publicly declared support for these singling-out policies. Let us not forget that, in addition to giving in to fear and panic, these policies would set a dangerous precedent for the government treating various religions differently.

All-or-nothing

Religious liberty inherently is all-or-nothing. When we as Christians allow and encourage the denial of freedom of religion to one group, we are being unfaithful to our historical situation—Baptists especially—and setting a precedent that one day will be invoked against us as well.

This is not to say only conservatives are creating problems for religious liberty. In navigating the current tension between civil liberties and exemptions for religious objections, many progressives have not exercised the incredible delicacy required for this task.

A deeply problematic report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a bipartisan organization, has suggested when civil rights and religious freedom conflict—as, for example, in the various cases of Christian business refusing to provide services for same-sex weddings—religious liberty must be subsumed to civil rights. Regardless of one’s position on how Christian businesses should handle moral objections (A recent Pew study shows Americans are evenly divided on this issue.), the precedent here is dangerous: Religious freedom, according to this line of thought, is not absolute and inalienable, but contingent upon other prior rights.

The question of the relationship between civil liberties and religious freedom is difficult and needs to be worked through carefully. Claiming one set of concerns must always override another is not the way to do this.

Attack from both sides

Religious liberty is under attack from both sides because contemporary America has deconstructed it and separated components that only work together. The right too often appears to want religious preference more than religious liberty, often railing against the concept of separation of church and state while seeking to maintain the ability to act according to religious principles. The left often seeks to preserve the distinction between church and state while failing to make room from religious objections to larger societal movements.

To oversimplify, one side wants free religious exercise without separation of church and state, while the other wants separation of church without sufficient consideration of exercising religious freedoms. One cannot exist without the other. The founders of both our nation and the Baptist denomination realized and lived this.

Maintaining religious liberty in a multi-cultural society is both difficult and necessary. It takes dialogue and communication from both sides of the political spectrum. Because of this, seeking to maintain and protect religious liberty has the potential to unify Baptists in a context in which we increasingly are divided.

Rediscovering our roots through the preservation of religious liberty may just help us remember that we are, ultimately, all parts of one single body.

Jake Raabe is a student at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary in Waco, Texas.