I me mine

As I am following along with various of my Christian contacts as they post about Covid-19, race, Climate Change, Trump, and whatever, from most of them there is a marvelously consistent tone and pattern to the posts. I would put some verses here, but you all know that you always skip the verses.

The verses are almost universally about each one of us and our personal relationship with Christ, about how he will watch over us, care for us, take us through these difficult times, that he will be our comforter and protector, that our hope is found in him. All of their sermons and Bible studies and Sunday school classes and home groups kinda act as though there's the messy and dark outside world out there somewhere, and then there's the spiritual world in here which is all brightness and light, and we don't really need to talk about the outside world, except when they need Jesus, which is always.

That is not wrong, but it's not right, it falls far short of what Christ is asking of us these days, and what hardships might lie ahead.

When we treat our faith and salvation as exclusively individualistic, that it's all about me and Jesus, then (pay attention) everything that happens on Earth in history is interpreted through that lens. Nothing that happens really matters except for what happens to me in the process. And I retreat into the whole comfort and peace thing wherein I can act as though it's just not going to happen to me.

First of all, eventually it's going to happen to you. If Christianity was the one true faith that protected all of its adherents from bad things, then everybody would be Christians. Why would they not? Nothing bad ever happens to us, and everything bad that happens, happens to people who aren't us. If God could figure out (as he no doubt could) that I was not really sincere when I signed on the dotted line and bad things kept happening to me, then I would make dang sure that I was sincere. Nobody likes bad things. Pretty much an instant religion full of totally sincere believers.

So that's bogus. Bad things are going to happen to you. More importantly, sometimes bad things are going to happen to all of us at the same time. Most importantly, the bad things are always going to happen to poor and marginalized people worse than to the white rich people. Speaking metaphorically.

That's happening right now. Wait. Don't want you to miss it. RIGHT NOW!!!!!

So. When bad things come along in global sort of way, like, for example, a pandemic, or a sudden realization that the whole world is racist and has been for, like, ever, and

if we Christians spend all of our time quoting verses about us and Jesus and wallowing in the somewhat fraudulent belief that he will Rescue Us from Bad Things, then we have Missed the Whole Point. It's not just about us. It's about all of us, and that includes them, those who are being more impacted by Covid-10 and racism.

But our theology has allowed us to believe that if it isn't happening to us, then hooray! We are being protected! God is great! Back to work! Throw all of these protesters in jail, the thugs. Problem solved!

Yeah. No. There's a ton of other verses we ought to be quoting right now, but we aren't and don't and won't, because we have bad theology.

And if you don't know what those verses are, you've got bad theology in your heart.

So what I'm wondering is, where is the church? There's a global pandemic, and the church seems to be most concerned about meeting on Sunday mornings regardless of the danger to its parishioners. It also seems to be concerned about having its parishioners being forced to wear masks, because, let's be honest, Jesus never wore a mask. Ever. Not once.

And when you listen to the sermons, they are about the same old same old, every one of them a study in Biblical self-improvement, about each our own individual walk of faith as though there is not a pandemic going on outside.

The church, the modern right-now American church, has no idea how to preach about a pandemic, or how to pray about it, or how to teach us anything about it.

The church is useless to us. It is a bag of empty air.

I'm speaking of the whiter, suburban churches, of course. Theres a reason for that. The white suburban churches and their white suburban parishioners can pretend that it's not happening to them because it's happening far more to poor, black, and old people.

You think they'd notice the old people dying. But, well, you know. They were old anyway. And poor people, well, they're, you know, poor, which is all their fault.

Don't even get me started on black folks and the white church. OK, go ahead. I'll get there.

Where is the church? Where are the prophets? Where are our church leaders standing up for Christ and leading the way, reaching out to the sick, the prisoners (who are also the sick these days), the poor, the homeless, the black and brown, the Indian, the immigrants. the refugees, the aliens, the widows and orphans?

The church is listening to the false prophets, and has been doing so for 300 years. Or so. Time's up! Everybody out of the pool!