Every week I search for the best articles to send out to my newsletter and I came across this article titled “We’re Addicted to the Feeling of Being Right” by philosopher and Canadian Mark Kingwell, adapted and excerpted from his up coming book Question Authority: A Polemic about Trust in Five Meditations. Certainly worthy of meditation, indeed
The subtitle of the article says,
Our craving for loud, divisive, identity-conferring opinion is poisoning politics
The thing is, it’s also poisoning the church.
Can we trust the church?
Trust works, in large measure, on assumptions about who people are, not just what they do before our eyes. We trust because we cannot observe and judge everything ourselves. – Mark Kingwell
No, you cannot trust the church. The church is a universal movement made up of hundreds of millions of people. You can’t trust all of them.
Can you trust YOUR church? That is the real question.
Do you trust your church to do right with the money you give it?
Do you trust the church to do right when some immoral, unethical or unbiblical behavior comes to light?
Do you trust the church to teach you good theology so that you may know God, grow in faith and live a life of purpose?
There are many churches, that I know, that I do not trust to do any of these. So what are we to do if we do not have trust? Quit?
Do we quit our jobs with the same self righteous vigor when we find out the same shenanigans go on?
Do we quit our families when they do not abide by basic family principles like love and respect?
Some do, most don’t. The church is easiest to quit because there is always another one down the street, one that fits our opinion of what church should be.
Can we trust God?
Yes, He’s the only one we can trust.
Mankind can be forgiven but sin, the desire to do what we want, still abides. When I tell people I am a Christian I often often that up with, “But I’m not a very good one” because like the Apostle Paul, I know myself to “the chiefest of sinners”.
That is not an excuse or giving myself permission to act badly, it’s being honest about myself and my condition so that I may install tighter guardrails so that I do not stay from The Path.
I do not trust the Government. Like the church, it cannot be trusted as a whole because it is made up of imperfect people. Do I trust the people working at City Hall in my town? Yes. Every time I have gone down there to pay for my garbage pick up for three months, my garbage gets picked up for the next 3 months.
The government, based on contracts, community needs, etc. can change the days and times my garbage pick up, and it may cause me to get up earlier to take out my trash, but if they come pick up my trash, that is a promise fulfilled even if it’s not convenient for me.
When my government processes my payment and then picks up my garbage for the next 3 months, trust is built. If they do not make good on their promises, trust would be broken and I would go down to City Hall and raise some cain.
Does God Keep His Promises?
What promises to you, has God broken? My guess is none. If we read God’s word, properly, the promises of God are not usually fulfilled in our time nor the way we want but in His time and His way.
Let’s look at 3 promises of Jesus,
God Himself will supply all your needs (Matthew 6:31-32)
The question is, what do we think we need and what does God think we need. This is not semantics, this is about giving up our opinion of what we think God should do in our situation and simply let God meet our need according to his riches and glory (Philippians 4:19)
He answers your prayers (1 John 5:14-15)
“No” is an answer. “Wait, not now” is an answer, but our only acceptable answer from God is yes because it is what we want. If God should answer all prayers, He’s not the Lord of our lives, He’s a genie handing out wishes. Jesus, God’s son, asked His father for the cup of crucifixion to pass from him and God told him no. Who are we not to pray, “not my will, but yours be done”.
He gives rest (Matthew 11:28)
We like a God who invites us to take a load off, sit a while. But does God remove all our burdens? Does he deliver us from our responsibility to work or to be loving neighbors although each of these are a burden, in their own way? No. What we want, most of the time, is a God who gives a hall pass to run halls and not bear the burden of being in class.
We are addicted to our opinion, especially our opinions of God and when God dos not live up to our opinion of Him, He is no longer of any value to us.
We can point our fingers at large organizations like the church or the government and say, “THEY cannot be trusted” but I would contend that it is WE who cannot be trusted, the small bits that make up these institutions.
We seek ease, comfort, no responsibility and a life without consequences.
We want a government who changes based on our opinion of it, a church who changes based on our opinion of it and a God who changes based on our opinion of Him. How’s that going?