I hear the steps
louder at night
they started like a beat
to my young days
that I would dance to
but slow as each moon
would pass
they stalked as footfalls
down my street
echoes in alleys
speaking of darker times
this walking dude
this stalking dude
reaching

One person’s very powerful, personal story in the Toronto Star to walk a middle-way and leave the extremes of left and right behind her.

CLICK HERE:

The issue of abortion is so polarizing I, like so many others, do not want to touch it (and yet here I am rushing in where Angels fear to tread).

On the Pro-choice/Anti-life side of things you have the argument that as long as the fetus is inside a woman’s body it is her choice to decide its/his/her fate.

On the Pro-life/Anti-choice side of things you have the argument that the fetus is a human life, that ending a life is killing. That killing a defenseless life is murder. That murder is wrong.

The problem (among many) is the inability to satisfactorily answer the question – when does life begin followed by the equally important question is one life more valuable than another and what are the criteria to measure?

When does life begin – at conception? At emergence from the womb? At some nebulous place in the middle?

What are the criteria to determine if something is a life or not?

Even then the argument is made that one still needs to determine if it is life such as that which a lump of moss has or sentient, feeling life, such as that which a human being has.

Arguments are made back and forth and hate is spewed by all sides. If life begins at conception then ending it is murder by any definition we have. If life begins outside of the womb than an abortion is simply a medical procedure to remove something not unlike a tumor.

What about children of incest and rape? What about pregnancies that could end the life of the mother and/or baby? What if the child has a disability?

There is no clean answer.

How can one be anti-abortion and pro-choice on the logic that we should not legislate morality when virtually all of our legislation is based on morality?

How can we blame people for calling abortion genocide when they believe life begins at conception and therefore regular, state-approved murder is occurring daily?

How can we blame people for calling abortion a woman’s right when they believe that the woman’s right over her own body is paramount to the rights of what may or may not be alive?

So many questions?

To get all Star Trek I would ask – “Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one or do the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many?

I have no answers…I have my own beliefs and the inner turmoil over how to force women to abide by them versus the agony of feeling complicit in murder by not acting at all.

So I wrote about Christian Tract Ninjas the other day and woke this morning to find pictures on Facebook of spray-painted anti-Christian vandalism on one of our local churches.

Statements including – “Satan is finally here”, “You’re all goin to Hell” painted in bold letters on the church bus and “Satan loves you” on the church doors.

Note the grammatically correct use of “You’re” rather than the usual mistake of “Your” suggesting the vandals are older.

I am tempted to say “sticks and stones…” at this point but I will not because the truth is words are powerful. If I know my Christian brothers and sisters, this will serve to do nothing but strengthen their faith as they rally together in solidarity around the need to pray for the vandals and cleanse the building.

The act is cowardly. This is not meant as an insult but merely as a statement of fact. It is a form of anti-evangelism. It is impersonal and distant and intentionally hidden – an act of darkness done in darkness. It is the polar opposite of the tract placements I wrote about the other day. The act is designed to elicit an angry and combative response. I wonder if the two are connected at some level?

The difference of course is the motivation – hate versus love. The use of spray paint to deface a place of worship is meant to create pain and is a hate crime.

In these moments (which will happen more and more) an opportunity of response is given to us by another word…by the Word:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” – Matthew 5:44-48

Yesterday I noticed that my town was apparently ransacked by some old-school Christian ninjas who managed to sneak through the community under the invisible cloak of night and tape tracts to everything – walls, benches, windows etc.

Do you know what a tract is? It is an old-school evangelism technique – a small palm-sized piece of literature that explains a portion of the Gospel. Usually the primary emphasis of the tract is that the reader, unless they are a Christian (and usually a certain, very specific brand of Christian) they are bound for Hell.

In recent history tracts were very popular in the late 1960’s and throughout the 70’s. To see them around again suggests a certain culture-boundness by whoever the culprit(s) are and while the intentions are good many a road is paved with good intentions.

Tract evangelism falls under the category of evangelism characterized by the attitude of “it doesn’t matter how you convert them just keep ’em outta hell and get ’em into heaven”.

An extreme form of this kind of conversion which was based on the above logic was the forced conversion (on threat of death or the execution of family) of Jews and Muslims to Christianity throughout the Spanish Inquisition. This is bad salvation theology.

RULE OF THUMB: If your evangelism involves some form of violence (physical, mental or spiritual) it is unhealthy and wrong.

There is a problem with this kind of conversion…it is motivated by the individual doing the evangelism. It is an outside/in kind of evangelism rather than an inside/out.

Let me put it another way – a recent study (one I will link to when I find it again) of Christian converts in North Africa revealed an interesting aspect of conversions in that region. Most converts (a large majority) cited the witness of the way local Christians lived their lives as the primary motivation for conversion – not tracts, not church, not visions, not threats or fear mongering – life.

The nature of salvation is that it is both a crisis (that is, a specific moment in time) and a process. It is both, not one or the other. Many stories of Christian lives (A.B. Simpson of the Christian and Missionary Alliance for one) demonstrate that salvation as a process started early on in a life but, a moment of definite crisis did not happen until late into adulthood. In no way does this suggest that a particular person was not saved until the moment of crisis…the crisis was the hub of the wheel of faith in the person’s life – the centre of their salvation but neither the beginning nor the end.

The problem with tracts and other similar types of evangelism is that they are focused on creating a crisis but have little if anything to do with process. It is the “ticket to heaven” kind of evangelism that is not demonstrated anywhere in scripture and looks suspiciously like the evangelist is doing the saving. It is also as impersonal as a door-to-door vacuum salesperson.

The Word is spoken because it is the Word…for the spoken Word to be truly heard requires relationship. This is why the apostle Paul went to the Jewish population of cities first to establish the Gospel in community. He went to those who would be most receptive to him  as a fellow Jew and therefore member of the same community. Relationship was easiest to establish there. Then those members of the Jewish community would spread the gospel through already existing relationships they had with others in the city.

What is demonstrated time and again is the impact of a life lived as witness before the world. Through the prophets of the Old Testament, through Christ and through the apostles  in the New Testament, relationship and a presentation of honest humanity before a loving God are the primary means through which the world changes.

Honest humanity does not necessarily mean “honest” in the immediate and guilt-ridden sense so much as it means genuine warts-and-all humanity living under the recognized sovereignty of God and the grace that goes with that.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” – Ephesians 2:8-9

silence is the voice of the spreading dark
because there is no wound to stitch
there is no bent or broken bone to mend
only the maddened starving soul
that gnaws from the inside out
seeking to be unborn