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{"id":93226,"date":"2015-07-02T00:27:51","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T07:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=93226"},"modified":"2015-07-02T08:45:46","modified_gmt":"2015-07-02T15:45:46","slug":"somehow-when-the-holy-father-says-to-bear-a-more-authentic-witness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2015\/07\/somehow-when-the-holy-father-says-to-bear-a-more-authentic-witness.html","title":{"rendered":"Somehow, when the Holy Father says to bear a more authentic witness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u2026lots of Christians hear that as \u201cScream harder at little girls.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

The worst thing that happened to the Church in these United States was Christians forgetting the gospel and becoming convinced that the goal was to win political power in the Culture War. \u00a0It was only a matter of time till it became clear that is not what it\u2019s about and that Caesar was, at best, only playing us for suckers.<\/p>\n

Now we have had a cultural watershed moment in which we have been strongly shouted down by our culture and the servants of Mammon and Caesar have told us that it\u2019s splitsville. \u00a0 David Koch tells us \u201cThanks, suckers!\u201d <\/a>\u00a0A growing number of GOP leaders are saying, \u201cSure I love ya, baby. \u00a0Now could you go back to the motel and wait for me? \u00a0I\u2019m with some important friends from Vegas and I don\u2019t have time for whatever drama you are into right now.\u201d \u00a0Lots of conservative Christians are panicking, not about the actual victims of Obergefell (children, who have been definitively stripped of all rights to a mother and father) but about their poor disenfranchised selves\u00a0in that way that a homely ex-girlfriend does when they discover that Chad only came to prom with her\u00a0because he wanted her\u00a0Daddy\u2019s money to cover the cost of the tux. \u00a0Now he\u2019s in the corner cuddling with that bully\u00a0Brad\u00a0and we are alone, fantasizing about the terrible things that Chad might let Brad do to us and simultaneously scheming about some fresh way to get power back. \u00a0The seething anger at the loss of power is palpable<\/p>\n

The guy in the picture at the link is the image of that seething anger at the loss of power. He thinks he\u2019s \u201cbearing witness to the gospel\u201d. \u00a0He\u2019s not. \u00a0He has been sitting there in his prom dress ever since Obergefell,\u00a0drinking the spiked punch and starting to talk too loud about what bastards men are. Finally, he erupted in that juvenile moment, screaming at a little girl, which got captured on film and will be useful for years to come as the face of \u201cloving\u201d Christianity, having a meltdown at the loss of political power.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the deal: \u00a0the gospel does not win by anger, violence, and force. \u00a0The entire attempt of Christians to achieve the Kingdom of Heaven by means of political power is increasingly being exposed to us as a snare and deception\u2013and good riddance. \u00a0The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of this world, but the weapons of the Spirit and the sooner we get that, the sooner we start bringing to bear the fruits of the Spirit on a culture that sorely needs them. \u00a0Jesus triumphed, not by winning political power, but by losing everything for the sake of love.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"