Receive. Reject. Redeem. Repeat. (If Hitler…Bad Idea Part 2 of 2)

In a culture that polarizes almost everything, it’s understandable when someone is trying to grapple with a new Jesus-centric worldview and attempts to sort all areas of life into good and bad.

This is, I believe, what is going on when some Christians get rid of books, movies and music that aren’t explicitly “Christian” (whatever that means) and start buying media that is.  There’s just one problem with that: the Bible.

The story of God is not one of Him sorting the good people and bad people into two separate piles and burning one.  The story is of an entire race(human) rebelling against God and being “bad.”  It’s a story of that merciful God dying in the place of the guilty to create a third pile:  the redeemed.

So when I come to Christ, what do I do with music?  Receive it as it is?  Reject it?  Or redeem it?

When I come to Christ, what do I do with sex?  Receive it as it has been?  Abstain altogether?  Or redeem it?

What about food?  Before I knew Christ, I was a glutton.  Do I keep eating as I have?  Do I never eat again?  Or do I use it as something to sustain the body that God has entrusted to me?

You could summarize the Christian life, if you wanted to, into these four words:

RECEIVE.  REJECT.  REDEEM.  REPEAT.

If Hitler Tried It, It Might Be A Bad Idea (Part 1 of 2)

I was recently reminded of a little piece of Christian culture from the 80s: throwing non-Christian tapes and CDs into a fire.  I can’t remember if I was ever part of a youth group that did a music-burning (or whatever you call it) but I do recall that I saw nothing wrong with my KrissKross cassette or my Celine Dion CD. (Look, we all have things in our past we’re not proud of; lay off.)

It was later on that I studied the Second World War.  In high school I was told the basics: Hitler was evil, America was awesome.  But in college, we went a step deeper.  We looked into Der Fuhrer’s progression from saying he was a Christian early in his career to eventually having the Reich imprison Dietrich Bonhoeffer and publicly burn mounds of Bibles.

I’m not saying that it’s bad to get things out of your life that are holding you back from full devotion to Christ; I’m just saying that Mein Kampf probably shouldn’t be in a Christian’s repertoire for methods of sanctification.

At it’s core, I think Christians who are burning Coldplay & Harry Potter are failing to understand and utilize one important Biblical doctrine: but that will have to wait for next Friday, when I post Part 2…