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Thursday, January 2, 2014

THE UNINTENDED STATE OF RELIGION

Jeroboam, 1st king of the divided northern kingdom of Israel, created a new system of Judaism centered at altars he erected in Bethel and in Dan. 
The king gave an official public statement for why he was building a new system of churches and ordaining a new set of priests.
He said: It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt!  (1 Kings 12: 28)
His statement had 2 main points:   (1) “I’m doing this to improve your lives.”  (2) “This is your true heritage.”
That was the official statement.   But the official statement was not the real reason. 

The real reason was Jeroboam’s desire for power.

Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom may return to the house of David:   If these people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn back to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah, and they will kill me and go back to Rehoboam king of Judah.”  (1 Kings 12: 26-27)

Translation: “If I let these people just go on worshipping God without interferene, they’ll eventually get back to the way God had originally set things up.  And then, they won’t need or want me anymore.”   

Thus King Jeroboam created a new system under the guise of
(1)    Breaking with the old, irrelevant traditions (Liberalism) ; and
(2)    Taking the nation back to its true original roots (Conservatism).

By the time of Jeroboam II and the prophet Amos, the religious leaders in Israel no longer saw a difference between their faith and the king’s political agenda.    In fact, they would modify their religious declarations to fit the king’s political platform. 
What’s worse, they would attack any believer who stood up to question their political platform, even when the dissenter was speaking exactly God’s truth.

So, when God sent the prophet Amos with a message of rebuke and condemnation, the politicians didn’t have to pressure the church to silence Amos.  The established authority of the church initiated the attacks on behalf of the beloved political agenda they were trying to protect.

Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words.   For thus Amos has said: ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, And Israel shall surely be led away captive From their own land.’ ”
Then Amaziah said to Amos: “Go, you seer! Flee to the land of Judah. There eat bread, And there prophesy.  But never again prophesy at Bethel, For it is the king’s sanctuary, And it is the royal residence.” ( Amos 7:10-13)

Not the people’s sanctuary---- the KING’S sanctuary.  Not the place where the Lord resides---- the king’s residence.

Bethel was the place established (supposedly) for the people to worship God, but the priest isn’t trying to protect the sanctity of Bethel scripture.  The priest is trying to protect the sanctity of Bethel’s politics.

By the time Jesus walked the lands in which Amos had preached, the people there had thoroughly lost their identity.  So much so that Jesus told a woman of the lands,  “You don’t even know what you worship.” (John 4: 22)

They weren’t even Jews anymore.  They were Samaritans.

Politicians cannot and should not tell us what it means to be a Christian.  When the words “conservative” and  “liberal” mean the exact same thing in a church as they do in Congress then something is very, very wrong with the church. 

The church and the people of the church should be involved in politics, but we must never be defined by it.

If we are, if we are a faith-based extension of any political platform; then we are enroute to losing ourselves; and one day, the Lord will look at us and say,  “You don’t even know what you’re worshipping, do you?”

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
Call  334-288-0577
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