smerickson.com the personal website of steven m. erickson

An announcement was made today that Google has aquired photo organizing software Picasa. The huge benefit of this is that the software is now free. That’s right free. I would say that this is one of the best programs out there for digital photo management. If you have just a bunch of pictures all over your computer, this is the program that you need. I highly recommend it.

Picasa

Today I turned 22 years old. It feels kind of weird to say that. Sometimes 22 years feels like forever and other times it feels like no time at all. There are many big decisions to be made this year as well as some significant milestones. I’m not really sure if I’m ready for them all, but come they will. One of the big events will be graduating from college. So often people, mostly adults, but then it affects their children, say that after college you get into the “real world.” Or during the summers when I have been working people say, “welcome to the ‘real world’.” What is meant by this phrase “the real world”? I’m not really a big fan of it, mostly because it denigrates the place in life that I am in. It carries overtones of not really being in touch with reality and living in some kind of fantasy world. That’s really sad to me, because I would like to think that my life has significance at all stages; that each stage is no “more real” than another. I mean, I am living and breathing; I experience highs and lows in life; there are great relationships and there are difficult ones; that are big decisions to be made and there are the everyday tasks involved with maintaining life. I’m not so sure how all of those things are “less real” than what I will supposedly experience a year from now, but we’ll have to see. Maybe I’m completing missing the point of this whole idea. I guess I’m just trying to figure out how to do this thing called “growing up” and it isn’t always the most encouraging when people keep talking about “the real world” as if what I’m living right now is not “real”. Well, those are just some random thoughts here on my 22nd birthday.

As you can see, I’ve updated my site design. I think I’ve finally found something I’m happy with. Thanks to Apple for the inspiration. I’ll be tweaking some things in the coming days, but nothing major. Enjoy the site and come back often.

Yesterday was a most interesting day at church. It was July 4th. What I would like to address is the relationship between the church and the state and the implications for Christian worship.

The Christian and the State

As Christians we live in two kingdoms, the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of heaven. The two kingdoms are distinct but have points of overlap. We would do well to distinguish between them. The kingdom of earth is where all humanity lives. We find ourselves living in a particular place in time and space. In this kingdom we are ruled by the government. The government is established by God. It’s purpose is to restrain evil and promote moral and ethical behavior. There is not any one form of government that can be called a “Christian form of government”. But all forms of government can be guided by Christian principles. The earthly government is not and was never intended to be a heaven on earth. Rather it is a part of God’s providential care for his creation.

This is in contrast to the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is eternal. It is made up of all of God’s elect, the church universal. Here on earth it is often time hidden. Against the nationalistic hopes of the Israelite people, Christ did not come to establish an earthly rulership but a heavenly one. Because God’s kingdom is not of this world, the Christian’s ultimate allegiance is to our heavenly citizenship and not our earthly one, but we belong to both and have responsibilities in both.

Implications for Christian corporate worship

You may be asking, why in the world would this have any connection with Christian corporate worship? The reason is this: our worship is governed by our understanding of God and of his word. Furthermore, our worship ought to reflect a Biblical understanding God, of ourselves and of the world. We would do well to carefully think through the elements of our services and make sure the align with what we profess about God. This is most important on a day like the fourth of July.

This is an overview of today’s service at the church I attend during the summertime. The service began with the singing of America the Beautiful. We then proceeded to corporately say the pledge of allegiance. We acknowledged those in our midst who have served our country in the military. There was a reading concerning the song, “the battle hymn of the republic”. And during the offering the leader sang a song about the flag. Interspersed through all of this were common Christian songs that would normally be sung on any given Sunday; songs like Great is thy faithfulness, Amazing Grace, Forever and He is Exalted. The message then addressed the 3 principles for Christian interaction in society. (1. A biblical understanding of the two kingdoms; 2. Pray for our leaders; 3. Patient participation)

All of this caused me to think about the relationship between our understanding the Christian and the State and the practice of Christian corporate worship. Here are some of my thoughts:

First, our worship ought to be guided by our understanding of God, his attributes and deeds. These are revealed to us in His word, therefore his word is to have preeminence in the service. All elements of the service should come from God’s word, be done in accordance with his word and toward the end of glorifying Him and edifying his people. As such, there is no place for nationalistic patriotism in Christian corporate worship. This is because patriotism has as it focus, the nation or country and not God and his people. It confuses our identity as citizens of heaven with citizens of the earth. Again, we belong to both and have responsibilities in both, but the kingdom of this world is not the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, the singing of songs about God’s “special” grace to America or pledging allegiance to our country or other related practices should not be a part of Christian corporate worship. Primarily, this is because there is no positive warrant in God’s word for this practice. But also, this is because God has not promised his “special” grace to any specific nation, most assuredly not America, given our rampant pluralism and materialism. He has created for himself a people out of every tribe, nation and tongue. Furthermore, our allegiance is ultimately to Christ and to his kingdom. While it is appropriate to be grateful for living in a country such as America and we are to honor and serve our nations leaders, this should not overlap into corporate worship. The church does not show allegiance to any nation, the church pledges her allegiance solely to her Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. The one element of today’s service which I thought was appropriate was prayer for our nation and our leaders. This is exactly what Paul commands to Timothy in 1 Tim 2.

All that I will say about the content of specific patriotic songs is that most of them were probably written by deists and not Christians; therefore the content of those songs reflects deistic understandings of God and humanity which should be carefully weighed against the testimony of God’s Word.

Another thing that made me uncomfortable today was the blatant parallelism between Christ’s work on the cross and the men and women who serve our country in our armed forces. This is because of the unbiblical view of humanity that is promoted in most modern presentations of war. Most people think that war is fought in order to free good and otherwise helpless people from the evil powers which oppress them. If this is the paradigm we have for thinking about what Christ did at Calvary, then we have grossly misunderstood the Gospel. According to the Biblical Gospel, humanity lives in rebellion to God and his law. We act in accordance with our desires and the desires of our heart are continually evil. We are therefore responsible for the evil that we commit and deserving of just punishment. But God, in his mercy, sent Christ to redeem those who were dead in sin. God did not sacrifice his Son for the innocent so that they could be “free”. Rather he redeemed them from their bondage and slavery to sin and paid the penalty which they rightly deserved. The person who sacrifices their life for another human being does so, because that individual deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. But sinners deserve nothing from God except his just wrath and punishment. These two understandings, that of warfare and the Gospel could not be more antithetical and we ought not confuse people by loosely equating them on a day such as the fourth of July or memorial day.

Finally, the focus upon only our nation and God’s general providence over it serves to promote an unhealthy view of God’s work in the global church. To the degree that we emphasize God’s “special” work in America (as if there ever was such a thing, which there is not) we lose sight of the fact that God is the Lord of all the earth. His rule extends to the furthest reaches of the globe and his church consists of people from all nations. We would do well to consider God’s work around the world in contrast to thinking that America is what is going to change the world.

In summary, it takes great thought and effort to plan services which are honoring to God and edifying to his people. I offer these critiques simply because I long to see Christ’s church continue to reform its worship in accordance with his word. On a day like the fourth of July, when national pride runs high; we should take that time to focus upon God and his work around the world. The church’s mindset should not be that of the world. Our focus should not be upon our nation and how great it is, but upon God and how great he is. I hope that we as worship leaders will be thoughtful about these things and encourage the churches we are a part of to have their services reflect the Biblical distinction between the church and the world.