Sword Drills

When I saw Donald Trump waving a Bible around in front of a church in Washington D.C. on Monday I thought “he is acting as if that Bible is a sword and he’s using it to help create more tension and trouble.”  It brought to mind the sword drills we used to do at church events I attended as a teen.  A leader would shout out the chapter and verse reference for a Bible passage and we would all race to find it in our Bibles and be the first to read it out loud to everyone. These competitions were called sword drills. The implication was that the Bible was our sword and our skill at quickly locating random verses in it and reading them out of context provided us with a weapon in a battle.  I am not sure who we were battling against, perhaps all the forces of evil whatever they might have been at the time.  

Photo from Public News Updates

Donald Trump was using the Bible as a weapon on Monday to consolidate his leadership because he knows a crucial base of his support is among evangelical Christians.  I suspect many of them did Bible sword drills when they were teenagers too.  As popular Christian writer Rachel Held Evans explains in her chapter called Sword Drills in her book Evolving in Monkey Town the difficult and challenging thing about the Bible is that random verses can be used to support completely opposite points of view.

Having observed the leadership of Donald Trump in the last four years I would have to say that while about a third of Americans share and support the world view he believes the Bible espouses, I would be among the people of faith who think that Donald Trump’s leadership seems completely antithetical to my ideas about the Bible and the helpful guidance it has the possibility to provide.  

Other posts………..

Statistics and Bible Verses

Do You Believe in Miracles? 

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Do You Believe in Miracles?

Do you believe in miracles?  According to writer Rachel Held Evans, that question isn’t important.  The important thing is whether you ACT like you believe in miracles.  People who act like they believe in miracles feed the hungry, care for the sick, hold the hand of the homeless and offer hope to the addict. Sometimes while they are busy behaving as if miracles can happen they just might!
Rachel’s book  Inspired looks at practical ways to interpret and apply Biblical texts. One chapter focuses on the gospel accounts of Jesus performing miracles, including the story where he walked on water.  Rachel writes if we want to ‘walk on water’  in our personal lives and in our relationships with others the first thing we need to do is get out of the boat.   That first step out of the boat might mean showing up for a counseling session or giving an older relative a phone call, getting some exercise, donating to a charity, taking a break from social media or offering free babysitting to new parents.

Rachel says while the New Testament records Jesus’ miracles it does not provide us with a ‘how to manual’. Jesus doesn’t give us a recipe or blueprint.  We need to figure out how to act like miracle workers on our own. That got me thinking about people I know who are acting like they believe in miracles.

Christ Healing the Blind by El Greco 1570

Jesus healed a blind man.  My friend Esther sorts and packs used eyeglasses for the Lions Club.  The glasses are distributed worldwide to people who otherwise couldn’t afford them or wouldn’t have access to them.  My cousin Steve’s volunteer work prevents diabetes patients in Nicaragua from going blind. 

Jesus provided food for the crowds who came to see him. My parents Paul and Dorothy grew grain on their hobby farm for the Canadian Food Grains Bank. That grain helped feed people around the world. My pastor Kathy coordinates the Winnipeg Harvest branch that operates out of our church providing food to folks in our neighborhood who need it. 

Jesus gave new life to a little girl.  My sister Kaaren volunteers at a school that is trying to provide new beginnings to kids whose families face a variety of challenges. My friend Simone serves on the board of a shelter that provides new hope to the homeless. 

Jesus loosened the tongue of a man who couldn’t speak. My friend Jodi has written and published a book that gives autistic kids a voice. She wants their stories and their strengths to be heard and recognized. My cousin Lynne and her husband Rod act as allies with indigenous community members as they give voice to their wisdom. They believe indigenous insights can help us understand political and social issues in new and important ways. 

Rachel Held Evans

Do you believe the miracle stories in the Bible actually happened?  Rachel Held Evans suggests that’s really an irrelevant question.  The real question is……..Do the miracle stories in the Bible inspire you to attempt miracles?  

Note: I was a devoted follower of Rachel Held Evans’ blog. After she died suddenly at the beginning of May I knew there wouldn’t be any more blog posts so I decided to read or re-read all of her books. Inspired was a great first choice.  

Other posts……..

Mending What We Can

Nuggets of Hope for the Disgruntled

Faithless? Definitely Not!

Heaven Meets Earth

Your One Wild and Precious Life

“Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

On Sunday the theme of the sermon in our church was that question from the poem The Summer Day by Mary Oliver. Our pastor talked about people she felt had done incredible things with their one wild and precious life.

One example she gave was Rachel Held Evans a 37-year-old best selling author of four books and mother of two young children who died suddenly on May 4 from a brain infection. I have been reading Rachel’s blog for many years and admired her.  

Rachel was an evangelical Christian but she spoke out long and loud about making the church a place where everyone was welcome including those who were part of the LGBTQ community.  She was a Christian feminist who advocated for an equal role for women in the church and in society.  I especially respected her common sense approach to the issue of abortion.  She encouraged people to vote for political candidates who would actually bring about the changes in society that research has shown reduce the abortion rate. She encouraged hard questions and firmly believed you didn’t need to sacrifice your intellectual integrity to be a person of faith. Rachel was respected and loved by millions. She became an articulate and powerful spokeswoman for people of faith who believed in a very different kind of Christianity than the one espoused by the supporters of Donald Trump.

Evidence of the importance of Rachel Held Evans life was clear as almost every major news source in the United States ran stories about her death.  The Washington Post, The New York Times,The New Yorker, The Atlantic,CNN,CBS,NPR, Fox,  Newsweek and hundreds of others.   A Twitter hashtag #Becauseof RHE soon garnered a host of moving testimonies from people who said their lives had been changed because of her. These tweets were shared thousands of times worldwide. 

Rachel Held Evans was indeed a person who made the very most of her one wild and precious life. She inspires us all to emulate her.

Other posts………

Inspiration from Poet Mary Oliver

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The Woman Who Loves Giraffes