How the elders of Crete oughta behave.

Titus 1.5-9.

Paul left Titus in Crete because its churches had a leadership vacuum. I mean, there might’ve been people the Christians imagined were leaders, but Paul considered them inadequate, as we can tell from what he had to write to Titus. They lacked spiritual maturity. Titus didn’t.

Here, Paul reminds Titus that maturity—good fruit and good character—correctly defines a person who’s considered an elder of the church. You’re not an elder without it, and ought not be a leader without it.

Titus 1.5-9 KWL

5 This is why I have you remain in Crete:

So you might organize the things we leave there.

So you might designate elders for each city,

as I commanded you.

6 If a certain person has no controversy about them,

a one-woman man,

has believing children,

has never been accused of excessive living

nor of being unsubmissive

7 —for a supervisor has to be uncontroversial,

being like God’s butler.

Not arrogant.

Not quick-tempered.

Not drunk.

Not picking fights.

Not greedy for “prosperity.”

8 Instead, loves strangers.

Loves goodness.

Sound-minded.

Fair.

Pious.

Self-disciplined.

9 Holds tight to what’s consistent

with the message of faith as taught,

so he might be able to help in the sound teaching,

and in rebuking those who contradict it.

A number of Christians claim Paul’s only describing pastors, ’cause Paul mentioned “a supervisor” in verse 7. (Greek ἐπίσκοπον/epískopon, KJV “bishop,” NIV “overseer.”) This is a word the New Testament tends to use to describe bishops and head pastors; it’s not just any church leader. Thing is, the elders of a church do supervise all sorts of things in a church, whether they have the title “pastor” or not. And really everyone in church leadership should be qualified to step up when the pastor or bishop isn’t available; everybody should meet these ground-floor qualifications, no matter what title they have. Got it?

The apostle’s job.

Titus 1.1-4.

Okay, tackling Titus this week. Paul wrote this letter to Titus during his last missionary journey of 63–66. That journey isn’t told of in Acts, but it took place after Paul stood trial before Nero Caesar in 62 and was acquitted; and took place before Paul was arrested again, stood trial before Nero again, and that time was beheaded in the year 67. Nicopolis, Epirus, Greece was one of the cities on Paul’s itinerary, and where Paul expected to see Titus again. Tt 3.12

Titus was a member of Paul’s apostolic team, a Greek Ga 2.3 originally from Crete (Greek Κρήτη/Kríti), the largest of the Greek islands, about 160km off the coast of the Greek mainland, and 100km southwest of Türkiye. There were Cretans at the first Pentecost, Ac 2.11 and for all we know Titus was among them.

But since Paul calls Titus his son in this letter, Tt 1.4 Christians figure Paul likely introduced him to Christ Jesus. Though elsewhere in the scriptures Paul calls him a brother 2Co 2.13 and partner; 2Co 8.23 so if Paul had led Titus to Jesus, these descriptions indicate Titus had quickly matured to a point where Paul considered him an equal in Christ. Paul occasionally sent Titus to help out churches and deliver his letters. Corinth, fr’instance. 2Co 2.13

In this letter, Paul states he’d sent Titus back to Crete to organize Jesus’s church there. Tt 1.5 From what little we know, that’s where Titus served till he died, either in the 90s or early 00s. The Church of St. Titus in Heraklion, Crete, still has his skull.

Titus, along with 1–2 Timothy, are called the “pastoral epistles” because, duh, they were written to pastors. Naturally they contain a lot of advice from Paul to these two pastors about how to best do their jobs, and it’s served as useful advice for every other Christian about how to be in leadership. That’s why we study it.

As usual, Paul’s introductions were done Roman-style, so you could unroll the scroll a little bit, quickly read the author and the recipient, and roll it back up. Paul’s introduction in this letter is a little wordier than usual, ’cause he’s trying to slip some theology in there.

Because certain scholars try to make a name for themselves by challenging everything, some of ’em have tried to argue Paul didn’t really write this letter, and Titus wasn’t really the recipient. Few take these scholars seriously. I don’t.

Titus 1.1-4 KWL

1 Pávlos, God’s slave

and Christ Jesus’s apostle,

consistent with the faith of God’s selected ones,

and consistent with the recognition of the truth—

consistent with piety—

2 in the hope of life in the age to come,

which the never-lying God promised

before the time of this age.

3 He made his message of this eternal life known

through preaching in our own time,

which was entrusted to me

according to the command of our savior God.

4 To Titus, my genuine child

according to our common faith:

Grace and peace from God the Father,

and Christ Jesus our savior.

Notice it took four verses to get to the typical Christian greeting of “Grace and peace from God and Christ.” Let’s unpack that, shall we?

Pride Month.

A Gallup poll released in February 2022 revealed 7.2 percent of Americans identify themselves as queer—by which I mean something other than heterosexual. Either lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, or any other categories not covered by the first four. The four make up the acronym LGBT, and while other letters have been added to it so as to include every possible shade of queerness, most folks stick to LGBT, ’cause it’s the acronym which has been around longest.

Anyway. The younger the adults are, the more these percentages go up.

• Generation X (people born between the mid-1960s and 1980, which’d include me) is about 3.3 percent non-hetero.
• Gen Y, the millennials (1980 to the mid-’90s), is at 11.2 percent.
• Gen Z, the zoomers (mid-’90s to mid-2010s) is at 19.7 percent.
• Gen Alpha wasn’t polled. They’re still kids, y’know.

I didn’t include the stats for baby boomers (mid-1940s to mid-’60s) and silents (late 1920s to mid-’40s) because—let’s be honest—a bunch of them are still “in the closet,” hiding their non-heterosexuality. Or they’re in denial.

And I question those Generation Z figures. Because—let’s keep being honest, shall we?—some of the younger adults don’t know what they are. Young people are still figuring it out! Some of them might legitimately be queer. Some might not be, but they’re trying out queerness, because being straight hasn’t really worked out for them. I’ve got one coworker who figures he’ll try anything once, and that includes gay stuff, because who knows?—maybe he’s gay. He doesn’t know, and aren’t parents always telling their kids about food, “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it”? So he’s trying it.

Yeah, I can already hear my conservative readers from here, wailing and wringing their hands: “Woe is us; our nation is going to hell.” Relax folks; it was always going to hell. Isn’t that what your favorite End Times prognosticators have always taught? (Or were you paying more attention to your favorite politicians than them?)

But lemme leap back to that previous comment I made about baby boomers and silents. ’Cause if you think I was just making a joke about ’em, no I wasn’t. If you think I was just being facetious, I’m really not. There have always been queer people. They’ve been hiding. Those low numbers in those older generations do not mean there used to be fewer of them, but their numbers are growing. They mean many of ’em are still hiding.

Because not too long ago in America, you could get murdered over it. Still can. All it takes is someone with hate in their heart, who thinks nobody’s looking, who thinks God’s actually okay with murdering people over it. ’Cause you can certainly get that idea when you quote certain anti-gay scriptures.

Leviticus 20.13 KJV

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

There are other countries, like Russia and Uganda and Saudi Arabia, which have made laws based on such scriptures, and will jail and execute you for being gay, and think they’re righteous for doing so. And when you listen to certain conservatives in the United States, they think those countries are absolutely right to do it… and wanna know why we won’t do it too.

Well duh; because we’re not the nation of ancient Israel. Because their covenant with God is not ourcovenant with God. We don’t even have a national covenant with God. True, one idiot or another claims the Mayflower Compact, or the U.S. Constitution, or the Bill of Rights, is a covenant with God… and of course these things absolutely aren’t. Likewise some Christian yutz might cobble together a statement or declaration or creed, and claim they’re establishing a national covenant with God, and of course they don’t speak for all American Christians any more than I do. No Christian nor church does.

Our Constitution (specifically article 6 section 3, and amendment 1) establishes no religion, nor religious system, over this country. The United States may be predominantly Christian, but because it was founded at a time when open warfare between Christian sects was still going on in Europe, it was deliberately made a pluralistic society. As such we can have among our citizens and residents Christians and pagans, Jews and Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, Wiccans and nontheists, and no covenant is in violation. God’s not gonna smite us with tornadoes because we harbor gay people. Nature will, because we won’t stop polluting.

So all those conservatives who imagine God’s gonna be very, very cross with America unless we purge every queer person from sea to shining sea? Man have they got God wrong. There’s an awful amount of projection in their interpretation of God: They are upset and hostile towards non-heterosexuals, so they imagine God shares all their frustration and rage. After all, they imagine they’re tight with God; surely he’s at least as pissed and murdery as they.

And that’s where we are this LGBT Pride Month.

When pagans believe they’re Christian.

In the United States, roughly seven out of 10 people believe they’re Christian. I live in California, where it’s six of 10. I’m not pulling these numbers out of my tuchus; the national stats and state stats are from the 2019 Pew Forum study. Those numbers might’ve gone down a bit since the pandemic.

But generally they match my experience. Whenever I share Jesus with strangers, about two out of three tell me they’re Christian already. They don’t necessarily go to church; that’s another issue. But they definitely figure they’re Christian. For all sorts of reasons:

• Personal experiences with Jesus. Even personal appearances.
• They said the sinner’s prayer once.
• They’re a regular at their church. (How regular varies. Many figure twice a year counts.)
• They got baptized.
• They were raised Christian. Or their family’s Christian.
• They consider themselves spiritual. And when they contemplate spiritual matters, Jesus is in the mix somewhere.

Now, let’s explode that last reason: They’re “spiritual”—by which they nearly always mean they believe in supernatural things like God, spirits, and the afterlife. And for the most part, they have happy thoughts about it. If they identify as Christian, Jesus is included in their spirituality. But once we analyze their spiritual beliefs, we find what they really believe looks a lot more like this:

• There’s a God. Jesus is his son (but not God though, nor God’s only son) and the holy spirit (note the lowercase) is God’s power (but not God though).
• God loves everybody and wants us to be nice to one another.
• Death means we go to heaven, and probably watch over the living somehow.
• Organized religion is unnecessary, and just confuses things.

Basically it’s what pagans typically believe. Of course there are exceptions, but generally that’s it. It’s the belief system of popular culture. It’s not Christianity.

Nope, these folks aren’t Christian. They’re Christianists.

They’re a subcategory I call incognito pagans: They honestly think they’re Christian! After all, it’s how popular culture loosely defines Christianity. They like Jesus! They believe he’s a good guy. They have their weddings and funerals at churches. If you deny Jesus it’ll actually offend them. If their kids decide to become Muslim or Hindu (or tell ’em they’re gay) suddenly they really get Christian—usually to the surprise of their kids, who usually thought their parents didn’t believe anything.

But no, they’re not Christian. They have no Holy Spirit within them. Which is why they produce none of his fruit. As far as their knowledge about Christ is concerned, they couldn’t tell a Jesus quote from a Benjamin Franklin proverb. Since they figure they’re saved, they’re good; why bother to learn about their Savior? That’s for clergy to worry about. For theologians; for academics and experts. Meanwhile they have bigger things to worry about.

Speaking as one of these experts, our religion has to have a living and active relationship with Christ Jesus at its core. They don’t have that. At all. So they’re pagan.

Which they don’t realize. And will totally object to, when you call ’em on it. It’s the one area of knowledge they refuse to concede to the clergy and experts.

Tell ’em they’re not Christian, and they’ll loudly insist they are so: “Who are you to tell me I’m no Christian?” Doesn’t matter if you’re a pastor, professor, bishop, or pope: Suddenly they get to define what “Christian” means. And it’s not based on fruit, nor orthodoxy, nor even Christ Jesus and the scriptures. It’s based on their best judgment. Which is simply more proof they’re pagans.

We Christians recognize we don’t define what a Christian is: Jesus does. That’s why we look for fruit and orthodoxy. Simple combo. Heretics let the orthodoxy slide, and hypocrites and cultists let the fruit slide. The rest of us realize we can’t just claim the title “Christian” without the faith and good works: We gotta actually follow Jesus. Pagans don’t realize this, and think all it takes to be Christian, is they gotta name it and claim it.

As a result, there are a lot of the people showing up on surveys as “Christian” who aren’t really. It’s how they self-identify. Not how Christ identifies them. They’re not truly his.

Fake Christians.

I used to write about fake Christians a lot.

Probably too much, which is why I went cold turkey for a few years. It was getting a little graceless of me. I mean, based on my criteria, 15-year-old me would’ve been a fake Christian. And I wasn’t! Yeah, there was a lot of hypocrisy in my life. But I was legitimately Christian. A lousy one, but an authentic one.

So lemme ’splain what I mean by fake Christian: Somebody who claims to be Christian, or gets mixed up in Christian activities or the Christian subculture. But knowingly, deliberately, isn’t.

• Like a politician who goes to church to win votes, or meets with pastors to get their approval. But in private he thinks Christians are easily-fooled idiots. After all, he just fooled ’em.
• Like a business owner who puts a Jesus fish on her business cards to get Christians as customers. But she never goes to church. Privately, she has a lot of contempt for those who do.
• Like a husband who goes to church with his family because he approves of the moral guidance religion can provide. But he never follows its guidance. Doesn’t think he needs to; he’s good! And would think you’re a fool if you ever seriously suggested it to him.
• Like a woman who wants her neighbors to think she’s a good Christian woman, because they appear to be good Christian women, and she’d like to fit in, and not be rejected as the neighborhood heathen.
• Like a man who’s offended because his coworker is living with his girlfriend “in sin.” Who’s offended when anyone’s gay or lesbian or bisexual, because “that’s a sin.” Who’s offended when someone figures they're nonbinary or trans, because “that’s a sin” too. But when anyone calls him out on his regular practice of sleeping with skanks every weekend, suddenly “what I do in my private time is none of your f---ing business, and who are you to judge me?”

Fake Christians aren’t interested in Jesus. They’re only interested in the fringe benefits of Christianity. And in predominantly Christian countries and communities, there are plenty of benefits! You fit right in.

• “Fellow” Christians will automatically accept you!—’cause even though we Christinas are supposed to love everyone, loads of us suck at it.
• “Fellow” Christians will unquestioningly endorse you!—’cause even though we’re supposed to test everything, loads of us suck at it.
• “Fellow” Christians will often show you abundant grace!—’cause even though we’re supposed to show grace to everyone, loads of us suck at it. And don’t really extend grace to our own as much as we should.
• Plus you can be as bigoted as you like, but say it’s really because you’re offended by “sin.”

If you're a con artist of any level, we Christians are easy pickings. Too easy.

The flood story.

In Genesis there’s a story about a massive flood. Rain for a month and a half; waters which covered every hill in the area, and killed every living thing. It was, states the author of Genesis, God’s way of getting rid of the violence in the land: He got rid of everybody except this one righteous (well, righteous enough) family.

Starts like this.

Genesis 6.11-21 KWL

11 To God’s face, the land was ruined.

The land was full of violence.

12 God saw the land. Look, ruin!

all flesh ruined its way in the land.

13 God told Noah, “To my face,

the end of all flesh is coming:

They fill the land with violence before them.

Look, the land is ruined!

14 Make yourself a box of cypress trees.

Make living spaces within the box.

Plaster it from the inside to the outside with asphalt.

15 This is how you’ll make it:

A box 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, 30 cubits high.

16 Make a window in the box, a cubit from the top.

Make a doorway in the box’s side.

Make bottom, second, and third floors.

17 Look at me: I bring the deluge of waters on the land

to destroy all flesh on it,

the breath of life under the heavens:

Everything on the land dies.

18 I raise my relationship with you.

Come into the box.

You, your sons, your woman, your sons’ women with you.

19 All living things, all flesh:

Two of all comes into the box to live with you.

They’ll be male and female.

20 From the bird to its kind,

from the animal of its kind,

from all which swarms the ground of its kind,

two of all comes to you to live.

21 Take with you all the food you can eat.

Gather it for yourselves.

It’s for food, for you and them.”

22 Noah did everything God commanded him to do.

So God has this man, Noah ben Lamekh, build himself a big black box…

Yeah, black box. What d’you think an ark is, a boat? What, were the Hebrews carrying around the Boat of the Covenant through the desert for four decades? Did Indiana Jones excavate a Nazi-killing gold boat, or am I remembering that movie all wrong?

But you’d be forgiven if you made the mistake of thinking a תֵּבַ֣ת/tevá is a boat. After all, American popular culture has the image of a boat cemented in everybody’s brain. Noah built a boat, they say—and on dry land! How the neighbors must’ve laughed and jeered at Noah and his kids for building a boat on dry land. Then when the floodwaters came, boy did they get their comeuppance.

Except it nowhere says in the bible, nowhere in Genesis, that Noah built a boat. That bit about the jeering neighbors? Not in the bible either. I know; you’ve been told this story so many times, you half remember it being biblical, don’t you? Nope. Go read Genesis 7 again. Isn’t there. Never happened.

Wait, what about those people in Kentucky who made the Ark Encounter, the life-size Noah’s Ark which they claim is totally based on the bible? Again, read your bible. Read that bit of Genesis 6 I just translated, in any translation you please. But remember, “ark” means box. God told Noah to build a box. Covered in כֹּֽפֶר/kofér, “bitumen,” or asphalt, so it wasn’t be bare or stained wood, like the Ark Encounter depicts it. It’d be black as the roads outside your house.

Arguably log-cabin style, ’cause it’s made of עֲצֵי גֹ֔פֶר/ačé-gofér, “trees of cypress.” God didn’t say planed wooden planks. I know!—you imagined Noah building a boat, so of course you imagined him building it out of planks, but there’s nothing in the bible to describe what Noah did with the trees once he chopped ’em down. Now, figuring a cubit is half a meter (or half a yard, if you’re American like me), Noah was instructed to make it 150 by 25 by 15, square. Not with a curved bow to easily cut through water, and certainly not with a rudder—who’s gonna steer it? What’s its destination? Why would Noah presumptively assume his box would even float?—for all he knew, it might stay where it was, underwater, watertight, waiting for the floods to pass.

The Kentucky monstrosity is entirely based on popular Christian culture, based on what generations of American preachers and their art have speculated about Noah’s box. Something which actually requires less faith in God than Genesis is describing. ’Cause they imagine Noah built something seaworthy, that could survive on its own—instead of something God would have to miraculously preserve, and did.

So whenever skeptics ask me whether I believe the bible’s flood story, I can’t give them a simple yes. I do believe the story. But the story I believe is the plausible one we find in the bible. Not as it’s told by young-earth creationists, who turned it into Christian mythology… then turned that into junk science.

Do you have friends in your church?

Christians tend to go to church for five reasons.

• MUSIC. We love music, and the church has good music. It’s like going to a weekly rock concert! And if we never help fund the church, it’s free!
• TEACHING. We wanna learn about God, Christianity, and the bible. We want a good informative sermon. We want good informative bible studies. We wanna know more.
• SERVICE. We feel a great personal reward in ministering to the needy, and the church has some ways to do that, and encourages us in it.
• SACRAMENT. We gotta stay connected with God, and what helps are the rituals we can only do as a group. Like praising together, praying together, holy communion, and so forth.
• FELLOWSHIP. We wanna see our friends.

Churches tend to focus primarily on sacrament, sermon, or music. Today I’m gonna bring up the fellowship thing. It’s a way bigger deal than a lot of Christians realize.

Well, some of us already realize it’s a big deal. It’s why certain churches structure things so people can interact a lot. They have a lot of small groups, and promote ’em constantly. They have a “meet ’n greet time” in the middle of the service, which can go on for as many as ten minutes. (I used to take advantage of my church’s meet ’n greet time to go get another cup of coffee.) They have potlucks and pizza parties and movie nights and other social functions—sometimes monthly, sometimes weekly. And they refuse to create a church café, ’cause they know the way people tend to run ’em, it’ll ultimately discourage fellowship.

This fellowship activity isn’t for any ulterior motive. That’s the motive. They want the people of their church to make friends with one another. Jesus ordered us to love one another; Jn 15.12 they’re trying to make it happen. You’re not gonna love one another when you don’t know one another. You’re not gonna make friends with your fellow Christians when they’re nothing more than the other people who go to your church.

Yeah, there are fringe benefits to the people in your church making friends with one another: They’re gonna come to church to see their friends. Or, to put it shorter, they’re gonna come to church.

That’s what got me coming to church, back in my young-hypocrite years: My friends were there. I could do without the church services themselves: The music sucked. The sermons were shallow. (Coincidentally, I and my faith were also sucky and shallow, so more likely this was just me.) I would’ve had no problem with sleeping in Sunday mornings, like every other pagan. But I looked forward to sitting in the back of the church auditorium, quietly goofing off with my buds, whether it was Sunday morning or Thursday night youth group.

I grew out of the hypocrisy, but it’s still true: Lotta times I don’t feel like going to church. But if I have friends there, and I wanna see them, I go. If I find out my friends are gonna be absent—they gotta work, they’re on vacation, they’re out sick, and so forth—there goes my motivation to attend.

or they’re on vacation, or otherwise won’t attend—sometimes I’ll attend anyway, and sometimes I won’t. And I’m far from the only one.

In fact one church I went to, I had really spotty attendance because all my friends left. I used to have lots of friends at that church, including some of the pastors. Some left for work-related reasons, some for ministry-related reasons. Lots because they were college students and graduated. Some because they just decided they were done with that church. My final year there, before I moved away, I had no friends there. Just acquaintances. Nice people, but not friends. So some weeks, when I felt like going to Noah’s Bagels instead of church, that’s precisely what I did.

Later I moved, it was time to go church-shopping, so I visited one church—we’ll call it “Mars Hill.” Went to the morning services; went to the evening services; said hi to loads of people. One evening, about a month in, the head pastor finally said hi, and we chatted a bit. He was the only one who bothered to chat a bit. He was also, sad to say, going through a severe health crisis at the time, so he couldn’t make any other time for me. But none of Mars Hill’s other leaders bothered to fill in for him, and none of Mars Hill’s other people cared to venture outside their cliques. I really patiently hung around three months, but just didn’t make connections. So I didn’t stay.

The next church: Made friends immediately. Guess where I did stay.

Different kinds of grace.

GRACE greɪs noun. God’s generous, forgiving, kind, favorable attitude towards his people.

2. A prayer of thanksgiving.

[Gracious 'greɪ.ʃəs adjective.]

Had to start this article by reminding you of the definition of grace. Yeah, plenty of Christians are gonna insist it only means “unmerited favor,” but I consider that definition insufficient. I knew a dad who’d let his daughter get away with loads of stuff… but purely out of apathy. He didn’t care enough to check up on her. And he really should have; she was spending an awful lot of his money on stupid stuff! That too is unmerited favor. But the most profound component of God’s favor is his favorable attitude. God is love, and that’s why God is gracious.

Anyway. When Christians talk about God’s grace, every so often one of us starts listing and detailing different kinds of grace. Fr’instance I’ve written on prevenient grace. Other Christians are gonna talk—a whole lot—about God’s saving grace. Or common grace. Or preached grace, provisional grace, sustaining grace, enabling grace, serving grace, and miraculous grace. Or God’s justifying grace, his sanctifying grace, and his glorifying or eternal grace. There’s more than a dozen of these types of grace.

Except there aren’t really a dozen types of grace. There’s just grace. There’s just God’s generous attitude towards his people.

And dozens of effects of God’s generous attitude—which theologians have turned into “kinds of grace.” But they aren’t. God’s attitude is consistently the same. He still loves us, still forgives us, still does for us, still offers us his kingdom. It’s just sometimes we notice, “Hey, when it comes to salvation, God’s grace does [THIS COOL THING]… so I guess that’s what ‘saving grace’ is!” Nah dude; you’re just noticing different facets of the same infinitely valuable gem.

God’s grace is superabundant. It’s in way more places than we realize. When we find it in a place we weren’t expecting, sometimes we’ll foolishly think, “Oh this is a different kind of grace for this particular circumstance!” And again: Same God. Same love. Same grace. Different circumstances don’t turn it into a new thing.

Yeah, it’s just another instance of people overcomplicating something that’s really not complicated. It’s a case of Christians thinking, “Wow, lookit all the different kinds of grace!—and how wise of me to know about each and every one of them.” Yeah, don’t get too full of yourself. You didn’t really learn anything new about God; you only learned he applies grace in more places than you thought. And y’know what? He applies grace in way more places than even that. Like I said, superabundant.

The other problematic thing about compiling a big ol’ list of types of grace: You might lose sight of the fact grace is God’s generous attitude, and start thinking of grace as a substance which can be separated from the God who has it. Like magic dust which you can sprinkle on things to make ’em forgiven. Grace is not that; it can’t be divorced from the person who grants it. Divine grace without God behind it, ceases to exist. Human grace without a generous person making sure it’s effective, likewise ceases to exist—“What do you mean Dad canceled this credit card? No, don’t cut it up!” Any “type of grace” always has a grace-Giver at its center, and we should never take him for granted.

Why I went to an all-white church.

When I was 11 years old, my family moved to a city in California which was about 60 percent white, 40 percent Latino, 10 percent every other ethnicity combined. Same as much of California south of Sacramento.

New city means new church. Mom went looking for churches which’d be a good fit for young children; I’m the eldest of four. We tried a few. We ended up at a certain church; in another article I referred to this particular place as “Maypole Church,” and I don’t see any point in changing its name again. Maypole was very Fundamentalist, very dispensationalist, and very sexist—all of which I no longer am. But the folks there did make sure we kids got to know our bibles, which is the important thing.

Oh, and Maypole was super racist. Which we didn’t know at the time… but the fact they happened to be 100 percent white should’ve tipped us off.

Every so often, Maypole would be 99 percent white: A black, Latino, or Asian family would visit. There’s an Air Force base nearby, and white airmen would invite their nonwhite friends to come worship with them at Maypole. But within a few months, these nonwhite friends would stop attending. They’d go elsewhere.

I never knew why. Never thought to ask why. Never assumed it was about race. Never thought to ask. Yep, I was a clueless white kid.

Never gave the racial issue any thought at all… till I started to invite my high school friends to Maypole’s youth group. My high school was right next to the Air Force base, and was just as integrated as the U.S. Air Force. I’ve always been raised in multiethnic neighborhoods, and (other than a brief stint in the country) always lived in multiethnic neighborhoods. I never solely made friends with white kids. And most of the high school kids were fellow Christians, and if they didn’t have a youth group, I invited them to mine. So they came—for a few weeks. Then stopped. Found excuses not to come along.

ME. “Why don’t you wanna go?”

THEY. “That group ain’t right.”

ME. “Ain’t right? What ‘ain’t right’ about it?”

THEY. [uncomfortably] “It just ain’t right.”

I assumed it had to do with doctrines. Like I said, Maypole was very Fundamentalist. Maybe more so than they were comfortable with. My church wouldn’t compromise, but maybe theirs would, like the rest of all the other churches. You know; typical Fundie paranoia.

Then I finally invited a white high school friend to church. He wasn’t Christian; he was a pagan who was open to the idea. He didn’t stop attending after two weeks; he stuck around. Largely because he really wanted to have sex with one of our youth group’s girls. I never saw him make a decision for Jesus, but I did see him invite a number of his other friends to the group. He did a better job recruiting kids than I did. So that’s a win… I guess?

First he invited a white friend, who stuck around a month… till he realized Christian girls weren’t quite as loose as he’d prefer. Then a Latino friend, who stayed three weeks. But yep, as you could guess: Left because “That group ain’t right.”

Every Spring Break our youth group took a “mission trip” to Baja California Norte to pitch in at a Mexican church’s Vacation Bible School. There, I saw for myself how many of our kids were super racist towards Mexicans. Our youth pastor cracked down on it as best he could. (Well, considering how certain Maypole parents would get him fired if he ever kicked their kids out of the group.) Still, this was finally when I realized just what my nonwhite friends meant by “That group ain’t right.” Indeed they weren’t right.

And as we know, kids don’t become racist in a vacuum. They get it from their parents.

I’m not accusing the leadership of Maypole Church of racism. Not the pastors; probably not their deacons. But obviously there were just enough racists in my youth group to block any outreach I did—or anyone did—to nonwhites in my high school, in our city, everywhere. I presumed my church was a safe place, as all churches should be. It wasn’t.

I stopped going to Maypole in 1991. Last I checked, they’re still predominantly white.

Jesus’s last words, in 𝘓𝘶𝘬𝘦.

Luke 24.44-53.

After Jesus demonstrated to his students he’s alive—actually alive; he’s not a ghost, nor did he switch places with someone at the last second and get him killed (which is actually what Muslims believe). He showed ’em his hands and feet; he had ’em, unlike middle eastern ghosts, and clearly he’d been a victim of crucifixion, but was fine now. He ate fish. He breathed on them, in another gospel. He’s real. Solid. Alive.

This being the case, it’s time to have yet another little talk about what’s meant to happen to Messiah. The Pharisee beliefs which were still tangling up Jesus’s students, in which Messiah descends on Jerusalem, conquers it, conquers the Romans, and conquers the world? Yeah, he’s not conquering the world that way. Jesus’s initial victory had to be over death, not the government. He had to defeat sin, not some political party. Still true, no matter what Christian nationalists might claim.

Luke 24.44-53 KWL

44 Jesus tells the students, “These are my words,

which I speak to you while I’m with you:

All which was written about me

in Moses’s Law, the prophets, and the psalms,

has to be fulfilled.”

45 Then Jesus opens the students’ minds

so they can understand the scriptures.

46 Jesus tells them this: “This is what was written:

Messiah is to suffer,

and to rise from the dead on the third day,

47 and to preach of repentance in his name,

of forgiveness of sins,

to every people-group,

starting in Jerusalem.

48 You are witnesses of these things.

49 Look, I send out my Father’s promise with you!

Stay in the city till you’re clothed

with power from on high.”

 

50 Jesus leads the students as far as Bethany.

Lifting his hands, he blesses them.

51 This happens as Jesus is blessing the students:

He’s removed from them, and is carried into heaven.

52 The students, falling down to worship Jesus,

return to Jerusalem with great joy.

53 They’re always in the temple,

praising God.

I should point out these last four verses seem to conflict with what Luke later wrote in his Acts of the Apostles. In Luke Jesus took ’em way out to Bethany and was raptured from there; in Acts it was Olivet, less than 2,000 cubits away. Ac 1.12 In Luke it looks like Jesus was raptured really soon after Easter, but in Acts Jesus hung out with them for more than a month. Ac 1.3 Certain people who hate the idea of any discrepancies in the bible will try to explain these bible difficulties away: “Well Jesus only led them in the direction of Bethany, but stopped at Olivet; and it only looks like it was really soon after Easter, but doesn’t say it was.” Yeah yeah, whatever. I don’t think minor discrepancies matter. The important thing is Jesus is alive, but the reason we don’t see him still walking the earth is Jesus was raptured.

On to the last words.