The Johnson amendment, and preaching the wrong kingdom.

Despite the name, the National Religous Broadcasters isn’t just national, isn’t just religious, and isn’t just broadcasters. (It was founded in 1944, but it kept the original name.) It’s international now; it’s exclusively Christian; and of course in the internet age you gotta allow for more than just radio and TV broadcasts. It was founded in part to fight the Federal Council of Churches’ 1943 takeover of the religious programming of radio networks; nowadays it’s more of a support group for Evangelical media creators.

I bring ’em up because they’re suing the Internal Revenue Service, the tax-gathering agency of the U.S. federal government. Their argument is the IRS is inconsistently applying the Johnson Amendment to non-profits, and should just do away with it altogether.

Yeah, I’d better explain in more detail for people who aren’t familiar with any of that.

In the United States we have a Constitutional right to freedom of religion. And to keep the Feds and states from hassling churches by taxing their finances, churches are encouraged to become tax-free nonprofit organizations. We call them 501(c)(3) organizations, named for the specific subsection of Title 26 of the United States Code which defines ’em. For your convenience, I’ll quote it. Warning: Legalese.

Corporations, and any community chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual, no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation (except as otherwise provided in subsection (h)), and which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office. 26 USC §501(c)(3)

In simpler English:

1. None of your org’s incoming money should be controlled by, or benefit, one individual. Like the head pastor. Your church shouldn’t be merely a promotional tool to help your pastor get speaking engagements and sell books and videos. Nor should it spend all its money enriching your pastors, yet do little to no ministry.
2. The church shouldn’t spend “a substantial part” of its money (and other laws define how big is “substantial”) on pushing its politics: Promoting causes or lobbying government.
3. The church can’t promote a political candidate or campaign.

The Johnson amendment is the “which does not participate in, or intervene in… any political campaign,” etc. It’s named after Lyndon Johnson, who was still a senator when he got it passed in 1954. It applies to every 501(c)(3) nonprofit; not just churches. It wasn’t controversial when it was first passed, because back in the ’50s most pastors recognized politics is a dirty business, and didn’t wanna soil themselves in it.

But not anymore! Back in February, the NRB even had former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump speak at their annual convention. He’s offering to overturn that pesky Johnson amendment if only they’d return him to power. “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me,” he told them. Mt 4.9 Or something like that.

The NRB hasn’t officially endorsed Trump, but you know they wanna. Well, they’re trying to get rid of the amendment; if they succeed, they certainly can.

And lots of partisan pastors and churches would love to promote political candidates right from the pulpit. Would love to denounce the opposition party and its politicans, and call ’em tools of Satan. Would love to sway their entire congregations to vote their way. Some of ’em do it anyway, willingly risking their nonprofit status, figuring the IRS might not do anything if the people of their congregation never tell on ’em. Others have voluntarily given up their nonprofit status, pay taxes, say whatever they please, and roll around in politics like pigs in poo.

Patriarchy: When fathers ruled the earth.

PATRIARCHY 'peɪ.tri.ɑrk.i noun. System of governance in which the father, or eldest male, is ruler.

2. System wherein women are largely excluded from positions of authority.

[Patriarchal 'peɪ.tri.ɑr.kəl adjective.]

When people talk about patriarchy nowadays, they tend to mean the second definition above: The system is rigged in such a way that women can’t find their way into any official or significant positions of leadership. There is no way into it. At most they can have unofficial power, like a First Lady; they can have insignificant power, like being in charge of cleaning the break room. (Gee, what an honor.) But never any serious authority. The “old boys’ network” keeps shutting them out.

Obviously because the “old boys” don’t wanna work with women. Especially don’t wanna work for women. Doesn’t matter the reasons; they’re all different forms of sexism. It’s a way-too-common problem in the present day. But actually sexism isn’t what this article is about. (Not primarily. Sexism doesn’t have to be part of patriarchy. But it nearly always is.)

What I’m writing about is the first definition: The government we see among the early Hebrews, in the families of Noah, Abraham, and Jacob before the Law was handed down; and to a lesser degree the system we see in families thereafter. Before there were judges and kings, before there were cities and nations and empires, before there was anything, there were families. The families were led and ruled by the father or eldest male: The patriarch.

Now, we Americans grew up under democracy. When we’re in a situation where there’s no leadership, we often figure, “Okay, we’ll take a vote.” All of us are equal, so the majority should rule, right? If one of us tries to assume power, we object, ’cause that’s not fair. But that’s because we were raised to be democratic. The ancients weren’t. Popular vote didn’t rule the day; the strongest or loudest or most dangerous did. This is Darwinism at its simplest.

The one best able to strike down his foes dwas usually the physically strongest; the man. And in order to maintain power, patriarchy was the system these men put into place. The man, the father of the family, the paterfamilias, ruled. They taught their kids this was the way things worked. So whereas our culture falls back on democracy to decide things, theirs fell back on patriarchy.

It wasn’t egalitarian; spouses got no equal say. Wasn’t democratic, where the kids got a vote too. It was a dictatorship. What the patriarch decided, was how things were. No one to overrule him, no constitution to say he violated civil rights, no legislature to control his behavior, no police to stop him. If he decided he was taking a second or third or hundredth wife, he did. If he forbade his daughter from marrying a certain man, she had to obey. If he ordered his son put to death for disobedience, off with his head. Seriously.

And there are a number of Christians who read about these “good old days” in the bible, and wouldn’t mind returning to them. Oh, I’ll get to those guys.

The Revised Version, and the American Standard Version.

In my article about other English-language bibles in the 1600s and 1700s, I mentioned how your average King James Version fan isn’t aware there even were other bible translations back then. They think John Wycliffe translated it first; then it was followed up by a bunch of really bad translations; then King James ordered a proper translation and that’s the KJV. They know nothing about the Geneva Bible. Nor any of the other translations which followed. They just presume once the KJV was translated, absolutely everyone used it. (Except Catholics. And heretics.)

Of course there are dozens of English-language translations today. So some years ago I asked my bible class whether they knew what the next popular English-language bible after the KJV was. Most said, “Um… the NIV?” Nope, not the 1978 New International Version. But I’ve since found lots of people give the NIV as their answer.

I grew up in the ’70s, so I remember we had a lot of translations to choose from back then. Mom had a parallel bible, which came in handy whenever the KJV was hard to understand; it had the KJV in one column, the 1969 Modern Language Bible in another, the 1971 Living Bible in another, and the 1952 Revised Standard Version in another. My first bible was a KJV, but I later got a 1976 Good News Bible. And I remember coming across the 1971 New American Standard Bible, the 1966 Jerusalem Bible, and J.B. Phillips’ 1958 The New Testament in Modern English. No doubt some of you can think of others.

Some of the folks in my class remembered the NASB, and I asked them whether they recalled an old American Standard Bible. None of ’em really did. But that’s the one I’m gonna write about today—and its immediate predecessor, the 1885 Revised Version. (RV for short. Sometimes it’s called the English Revised Version, or ERV, but nah, I’m not gonna call it that.)

What’d it revise? The King James Version.

(Why didn’t they therefore call it the New King James Version? Well in the Church of England, they tend to call it the Authorized Version instead of the KJV; and it was the official bible of the church, so they simply called it the Revised Version… leaving NKJV up for grabs a century later.)

The convocation of Canterbury is one of the regular general assemblies of the Church of England. On 6 May 1870 the convocation created a committee to revise the King James Version. The goal was “to adapt King James’ version to the present state of the English language without changing the idiom and the vocabulary,” and update it to “the present standard of biblical scholarship.”

Why then? Well, archaeology had recently been invented—and by “recently” I mean in the past 25 years or so. Rather than dig through ruins and graves looking for treasures, anthropologists were looking for data, information about how people used to live. Great advances had been made in interpreting unfamiliar ancient langauges. And Christian anthropologists went looking for ancient copies of the bible—and found many.

Much more had therefore been discovered about the first century’s culture and practices, and methods of Greek translation. And when bible scholars compared the newly-discovered bible manuscripts to the the Majority Text and Textus Receptus, they immediately saw the defects of those medieval bibles: Why on earth were they using a bible translation based on a Greek New Testament that was a compliation of every textual variant its editors could find? Why wasn’t it, properly, based on the oldest copies of the scriptures there are?—which they had in their very own British Museum.

And since the Church of England listened to its scholars (heck, made bishops of them), once enough of ’em decided it was time to revise the King James Version, they did.

The “𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘣𝘴 31 woman.”

PROVERBS 31 WOMAN 'prɑ.vərbz 'θɜr.di 'wʌn 'wʊ.mən noun. A productive woman, like the ideal wife described in Proverbs 31.

2. A compliment offered to a valued wife. (Whether or not she matches the woman of Proverbs 31.)

Among many Christians, the ultimate compliment you can pay your wife is to call her a “Proverbs 31 woman.”

Properly, it means she meets the bible’s standard for an ideal wife. (More specifically, Lemuel’s mother’s standard; more about Lemuel and his mom in a bit.) And since people don’t bother to read their bibles, Christians included, they really just mean she’s a good Christian. Whether she’s anything like the Proverbs 31 passage is a whole other deal.

Yeah, I’ll quote the passage. It’s not the whole of the chapter; it’s just this bit.

Proverbs 31.10-31 KWL

10A capable woman! Who’s found one?

She‘s worth far more than rubies.

11Her husband’s heart trusts her,

and he has no shortage of loot.

12 She pays him back with good, not evil, all her life’s days.

13She asks for wool and flax.

She’s happy to work with her hands.

14She’s like a merchant ship:

She imports food.

15She rises when it’s still night.

She provides meat for her house and her employees.

16She organizes a field.

She plants a vineyard with the fruit of her hands.

17She belts herself with strength.

She makes her arms strong.

18She tastes her merchandise to make sure it’s good.

Her lamp isn’t put out at night.

19She puts her hands on the spindle.

Her palms hold the distaff.

20Her palms spread for the humble.

Her hands reach out to the needy.

21She doesn’t fear snow for her household:

All her house are warmly clothed in red.

22She knits herself tapestries.

Her clothing is purple.

23Her husband is recognized at the city gates.

He sits with the land’s elders.

24She makes and sells tunics.

She gives belts to Canaanites.

25Her clothing is strength and honor.

She will relax in days to come.

26Her mouth is opened in wisdom.

The Law of kindness is on her tongue.

27She watches the goings-on of her house.

She doesn’t eat bread idly.

28Her children rise and call her happy.

Her husband praises her:

29“Many daughters do well,

but you surpass all of them!”

30Grace can be false.

Loveliness is useless.

A woman who respects the LORD will be praised.

31Give her back the fruit of her hands,

and her deeds will praise her in the city gates.

Check it out. Only once does her devotion to God come up; in verse 30. But no doubt her good deeds are the result of loving God and wanting to excel for his sake. Even so, the bulk of this passage is about the fact this woman works. Works hard. Gets stuff done, and does it well.

When our heroes stumble. Or sin. Or sin big-time.

Had to resist the temptation to title this article, “There goes my hero; watch him as he goes.” You’ll see why.

This week I came across two cases of a person—a person many people greatly admire—failing. One’s Christian; one’s pagan. I admit I wouldn’t’ve seen any connection between the two, except I read an article about the pagan that just sounded… well, startlingly familiar.

Starting with the pagan, ’cause I read about him first. I don’t expect all my readers to know who rock star Dave Grohl is. You might’ve heard of his first band, Nirvana; you might’ve heard of his current band, Foo Fighters. Both bands have been very successful. I still listen to their music. (No, you don’t have to if you don’t wanna.) Grohl announced recently that, once again, he’s gonna be a father. Mazel tov!… except it turns out the mother of his new baby isn’t his wife, and he’s filing for divorce from said wife, and his adult kids have turned off their social media accounts because they don’t wanna deal with his upset fans. I don’t blame ’em.

Yes, his fans are upset. Grohl has a reputation as a family man. Unlike most rock stars, who leave the wife and kids at home, go on the road, and partly like… well, obviously rock stars, Grohl and his bandmates deliberately brought their families with them. Hey, they’re rich; why not? For that matter why don’t other rock stars?—other than the obvious reasons of road-trip infidelity. But Grohl kinda showcased the fact the band’s families were traveling with them, and even had his kids come on stage and play along. Fun to watch! So his fans grew used to thinking of Grohl as a good guy and loyal husband.

And maybe he was loyal. I don’t really know him; neither do his fans, no matter what they might imagine. For all we know he might’ve separated from his wife years ago, and just kept it private. Or he might’ve cheated on her constantly. I’ve no idea.

Either way, I’m not gonna judge Grohl. I have no business doing any such thing. Maybe he has legit reasons for what happened, but even if they aren’t—to me anyway—he’s not Christian! He doesn’t answer to Jesus; he certainly doesn’t answer to me. If he wants to end things with his wife and be with someone else, he can. Society will judge him for it, and society doesn’t do grace, so that sucks. (Then again too many Christians don’t do grace either. But that’s another rant.)

When I first heard this news (’cause this made the news; I didn’t read it on any gossip blog) my knee-jerk reaction was, “Aw, that’s too bad.” Divorce sucks.

But then I read a certain article on an entertainment website.

Sin kills. God offers life. (Ro 6.23)

Romans 6.23 KJV

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Whenever we Christians are encouraged to memorize verses, the verses typically fall into three categories:

• Verses which explain our salvation. They help us understand it better—plus we can use ’em to share Jesus with others!
• Verses which help us improve our behavior. Like teachings of Jesus, the prophets, and the apostles; stuff that reminds us what the right thing is, and to do it.
• Verses which make us feel warm and fuzzy inside, ’cause God loves us and offers us his kingdom. (Or, all too often, make us feel good and self-righteous for less legitimate reasons. Like God approving of us no matter what awful stuff we’ve gotten into. Or he’s gonna give us wealth, or smite our enemies, or supports our politics, or other ungodly stuff.)

Today’s memory verse kinda does all three. It comes at the end of Paul’s larger discussion about goodness. In the past, pagan Romans used to do as they pleased, and usually that meant sinning their brains in. Now that these particular Romans are Christians, they mustn’t be like that anymore. And it applies just the same to Christians today: Before we came to Jesus, we likewise lived like pagans. But Jesus expects better of us.

Why leave your church?

At some point, Christians might have to switch churches.

It happens! Happened to me more than once. I move to new cities from time to time, for work or school; that’s an obvious reason right there. Said goodbye to the folks of my previous church; it was sad. Then off I went to the new city, to find a new one.

Happened to me again recently: The church building was ruined, so the entire church—pastor, board members, everybody—started going to one of our sister churches in town. And that’s where I am now.

Christians switch churches for all sorts of reasons. Some good, some bad. Some valid, some not. I’ll give you some examples.

GOOD REASONS	BAD REASONS	IFFY REASONS
• God personally tells you to go elsewhere.	• You don’t get along with somebody there.	• You don’t like their liturgical style, preaching style, or music.
• They kicked you out.	• They’re not cool anymore. Or cool enough.	• You want a bigger/smaller church.
• Church leaders aren’t trustworthy. Sinning, abusive, fruitless, jerklike, and unrepentant. Or they’re just not doing their jobs, and won’t let anyone help.	• They won’t let you lead, or otherwise get your way.	• Your kids don’t like it there, and don’t wanna go.
• Church members aren’t trustworthy either, and the leadership does nothing about it.	• Meh; church is optional. Sleep, sports, recreation—even doing nothing at all—feel like better options than going anymore.	• You’re “not getting fed.” Or “not feeling the Spirit.” Or are otherwise bored.
• They’re dark Christians: Everything they do is driven by fear, worry, and anger. Not love.	• They’re not political enough.	• You visited another church, and they felt far more right for you.
• They’re too legalistic, demanding, judgmental… and if you don’t obey or conform, they have penalties. (Yep, they’re a cult.)	• You’ve burned way too many bridges there. Time for a fresh start!	• You want a bigger church, with more programs and resources.
• Your spouse has had enough of that church, now goes elsewhere, and isn’t coming back. Period.	• They denounce sin—particularly the sins you commit. Whatever happened to “judge not”?	• You want a smaller church, ’cause you feel lost in the big crowd.
• You’re getting a job at another church.	• They want you to give ’em money all the time. Shouldn’t church be free?	• There’s a radical change in mission, emphasis, focus, or denomination—and you can’t get behind it.
• You’re moving to another city. Or the church moves to another city.	• They won’t let you lead, won’t put you in charge of stuff, won’t otherwise let you get your way.
• Some disaster destroys the church.

You can probably think of more reasons than these.

You might take issue with some of the things I listed. I’ve known more than one partisan Christian who’s insistent their church really oughta start talking politics! Particularly their politics. And if it doesn’t, it’s somehow supporting “the kingdom of this world” over and against “the kingdom of God.” Supposedly when Jesus overthrows all the governments of the world at his second coming, he’s gonna make an exception for their party. But partisans regularly, naïvely confuse their parties with Jesus, and would absolutely place politics in the “good reasons” column. I won’t.

Likewise I’ve known Christians who insist stylistic choices don’t matter at all. Doesn’t matter if you hate the music, or can’t stand the preaching, or the kids absolutely hate the youth group kids and youth pastor and would rather be anywhere else: That’s your church, and you stay there, no matter what. Even if you’re completely miserable there: It’s where God put you, and apparently God’s a giant sadist… except he’s not. At all. What’re you doing in a church which makes you miserable? Earning karma points for suffering? Leave!

And likewise I’ve known Christians who don’t want people to make lists like this. How dare we judge and critique churches? They’re meant to judge us, not the other way round. Which is an attitude I obviously don’t share whatsoever.