Superhero spirituality ...
I had an interesting experience at 1061 Ellice this week. I was happily working away in my office. Then the police called. They told me someone from the church had just called to report a man walking around with a shotgun. That concerned me, since I was the only one in the church and I hadn’t called the police about anybody with a shotgun. I told the officer I would check the church building while he stayed on the line. He said, “okay”, but before I reached the foyer the phone went dead. That concerned me even more. I wondered if the person with the shotgun was in the building. Perhaps he had called from the church to summon the police to a showdown. Maybe Central Baptist was about to become the scene of a suicide-by-cop. Maybe I was going to be the hostage?!?! I called out in the building. I thought I heard someone moving downstairs. I stood in the landing and looked down the stairs to the basement. The basement doors were open. They should have been closed and locked. I went outside … and wondered what to do next. Then the police car raced down Ellice Avenue – lights flashing.
Ask me on Sunday and I’ll let you in on the ending to this tale of suspense. It was certainly a strange experience, but the strangest thing of all was the quiet thrill I felt as this adventure was taking place. What is it about us that lives for the battle? And if there isn’t a real battle to fight, we’ll invent one! Back in the 1990’s, “spiritual warfare” was all the rage in evangelical circles. We assigned demonic diagnoses to every problem (could Satan be holding up your child’s potty-training?), devised steps to set ourselves free from spiritual bondage, and even mapped out cities and countries as spiritually good or spiritually evil (and targeted them accordingly). The idea was to rouse the troops (the Church) by lionizing the power of the enemy. Effective to a point, but I think spiritual warfare was more sensational than spiritual. It failed to celebrate the one in us – Jesus – who is greater (infinitely greater) than the one who is in the world (1 John 4.4). I can’t fight the demons … but Jesus can. So, I’m going to spend a lot more time praying to Jesus than I will praying against the demons. I’m safe in the hands of Jesus. “I give them eternal life”, Jesus said, “and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10.28).
I’ve been redesigning the church website for the past couple months, along with setting up gregglatz.com and creating a myspace sight. (I’ll let you know when the final versions are up and running.) I think it’s important to create something that captures people’s interest and imagination, without using too much hype or propaganda. I guess “too much” is a matter of preference and taste. This week, I came across the flash intro to the website of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. Holy Cornball, Batman! All those whizzing bullets made me wish I had a joystick attached to my computer!
