Spiritual Terrorism

Every life, no matter how monumental or insignificant, tells a story. The plethora of experiences that are our lives shape us and mold us into what we have been, who we are, and what we are to become.

Storytelling is a significant part of our sociology.  Every culture’s past is laden with layers of stories that often give meaning and significance to our human existence.  In fact, Christianity received its Scriptures, in part, through oral transmission. Native Americans, Buddhist, Muslims, Hindus…every type of culture tells their stories in a variety of ways.  Clearly, our world today has a love affair with stories…don’t believe me…look at the movie industry, the gaming industry, and what is left of the music industry.  What is a movie? A game? A song? The great ones begin with a good story that each additional element adds to until the object is completed.

Every story is important for a variety of reasons that I won’t go into here…but there is a question that I want to ask…who decides what stories are worth sharing?  Though I love movies there are VERY few that I actually pay to see at the theater…they are just not that good. It seems to me that too often the stories that matter are the ones that rarely get told. But then that is precisely the point…who determines what stories get told.  Hollywood and Washington have people who work hard and make millions of dollars each year to “spin” stories so that they gain interest.  The stories, as they gain interest, also gain reliability, credibility, and by default…authority.  Once the story takes on an authority of its own it then takes on tradition…and the weight of tradition is considerable.

This process repeats itself in our lives…with stories that are handed down from generation to generation. But it also repeats itself, unfortunately, in our spiritual lives and the lives of our spiritual communities that we call churches.  When this happens I call it “spiritual terrorism.”  It is an odd designation I know.  It appears like I am talking about “jihad” or something like that…but in reality it is much simpler.

The definition of terrorism is:” the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce,” or “the systematic use of violence and intimidation to achieve some goal.”  When applied to our spiritual lives it means that there are those “Christians” who, in my opinion, “terrorize” leaderships and congregants to get their way.  O course, THEY would never confess this…but when a small percentage dictates what happens to the greater percentage…then clearly someone is imposing their will onto another.  Rarely is it violent…but the threat is real.  There seems always to be a “if this…then this” which fulfills the definition of terrorism because it is “intimidation to achieve some goal.”  The difficult aspect of this terrorism is that the “goal” that they are trying to protect is usually something that is really not worth fighting for---HUMAN TRADITIONALISM. Earl Creps in his book Off Road Disciplines, makes this observation, “Younger leaders need to ask themselves what they will sacrifice for the sake of concerted effort. Older leaders need to ask themselves whether what they represent is worth sacrificing for…those holding the baton must own something worth passing along.”

Perhaps I am "kicking at the goads" all over again and making a BIG deal out of nothing.  After all, the same warfare is being waged on a much larger scale…but Robert Webber has already tackled that issue in his final work: Who Gets to Narrate the World?  I wish I had the answer to this problem—I can only ask the age old question: “who are we trying to please man or God?”  I, for one, refuse to be held hostage to spiritual terrorism because it is about the power of man and I believe I serve a God who overcomes…maybe not today, or tomorrow…but one day soon. When my days on earth are over…I hope I will have lived my life in a way that will make for a GREAT story…a story of obedience and captivity to the things that matter…the things of God.