Almost every morning for the last few weeks I have gotten up with the same routine. Alarm, shower, COFFEE (no playing there), help my wife with the kids’ lunches—who am I kidding…that last bit is a lie. I’m basically just a bystander when it comes to school lunches. If it wasn’t for her my children would likely not even eat what I tried to pack for them. I’ll still take the credit though as is my God given right.
Back to it…I turn on the news and dial it in wherever I think I won’t be depressed. And then, without fail, every single day brings the onslaught of news about Ukraine. Honestly, I’m sick of it, I’m over it.
I have prayed. I have intermittently fasted. I have prostrated myself before the Divine and I just have to get this off my chest, and since I grew up with the only right way to believe, I must be correct here.
America, and the rest of the world, wake up! I’m so sick and tired of hearing you say, “Putin is out of his mind!” Yes, that might very well be so. But you have to really think about this, there is simply no way someone would do what he’s doing if they weren’t being compelled by God; I mean who would seek out strife and suffering? Who would want that for those that we live next too? There’s just no way that God doesn’t have a hand in this!
Let’s try to zoom out here and gather some context. Putin has gone on the offensive in Ukraine, a move that surprised no-one (stop acting shocked) but that wasn't his goal! Ukraine was never his goal! His goal was to make moves, ultimately, against Israel. You see, God is getting ready to do something amazing here and all that I’ve been spoon fed from a young age is about to be fulfilled. Hall-e-freaking-lujah! Can I get an amen from the back row? Putin is doing exactly what he’s been led to do, by God, as a move to set up Ukraine as a staging ground for one of the great armies as we begin to anticipate the end of all things and the beginning of new things for those who believe like we do! Just look a bit south from where he sits. You’ve got President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey who won, as ordained, re-election a few years ago and with it a sweeping set of new powers, this story is about him really but do your Googles and you’ll see God’s hand everywhere here.
Anyhow, between Erdoğan and Putin you’ve got this little area of the Dardanelles that is just a pivotal port and sea exchange; it’s obvious this is just a staging ground. We didn’t see, or ignored, the staging of Putin over the past few years as he amassed military might in and around Ukraine to do what he’s doing today. I’m here to tell you this same thing is happening here in this region and it's going to happen! So let me just put you where you need to be before we get too carried away with justice movements, and refugee movements in the coming weeks and months. War is coming, it’s coming to us all, but this is to be celebrated. Without us pummeling one another into political, social, and religious submission how else is Jesus to return to finally show us how to stop killing one another?
It will most certainly hurt, just like any punishment does, but our God says I'm going to put hooks in your jaws and I'm going to draw you into this battle, whether you like it or not. It’s right there in the part of the Bible that we’ve all been avoiding! This is not a surprise! (Ezekiel 38:4). Putin is being compelled, as we all will be and you just watch what's going to happen next. You read your Bible because it's coming to pass! You’ll be compelled to fight; you’ll then be compelled to kneel. There is a Hell, it’s real, and some of you are about to get a first hand account.
At least that’s what I used to sound like…
I interrupt that diatribe to bring us all back to reality…
I’m really hoping you’re still with me and haven’t rage quit the internet and thrown your phone/computer against a wall. I won’t lie, that was fun to type! It was easy, scarily easy. It’s almost like that version of me was baked in and is still there at a foundational level just ready to be drawn up at any time. Freaky how indoctrination works isn’t it? All too comfortable is the ability to lean into fear and rage and animosity and use it as fuel to live in a fantasy world of what God is going to do on behalf of me, whether or not I think it’s true. Before I get too far into ripping my own words above apart I think it’s important to set some actual context to those words, this post, where I’m at, etc.
The words above were taken loosely from Pat Robertson's recent reappearance on the 700 Club as well as a peppering of the spittle that came from my upbringing of fundamentalisms topped with a seasoning of other evangelical pastors. Here is a convenient way to listen to what good ol’ Pat had to say. Watch it right here///but please don’t watch it.
Honestly, I wouldn’t watch this. It’s just about as bad, if not moreso, than what I wrote above.
Fun right! Nope not even a little. So let us break this down a bit but before we do I want to just list the things this won’t be: it won’t be a thought about how easily the world received these refugees (and they should) but can’t from countries not Ukraine…makes me wonder if, just maybe their skin color had something to do with this. It won’t be a story about military, honestly it will barely be a story about any one person. I’m just using Putin here as an easy symbol same as I’m using Robertson.
This type of theology that Robertson, and so many others, have spewed out is just plain wrong. I’m not even going to try to break that down here. There are many episodes in which I do, perhaps there should be another.
Putin is being compelled by nothing other than greed, fear, and a false feeling of exceptionalism. This is nothing new, especially for American’s, it’s literally the story of every empire other. It’s an “I see what you have and I want it. Stop me if you want to try but it’s mine…God told me it’s mine” mentality. This is not some “smart” invasion — I’m not convinced that that is a thing that even can be.
As, daily, we sit aside and watch the world rip itself apart, rockets ravage others, bullets rip away hopes and dreams we are watching humanity continue in its perpetual creation of hell. God is not making this hell, we are. Yep you read that right. You and I create hell.
Hell. Is. Not. Real. It isn’t somewhere you are going when you die, it’s not somewhere anyone is going. Images come to me from my childhood, images of weeping and gnashing of teeth, the planet opening, flames that stretch to the edges of the atmosphere, all those deemed unworthy tossed into the gaping maw of the inlet of pure evil. Those images, while useful for a pastor or church to raise money with, are just false. So what then, if you’re still even listening, is hell?
It’s decisions that you and I choose. Hell, in my view, is the moment that one chooses an action that breaks the shalom of God. We are collectively creating it. Turn on the news, do you not see weeping and gnashing of teeth in Ukraine? Do you not see death and destruction in countries that are less financially fortunate than the superpowers filled with the ravages of death and despair? Do you not see war tearing us all apart and with every single ballistic fired something dies, something weeps, something gnashes, something is ripped from the shalom of God. They, God, didn’t make this, we do; and it should break our hearts.
This is true for each of us at a micro level as well. The decisions that I choose to make, that missing the mark (sin), creates death. When I’m abusive, deceptive, and destructive in my day-to-day life relationships die, community is destroyed, others suffer and that too is a hell of my making. From my, and our, decisions spanning from our homes and families, to the apathy to Central and South America, to Yemen, to Palestine, to Ukraine, and to the countless other portions of the globe hell is something you and I are in control of.
So what then should we do? I think it’s so simple and so hard. We have to act in a way that does the opposite of hell. Each action must be making a priority the shalom of the persons involved at the deficit of ourselves. This is what it means to be Christian is it not? To love your neighbor as yourself? Living that way creates a new thing, a new kingdom, a Heaven here right now.
There is much more that should be said here but it’s as simple as this; you and I are creating hell and at the same time we are partnering with the divine to create shalom and we all bear culpability for this hell that we are spectating right now.