When I was growing up as a Roman Catholic, I would go into the confessional and name the sins I had committed since my last confession - names and numbers. Faithfulness often was measured by my participation in this routine exercise. To keep a good accounting was to make myself worthy of the goodies of this religious system. That could be heard as critique of Roman Catholicism - please don't let it be. Just today I once again was treated to the accounting system of the most pious and religious Evangelicals. They threw around the word grace but their verbiage was that of accounting and thus - condemnation for those not living in a way that adds up to their vision of holy.
When faithfulness is measured by our accounting, it is a self-serving faithfulness. Therefore, a life spent trying to measure life as though it is an accumulation of what we have done and what we have not done seems to be a lost life. Bean-counting of any kind simply leaves us with a pile of beans we must guard with our lives. Such a calculated faithfulness is short-sighted and eventually becomes the fuel for condemnation. A calculated faithfulness is short-sighted because it denies the vision of love that moves to bring all things together within a peacefulness that looks out for the other - no matter who the other may be or whatever the other has done. A calculated faithfulness is a source of condemnation because it has its limits - it thrives on comparisons - it feeds off of the self-serving notions of good and evil. In other words, I think a calculated faithfulness is idolatry - it betrays the Creator by claiming to have the right and power to define and then assign worth to the actions and lives of people all around us.
Today one of the pious accountants was on the megaphone. Oh how he seemed to love a faithfulness that can be scored and compared and then even weaponized. You may have heard an expression like bible bullets. They are often the weapons of choice by those who are vigilant in their life of accounting - especially if they are actively attempting to show another person how his or her life stacks up or falls short within their chosen accounting system. Bam. You will always be able to hear it if you lean in and take the time to listen to their accounting system in operation. Bam. You will hear words of judgment. Bam. You will see faces that attempt to appear angelic even as they spew vile accusations. Bam. You will see a great divide being constructed between those who are considered to be Inside (or holy or saved) and those who must be Outside. Bam. It is the oldest of games. It is also the deadliest of games. Calculated faithfulness longs to look and sound as though it has the game down - either by the words spoken - the routines followed - the piety displayed - the clothes worn. But the game is deadly. It is under the control of those who want the world to bend to their vision of life.
At best, a calculated faith simply serves to exclude. From what I heard today I'm all for being excluded from that kind of accounting at the fence. Though I might be excluded - literally counted out of their home-grown divine view - I have heard other news of life that opens itself up to a hospitality in which people are treated as whole and beloved. From experience I have found that the accountants at the fence will have nothing to do with that kind of vision for life. It is at that point that a calculating faith becomes weaponized - it will lean toward violence. The violence is obviously verbal - that comes by way of all those bible bullets that are used to defeat and subdue. Unfortunately, we all know of stories of how devout faithful calculators also find it necessary to turn to physical violence. It is at those times that they reveal that their religious accounting is off - their story is off - their whole life filled with attempts to make everyone add up to their vision of life is off. Calculating faithfulness must fight to the death of everyone in an attempt to keep its illusion of holiness or goodness in place - leaving them neither holy nor good. A calculating faithfulness is never able to let down its guard or drop its weapons. It must be vigilant. It must become louder. It must work to put an end to all of us who are not able to add up to their rule - their dominion - their way of doing their faithful math. Calculating faithfulness longs for an armageddon - for it cannot tolerate the compassion of God's Reign of peace.
TRRR
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