ELEPHANT

I find certain topics really get people going. From my experience, 'holiness' seems to be one of those. I probably - deep down - have something 'rascal-ish' inside me that kind of likes that. I admit it.

Sometimes my mom reads this blog, but maybe I'll get lucky and this will be a day she's too busy to remember.

But growing up, we had a fair amount of 'rules' in our house that seemed to be equated with holiness. I may be slightly exaggerating (I'm saying that to cover my 'honesty factor,' just in case she doesn't forget to read today), but there were certain things in our home that had a heightened focus put on them - things we weren't supposed to get within ten miles of because they smelled of sin.

Certain kinds of music

Dancing

Smoking and drinking

Dice

Going to pool halls

Loud drums in church

Saying 'darn' (because everyone knows 'darn' is a derivative of 'dang,' which is a Latin ancestor, two or three times removed from that REALLY awful "D" word). Same with 'shoot,' 'shucks,' 'geez' and 'gosh.' Although my cousins could say, "dad-gum" and things like that.

Card playing that had Spade- and Club-like symbols on them. I knew a lot of people who played the card game, ROOK, though. I think somebody told me that the Raven on top of the Rook Card was like a Greek expression of the Holy Spirit or a dove. I probably bought that at the time. After all these years, I finally found out that ROOK was OK because it doesn't have any face cards ... no King, other than God ... no Queen, that seductive temptress ... and that poor suicidal Jack, who only had one scary eye and was too emotionally unstable even to look at.

Now (here's that conscience thing again), in all fairness, many of the rules relaxed over time. I'm not going to tell you which ones. I'll leave you guessing about whether or not my mom allowed me to smoke and drink or say really awful "D"-type words as I got older (or if she does read today, maybe she'll personally set us all straight on today's information) - but like I said, some of those things did relax.

Most of that is just fun, tongue-in-cheek stuff, but if you're going to get 'out there' and do life in the big world, you will have to deal with some very serious tensions. Many of them center around the question: 'What IS holiness anyway?' It's the pink elephant with glasses in the room.

That 'holiness' issue has caused churches to split, believers to get angry and accusatory with one another, families to break up, young church planters to be mistrusted ---- and it is a primary reason people outside the church think God is like the Michelangelo-style old guy with flowing white hair and beard - - out of touch.

For whatever reasons, the church has theologized itself right out of normal interaction with the world - so often calling that holiness. Many churches have an alarming theology of 'extraction,' rather than going INTO the world to share the Gospel.

We must align our theology around the call of mission.

And be blessed.