Addition by Subtraction? A contrary view

In responding to a recent blog by Mike Cope (www.preachermike.com), "Addition by Subtraction," a brother or sister with pseudonym CB wondered whether that whole notion meant that "our family wants us to leave, or is just indifferent to our staying." CB, I'm inclined to share your apparent distaste for the whole idea. (That does not mean, of course, that I am attacking Mike. My desire is to add to the conversation, not to condemn a man who has amply demonstrated his compassion for and devotion to the saints of God.) The context of Mike's post was a shift in a local church toward a "missional" posture, and the discomfort that would inevitably result among some in the rank-and-file.

The whole notion of “addition by subtraction� seems tainted by an elitist point of view unless it is applied to the situations to which Jesus Himself applied it:

1. In the matter of church discipline for public sin (Matthew 18)
2. In the matter of choosing whether to serve Jesus or not (Luke 14)

We are clearly shown that these weighty matters justify the separation of believers; even if it’s painful, it must be done. But is it equally justified in the matter of choosing what our evangelistic strategy is going to be? That seems to be a stretch, a nod to efficiency, a desire not to be held back by “those recalcitrants,� a form of pin-your-ears-back urgency that neither the Gospels nor the Epistles seems to convey to us.

In musing over this whole idea, the thought occurred to me that no shepherd in Jesus’ mold would be content simply to let some sheep wander off to God-knows-where (Luke 15) without some bona fide effort to reach them, communicate with them, listen to their hearts. “Addition by subtraction� is euphemistic language for, “we’re probably better off without you anyway.�

Of course, no shepherd has standing to prohibit someone from moving on if that is his/her conviction and intention. But simply to let him/her go without challenging his/her decision with a pastoral heart just seems contrary to the spirit of John 10:1ff, Luke 15 etc.

qb

Iran's got us over a barrel - a few uneducated musings

As it is, they can yank our chains anytime they want, almost without impunity. If we slap worldwide sanctions on them, then they've got nothing to lose, so they pull their oil off the market, and we end up in a bidding war with China, India, Europe and Japan for the rest of the oil on the market, followed hard by political upheaval here when Sadie Q. Public has to cancel her trip to Los Cabos and the truckers across the country revolt (see also, "France.") Maybe we win that bidding war, but at what price? $100/barrel? What Bin Laden was unable to do on 9/11, Iran can do almost at will, at least as far as major, irreversible body shots to our economy. And they don't have to fire a bullet to do it; it's all economic policy stuff. It stands to reason, though, that when Iran pulls its oil off the market, the cost of our war in Iraq goes up immediately, which means more domestic pressure to pull out, not less. That nutcase in Tehran is crazy...like a fox.

Krauthammer said it right (although he had the wrong solution): "we are criminally unserious about energy policy." OPEC has us by the short hairs, and all it takes is one serious player to bring us to our knees. Saudi Arabia may be trying to help us right now, but their fields are in decline, and their claimed reserves may not be real. Canada's tar sands have everybody licking their chops, but how much oil does one have to burn to extract a barrel's worth of oil from those super-gummy reservoirs? Ethanol's all well and good, but how many acres of cattle feed (corn and sorghum) have to be redirected to grow corn for ethanol, and how are our beef-eating citizens going to like it when their double-meat McSlams end up doubling in price because feed costs have doubled...or when we start buying more Argentine beef to compensate for the higher livestock production costs here at home? It's a monstrously complicated picture, but I can't think of any scenarios under which to be terribly optimistic.

So I dunno, but I wouldn't get too wrapped around the axle about an Exxon exec's $400 million parachute. That retirement plan doesn't even cause a blip on the economic implications of Iran's upcoming decisions.

Who knows? We might be forced to view an Iranian move to take its oil off the market as an act of war. Lampooning the Iraq conflict as a "war for oil" misses the point: From here on out, every war is a war for oil, until we can figure out how to reduce our dependence on it. We dare not waste our strategic reserve just to keep Sadie comfortably in First Class on her way to Cabo.

In the meantime, some trust in horses, and some trust in chariots. How do I raise my boys in such a way that they will trust in God instead? America's had a great run for 200 years, but the party hostess is starting to bus the tables.