truth wears pants.

Every once and a while something strikes me as truly great. The Over the Rhine concert I attended last night was one of those things. They were flawless in every aspect of their performance. I was amazed at their ability to take an easygoing song that seemed to be meandering along and open it into an anthem of such beauty that it was breathtaking. They sang some some songs off of an upcoming album to be released next year and each one was like a punch in the stomach, though I tried to breathe my breath was taken away. If the album sounds anything like the live performances, I will say that it will be their best album to date. All in all it was a wonderful experience. They epitomize what I believe Christian music should sound like. They write songs that everyone wants to hear not bubble gum junk made for "the Fish" radio station. Their lyrics speak of life from the viewpoint of believers, not about church from the viewpoint of the church.
On several different occasions, I felt as though I was listening to the Standards from 50's. There was not one song that did not posses such a quality to it. Some day 50 years from now people might be hailing them as the songwriting greats of our time, or any time for that matter.

So I am pretty spitting mad. If you noticed the cynicism in the title of this here post you might get a little taste of the amount of spit that is included in my mad. Here is the reason. Without divulging any personal information we have a gentleman in our corps who has a criminal background. The crime, which was sexual in nature has now caused him to be labeled as a sex offender. The man is now a Christian. He is by far the nicest man I have ever met. He loves the Lord and has been working extremely hard for the Salvation Army for meal allowance so that he doesn't have to sit at home in exile every day. Let me reiterate that he is the nicest man I have ever met and a wonderful example of a Godly person. The Salvation Army first would not hire him because of his background (to input data). Now there has been an edict handed down from our headquarters that the man can no longer receive volunteer meal allowance for his work and cannot volunteer anymore even at the protest of the corps officers. The reason given was that we needed to "protect our assets". This man is the first one to volunteer to help out for any church activity. He has recently gotten married to a wonderful woman and they together have become soldiers. The Salvation Army refuses to allow him to volunteer. A testament to the man's character is that when told he quietly said ok and has started the process of training others to do the work that he does. My point is that the Salvation Army has passed judgment and sentenced this man without even meeting him. Some would say that it is legal reasons. My response: who cares? Since when did we start to back down from persecution. When did we change William Booth's motto of "Go for souls and go for the worst" to "go for souls and go for the ones who wont cause too much of a problem or get in the way of our organization". When did we stop believing that the power of Christ's redeeming work could not reach sex offenders. When did we cease to be a church that does social work to a social service organization that is more concerned about the money we raise than the souls and lives of people. More and more I see issues like this one creeping their way in. Decisions are being made about churches by business men reading memos from lawyers. Our message has become secondary and we still pretend like it is primary. I could go forever but it is about time things change. I wont entertain those who tell me to step up and change it because I have seen what happens to those who try; they are placed in nowhere-land to "pastor" a "church" with no money and no congregation, while the leadership continues to hand out edicts based on memos written by lawyers. If one of these leaders would have said they prayed about it ad it didn't seem right, I would be appeased a little. But this is not the case. The Salvation Army has become a business... non profit or not, there is less and less Spirit and more and more politics involved and I am at a breaking point.
So you see the spit in my anger. It's there. Hope I didn't get any on you.