Showing posts with label Theology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Theology. Show all posts
Encouraging Reformed Believers
Here's a great article from Between Two Worlds. It is an issue I have dealt with personally - feeling the discrimination that comes from the Reformed believers I know. It has made it difficult to fellowship with them. Even when I am willing to lay down my distinctions and join with them, it seems they cannot accept my efforts toward unity without a struggle. I really do pray many Reformed believers heed this exhortation.
Constant Need for the Gospel
Here is an encouraging article I found related to the continual need to remember the gospel. In part:
This article was actually a response to a book titled "How People Change" and reviewed here.
"It is a false gospel which says that you are ok and God just wants to improve you. No, God wants to remove all the false foundations and beams you have erected in your house and replace them entirely with new ones. The gospel is not about moral improvement but about making a new man. Our inability to grasp this means that we have a serious gap in our apprehension of the gospel. Our identity as Christians is subverted when the holes in our lives are filled with anything other than Christ. Our relationship to God and others suffer as a result.
I want you to take a close look with me at a passage in 2 Peter 1:3-8.
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.”
If you are going to take away anything from this article, take this away: The reason, Peter says, that your Christian life is ineffective and unfruitful and still laden with sin is not because you have not tried hard enough, but rather, that you have forgotten the gospel … forgotten what Christ has done for you. You have forgotten to apply the gospel to every situation.. The ramifications of this are profound. And take note, Peter also says that in the gospel He has provided everything we need for life and godliness NOW. This is why it is so essential for Christians to gather together every week to encourage one another and hear the pastor remind us what Christ has done, and is doing for us, through the Holy Spirit who unites us to Him. The people Peter describes in the above passage are nearsighted and blind to how the gospel applies today for them as Christians."This article was actually a response to a book titled "How People Change" and reviewed here.
The Detergent Church - Final Post
Here's the final post expounding on points 6-10. Here are the links if you haven't read parts 1 and 2 or part 3. An excerpt from the final post that resonates with me:
"The Detergent Church doesn't shun the role of the mind in the life of the believer. Like our testicles, we like our brains and believe that we don't have to check either at the door of the church to be a Christian. The Detergent Church thinks it is a sin and a scandal for congregants to stay stupid and not be able to give an answer for that which they believe. Yep, they take Jesus' command to love God with all their minds seriously."
6 Reasons Pastors Should Blog by John Piper
Here's food for thought about blogging. Check out the whole article, but here are his 6 reasons:
Pastors should blog:
Pastors should blog:
...to write ...to teach ...to recommend ...to interact ...to develop an eye for what is meaningful ...to be known
The Dumb Ox by G.K. Chesterton
Reading this book about Saint Thomas Aquinas by GKC was an odd experience for me. First, I was reading about a man whom I knew very little about, which gave me a great perspective. Some actually consider this book the best book about Aquinas to be written. But what made this truly odd was that I possibly thought as much about GKC as I did Aquinas as I read. GKC has such a brilliant mind, and thus, writing style, that I had to refrain from highlighting every sentence. To learn a fact about one man while admiring, and being amazed by, the man writing about the man is a unique encounter for me. Hopefully in the following quotes you will see what I mean.
Additionally, it was amazing how often I thought of myself as I read about Thomas (not with grandiose familiarity, but an odd "oh, there's someone else like that..."). And then there were the moments I found St. Thomas wholly unique, as when GKC described him as "one of those large things who take up a little room" (130). A few delightful bits of insight about Aquinas that encouraged me were:
1) "He maintained controversy with an eye on only two qualities; clarity and courtesy. And he maintained these because they were entirely practical qualities..." (140). For regular readers of this blog you will recognize the similarity of this trait with another man I highly respect - Dennis Prager.
2) "Aquinas is almost always on the side of simplicity" (150). Also for frequent readers, you will recall my fondness for the quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I would not give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity. But I would give my right arm for simplicity on the other side of complexity."
3) Something that my Seminary preaching prof taught -- the importance for preachers to understand humanity, both his nature and condition -- was also underscored in this book. He prescribed reading good literature to aid this pursuit. Interestingly, GKC explained, "...there ought to be a real study called Anthropology corresponding to Theology [as opposed to corresponding to biology]. In this sense St. Thomas Aquinas, perhaps more than he is anything else, he is a great anthropologist" (161).
I wish I could have met St. Thomas, and look forward to the day I will. There is much to learn from him and I hope to marinate in his life story a bit for that purpose. Here are the excerpts I underlined:
About St. Thomas' Personality:
Thomas actually studied under Albert the Great. And being known to be shy, Albert lured Thomas out of his shell by exercising his great knowledge, as GKC explains: "He had studied many specimens of the most monstrous of all monstrosities; that is called Man. He knew the signs and marks of the sort of man, who is in an innocent way something of a monster among men"....And because of Thomas' shyness, he had earned the nickname 'the dumb ox'. But Albert declared: "You call him a Dumb Ox; I tell you this Dumb Ox shall bellow so loud that his bellowings will fill the world" (71). And he was right.
"St Thomas was always ready, with the hearty sort of humility, to give thanks for all his thinking" (71).
"He had been a man with a huge controversial appetite, a thing that exists in some men and not others, in saints and in sinners" (96).
"...when he was reluctantly dragged from his work, and we might almost say from his play. For both were for him found in the unusual hobby of thinking, which is for some men a thing much more intoxicating than mere drinking" (97).
"But there is a general tone and temper of Aquinas, which it is as difficult to avoid as daylight in a great house of windows. It is that positive position of his mind, which is filled and soaked as with sunshine with the warmth and wonder of created things" (119).
"...if his daydreams were dreams, they were dreams of day; and dreams of the day of battle. If he talked to himself, it was because he was arguing with somebody else. We can put it another way, by saying that his daydreams, like the dreams of a dog, were dreams of hunting; of pursuing the error as well as pursuing the truth; of following all the twists and turns of evasive falsehood, and tracking it at last to its lair in hell" (125,126).
"He was interested in the souls of all his fellow creatures, but not in classifying the minds of any of them; in a sense it was too personal and in another sense too arrogant for his particular mind and temper" (128).
"... and he goes out of his way to say that men must vary their lives with jokes and even with pranks" (131).
St Thomas' faith was very intellectual, to say the least. However, that doesn't mean it was only intellectual. There was an emotional element to it for him, although "it would always have embarrassed him to write about [this emotional side] at such length. The one exception permitted to him was the rare but remarkable output of his poetry. All sanctity is secrecy; and his sacred poetry was really a secretion; like the pearl in a very tightly closed oyster" (140). "It may be worth remarking, for those who think that he thought too little of the emotional or romantic side of religious truth, that he asked to have The Song of Solomon read through to him from beginning to end [on his deathbed]" (143).
"...this philosopher does not merely touch on social things, or even take them in his stride to spiritual things; though that is his direction. He takes hold of them, he has not only a grasp of them, but a grip. As all his controversies prove, he was perhaps a perfect example of the iron hand in the velvet glove. He was a man who always turned his full attention to anything; and he seems to fix even passing thins as they pass. To him even what was momentary was momentous" (187).
"It never occurred to Aquinas to use Aquinas as a weapon. There is not a trace of his ever using his personal advantages, of birth or body or brain or breeding, in debate with anybody" (196).
About St. Thomas' Philosophy:
It was not only a primary idea of Thomist doctrine that a central common sense is nourished by the five senses, but "a truly and eminently Christian doctrine" as well. Unfortunately, GKC comments, "For upon this point modern writers write a great deal of nonsense; and show more than their normal ingenuity in missing the point" (32).
"Thomas was a very great man who reconciled religion with reason..., who insisted that the senses were the windows of the soul and that the reason had a divine right to feed upon facts, and that it was the business of the Faith to digest the strong meat of the toughest and most practical of pagan philosophies" (32,33).
"...the philosophy of St. Thomas stands founded on the universal common conviction that eggs are eggs.... The Thomist stands in the broad daylight of the brotherhood of men, in their common consciousness that eggs are not hens or dreams or mere practical assumptions; but things attested by the Authority of the Senses, which is from God" (148).
"...I am not so silly as to suggest that all the writings of St. Thomas are simple and straightforward; in the sense of being easy to understand. There are passages I do not in the least understand myself;...there are passages about which the greatest Thomists still differ and dispute. But that is a question of a thing being hard to read or hard to understand: not hard to accept when understood. that is a mere matter of "The Cat sat on the Mat" being written in Chinese characters; or "Mary had a Little Lamb" in Egyptian hieroglyphics. The only point I am stressing here is that Aquinas is almost always on the side of simplicity, and supports the ordinary man's acceptance of ordinary truism" (150).
"This is, in a very rude outline, his philosophy; it is impossible in such an outline to describe his theology. Anyone writing so small a book about so big a man, must leave out something. Those who know him best will best understand why... I have left out the only important thing" (181).
Below are some general thoughts by GKC that seem to be as relevant today as they were when he wrote and as much as they applied to the days of St. Thomas:
About the recent SCOTUS Decision...
"...he is emphatic upon the fact that law, when it ceases to be justice, ceases even to be law" (188).
About China...
"...things which men produce only to sell are likely to be worse in quality than the things they produce in order to consume" (189).
About The War in Iraq...
"War, in the wide modern sense, is possible, not because more men disagree, but because more men agree. Under the peculiarly modern coercions, such as Compulsory Education and Conscription, there are very large peaceful areas, that they can all agree upon War. In that age men disagreed even about war; and peace might break out anywhere" (56). It may be that we are seeing a repeat of that era when there was more disagreement, and thus the more difficulty in finding a consensus regarding war.
About Global Warming...
"...most men must have a revealed religion, because they have not time to argue. No time, that is, to argue fairly. There is always time to argue unfairly; not least in a time like ours.... As a matter of fact, it is generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer. That is why, in recent literature, there has been so little argument and so much sneering" (127).
"Behold our refutation of the error. It is not based on documents of faith, but on the reasons and statements of the philosophers [or environmentalists] themselves. If then anyone there be who, boastfully taking pride in his supposed wisdom, wishes to challenge what we have written, let him reply openly if he dare. He shall find me there confronting him, and not only my negligible self, but many another whose study is truth. We shall do battle with his errors or bring a cure to his ignorance" (94). Unfortunately, Al Gore has consistently refused to debate anyone publicly. I guess that's why he can say the debate is settled - since it never actually started.
GKC responded to this reaction by observing: "After the great example of St. Thomas, the principle stands, or ought always to have stood established; that we must either not argue with a man at all, or we must argue on his grounds and not ours" (95,96).
About The Emergent Church...
"In short, a real knowledge of mankind will tell anybody that Religion is a very terrible thing; that it is truly a raging fire, and that Authority is often quite as much needed to restrain it as to impose it. Asceticism, or the war with the appetites, is itself an appetite. It can never be eliminated from among the strange ambitions of Man. But it can be kept in some reasonable control..." (104).
"In truth, this vividly illuminates the provincial stupidity of those who object to what they call 'creeds and dogmas.' It was precisely the creed and dogma that saved the sanity of the world. These people generally propose an alternative religion of intuition and feeling. If, in the really Dark Ages, there had been a religion of feeling, it would have been a religion of black and suicidal feeling. It was the rigid creed that resisted the rush of suicidal feeling.... A thousand enthusiasts for celibacy, in the day of the great rush to the desert or the cloister, might have called marriage a sin, if they had only considered their individual ideals, in the modern manner, and their own immediate feelings about marriage. Fortunately, they had to accept the Authority of the Church, which had definitely said that marriage was not a sin.... when Religion would have maddened men, Theology kept them sane" (110,111).
About Feelings vs. Intellect in Faith...
"Mystics can be represented as men who maintain that the final fruition or joy of the soul is rather a sensation than a thought. The motto of the Mystics has always been, 'Taste and See'.... [It] is equally right in saying that the intellect is at home in the topmost heavens; and that the appetite for truth may outlast and even devour all the duller appetites of man" (73,74).
About Knowing History - Remembering...
"Perhaps there is really no such thing as a Revolution recorded in history. What happened was always a Counter-Revolution. Men were always rebelling against the last rebels; or even repenting of the last rebellion.... Nobody but a lunatic could pretend that [modern trends of rebellion toward the last generation] were a progress; for they obviously go first one way and then the other. But whichever is right, one thing is certainly wrong; and that is the modern habit of looking at them only from the modern end. For that is only to see the end of the tale; they rebel against they know not what, because it arose they know not when; intents only on its ending, they are ignorant of its beginning; and therefore of its very being" (76, 77).
About The Debate Between Science and Religion/the Church...
"Albert, the Swabian, rightly called the Great, was the founder of modern science. He did more than any other man to prepare that process, which has turned the alchemist into the chemist, and the astrologer into the astronomer.... Serious historians are abandoning the absurd notion that the medieval Church persecuted all scientists as wizards. It is very nearly the opposite of the truth. The world sometimes persecuted them as wizards, and sometimes ran after them as wizards; the sort of pursuing that is the reverse of persecuting. The Church alone regarded them really and solely as scientists" (66).
"...private theories about what the Bible ought to mean, and premature theories about what the world ought to mean, have met in loud and widely advertised controversy, especially in the Victorian time; and this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of Science and Religion" (88).
"It is the fact that falsehood is never so false as when it is very nearly true. It is when the stab comes near the nerve of truth, that the Christian conscience cries out in pain." This was proved by St Thomas' final stand against heresy in his day. "He had cleared the ground for a general understanding about faith and enquiry; an understanding that has generally been observed among Catholics, and certainly never deserted without disaster. It was the idea that the scientist should go on exploring and experimenting freely, so long as he did not claim an infallibility and finality which it was against his own principles to claim. Meanwhile the Church should go on developing and defining, about supernatural things, so long as she did not claim a right to alter the deposit of faith, which it was against her own principles to claim. And when hd had said this, Siger of Brabant got up and said something so horribly like it, and so horribly unlike, that (like Antichrist) he might have deceived the very elect.
Siger of Brabant said this: the Church must be right theologically, but she can be wrong scientifically. There are two truths; the truth of the supernatural world, and the truth of the natural world.... It was not two ways of finding the same truth; it was an untruthful way of pretending that there are two truths.... Those who complain that theologians draw fine distinctions could hardly find a better example of their own folly. In fact, a fine distinction can be a flat contradiction" (92,93).
About Past Ages...
"The saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint [and maybe we could also use the word prophet] is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same element in every age.... Christ did not tell his apostles that they were only the excellent people, or the only excellent people, but that they were the exceptional people; the permanently incongruous and incompatible people..." (23).
"...as the eighteenth century thought itself the age of reason, and the nineteenth century thought itself the age of common sense, the twentieth century cannot as yet even manage to think itself anything but the age of uncommon nonsense" (25). And what would GKC think of the twenty-first century?
"Nobody can understand the greatness of the thirteenth century [when St. Thomas lived], who does not realize that it was a great growth of new things produced by a living thing. In that sense it was really bolder and freer than what we call the Renaissance, which was a resurrection of old things discovered in a dead thing" (41).
"That is what makes the riddle of the medieval age; that it was not one age but two ages. We look into the moods of some men, and it might be the Stone Age; we look into the minds of other men, and thy might be living in the Golden Age.... There were always good men and bad men; but in this time good men who were subtle lived with bad men who were simple" (63,64).
"I think there are fewer people now alive who understand argument than there were twenty or thirty years ago; and St. Thomas might have preferred the society of the atheists of the early nineteenth century, to that of the blank sceptics of the early twentieth" (126).
Referring to the Reformation of Martin Luther, "It had a peculiar horror and loathing of the great Greek philosophies, and of the Scholasticism that had been founded on those philosophies.... Man could say nothing to God, nothing from God, nothing about God, except an almost inarticulate cry for mercy and for the supernatural help of Christ, in a world where all natural things were useless. Reason was useless. Will was useless. Man could not move himself an inch any more than a stone. Man could not trust what was in his head any more than a turnip. Nothing remained in earth or heaven, but the name of Christ lifted in that lonely imprecation; awful as the cry of a beast in pain" (194,195).
Additionally, it was amazing how often I thought of myself as I read about Thomas (not with grandiose familiarity, but an odd "oh, there's someone else like that..."). And then there were the moments I found St. Thomas wholly unique, as when GKC described him as "one of those large things who take up a little room" (130). A few delightful bits of insight about Aquinas that encouraged me were:
1) "He maintained controversy with an eye on only two qualities; clarity and courtesy. And he maintained these because they were entirely practical qualities..." (140). For regular readers of this blog you will recognize the similarity of this trait with another man I highly respect - Dennis Prager.
2) "Aquinas is almost always on the side of simplicity" (150). Also for frequent readers, you will recall my fondness for the quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I would not give a fig for simplicity on this side of complexity. But I would give my right arm for simplicity on the other side of complexity."
3) Something that my Seminary preaching prof taught -- the importance for preachers to understand humanity, both his nature and condition -- was also underscored in this book. He prescribed reading good literature to aid this pursuit. Interestingly, GKC explained, "...there ought to be a real study called Anthropology corresponding to Theology [as opposed to corresponding to biology]. In this sense St. Thomas Aquinas, perhaps more than he is anything else, he is a great anthropologist" (161).
I wish I could have met St. Thomas, and look forward to the day I will. There is much to learn from him and I hope to marinate in his life story a bit for that purpose. Here are the excerpts I underlined:
About St. Thomas' Personality:
Thomas actually studied under Albert the Great. And being known to be shy, Albert lured Thomas out of his shell by exercising his great knowledge, as GKC explains: "He had studied many specimens of the most monstrous of all monstrosities; that is called Man. He knew the signs and marks of the sort of man, who is in an innocent way something of a monster among men"....And because of Thomas' shyness, he had earned the nickname 'the dumb ox'. But Albert declared: "You call him a Dumb Ox; I tell you this Dumb Ox shall bellow so loud that his bellowings will fill the world" (71). And he was right.
"St Thomas was always ready, with the hearty sort of humility, to give thanks for all his thinking" (71).
"He had been a man with a huge controversial appetite, a thing that exists in some men and not others, in saints and in sinners" (96).
"...when he was reluctantly dragged from his work, and we might almost say from his play. For both were for him found in the unusual hobby of thinking, which is for some men a thing much more intoxicating than mere drinking" (97).
"But there is a general tone and temper of Aquinas, which it is as difficult to avoid as daylight in a great house of windows. It is that positive position of his mind, which is filled and soaked as with sunshine with the warmth and wonder of created things" (119).
"...if his daydreams were dreams, they were dreams of day; and dreams of the day of battle. If he talked to himself, it was because he was arguing with somebody else. We can put it another way, by saying that his daydreams, like the dreams of a dog, were dreams of hunting; of pursuing the error as well as pursuing the truth; of following all the twists and turns of evasive falsehood, and tracking it at last to its lair in hell" (125,126).
"He was interested in the souls of all his fellow creatures, but not in classifying the minds of any of them; in a sense it was too personal and in another sense too arrogant for his particular mind and temper" (128).
"... and he goes out of his way to say that men must vary their lives with jokes and even with pranks" (131).
St Thomas' faith was very intellectual, to say the least. However, that doesn't mean it was only intellectual. There was an emotional element to it for him, although "it would always have embarrassed him to write about [this emotional side] at such length. The one exception permitted to him was the rare but remarkable output of his poetry. All sanctity is secrecy; and his sacred poetry was really a secretion; like the pearl in a very tightly closed oyster" (140). "It may be worth remarking, for those who think that he thought too little of the emotional or romantic side of religious truth, that he asked to have The Song of Solomon read through to him from beginning to end [on his deathbed]" (143).
"...this philosopher does not merely touch on social things, or even take them in his stride to spiritual things; though that is his direction. He takes hold of them, he has not only a grasp of them, but a grip. As all his controversies prove, he was perhaps a perfect example of the iron hand in the velvet glove. He was a man who always turned his full attention to anything; and he seems to fix even passing thins as they pass. To him even what was momentary was momentous" (187).
"It never occurred to Aquinas to use Aquinas as a weapon. There is not a trace of his ever using his personal advantages, of birth or body or brain or breeding, in debate with anybody" (196).
About St. Thomas' Philosophy:
It was not only a primary idea of Thomist doctrine that a central common sense is nourished by the five senses, but "a truly and eminently Christian doctrine" as well. Unfortunately, GKC comments, "For upon this point modern writers write a great deal of nonsense; and show more than their normal ingenuity in missing the point" (32).
"Thomas was a very great man who reconciled religion with reason..., who insisted that the senses were the windows of the soul and that the reason had a divine right to feed upon facts, and that it was the business of the Faith to digest the strong meat of the toughest and most practical of pagan philosophies" (32,33).
"...the philosophy of St. Thomas stands founded on the universal common conviction that eggs are eggs.... The Thomist stands in the broad daylight of the brotherhood of men, in their common consciousness that eggs are not hens or dreams or mere practical assumptions; but things attested by the Authority of the Senses, which is from God" (148).
"...I am not so silly as to suggest that all the writings of St. Thomas are simple and straightforward; in the sense of being easy to understand. There are passages I do not in the least understand myself;...there are passages about which the greatest Thomists still differ and dispute. But that is a question of a thing being hard to read or hard to understand: not hard to accept when understood. that is a mere matter of "The Cat sat on the Mat" being written in Chinese characters; or "Mary had a Little Lamb" in Egyptian hieroglyphics. The only point I am stressing here is that Aquinas is almost always on the side of simplicity, and supports the ordinary man's acceptance of ordinary truism" (150).
"This is, in a very rude outline, his philosophy; it is impossible in such an outline to describe his theology. Anyone writing so small a book about so big a man, must leave out something. Those who know him best will best understand why... I have left out the only important thing" (181).
Below are some general thoughts by GKC that seem to be as relevant today as they were when he wrote and as much as they applied to the days of St. Thomas:
About the recent SCOTUS Decision...
"...he is emphatic upon the fact that law, when it ceases to be justice, ceases even to be law" (188).
About China...
"...things which men produce only to sell are likely to be worse in quality than the things they produce in order to consume" (189).
About The War in Iraq...
"War, in the wide modern sense, is possible, not because more men disagree, but because more men agree. Under the peculiarly modern coercions, such as Compulsory Education and Conscription, there are very large peaceful areas, that they can all agree upon War. In that age men disagreed even about war; and peace might break out anywhere" (56). It may be that we are seeing a repeat of that era when there was more disagreement, and thus the more difficulty in finding a consensus regarding war.
About Global Warming...
"...most men must have a revealed religion, because they have not time to argue. No time, that is, to argue fairly. There is always time to argue unfairly; not least in a time like ours.... As a matter of fact, it is generally the man who is not ready to argue, who is ready to sneer. That is why, in recent literature, there has been so little argument and so much sneering" (127).
"Behold our refutation of the error. It is not based on documents of faith, but on the reasons and statements of the philosophers [or environmentalists] themselves. If then anyone there be who, boastfully taking pride in his supposed wisdom, wishes to challenge what we have written, let him reply openly if he dare. He shall find me there confronting him, and not only my negligible self, but many another whose study is truth. We shall do battle with his errors or bring a cure to his ignorance" (94). Unfortunately, Al Gore has consistently refused to debate anyone publicly. I guess that's why he can say the debate is settled - since it never actually started.
GKC responded to this reaction by observing: "After the great example of St. Thomas, the principle stands, or ought always to have stood established; that we must either not argue with a man at all, or we must argue on his grounds and not ours" (95,96).
About The Emergent Church...
"In short, a real knowledge of mankind will tell anybody that Religion is a very terrible thing; that it is truly a raging fire, and that Authority is often quite as much needed to restrain it as to impose it. Asceticism, or the war with the appetites, is itself an appetite. It can never be eliminated from among the strange ambitions of Man. But it can be kept in some reasonable control..." (104).
"In truth, this vividly illuminates the provincial stupidity of those who object to what they call 'creeds and dogmas.' It was precisely the creed and dogma that saved the sanity of the world. These people generally propose an alternative religion of intuition and feeling. If, in the really Dark Ages, there had been a religion of feeling, it would have been a religion of black and suicidal feeling. It was the rigid creed that resisted the rush of suicidal feeling.... A thousand enthusiasts for celibacy, in the day of the great rush to the desert or the cloister, might have called marriage a sin, if they had only considered their individual ideals, in the modern manner, and their own immediate feelings about marriage. Fortunately, they had to accept the Authority of the Church, which had definitely said that marriage was not a sin.... when Religion would have maddened men, Theology kept them sane" (110,111).
About Feelings vs. Intellect in Faith...
"Mystics can be represented as men who maintain that the final fruition or joy of the soul is rather a sensation than a thought. The motto of the Mystics has always been, 'Taste and See'.... [It] is equally right in saying that the intellect is at home in the topmost heavens; and that the appetite for truth may outlast and even devour all the duller appetites of man" (73,74).
About Knowing History - Remembering...
"Perhaps there is really no such thing as a Revolution recorded in history. What happened was always a Counter-Revolution. Men were always rebelling against the last rebels; or even repenting of the last rebellion.... Nobody but a lunatic could pretend that [modern trends of rebellion toward the last generation] were a progress; for they obviously go first one way and then the other. But whichever is right, one thing is certainly wrong; and that is the modern habit of looking at them only from the modern end. For that is only to see the end of the tale; they rebel against they know not what, because it arose they know not when; intents only on its ending, they are ignorant of its beginning; and therefore of its very being" (76, 77).
About The Debate Between Science and Religion/the Church...
"Albert, the Swabian, rightly called the Great, was the founder of modern science. He did more than any other man to prepare that process, which has turned the alchemist into the chemist, and the astrologer into the astronomer.... Serious historians are abandoning the absurd notion that the medieval Church persecuted all scientists as wizards. It is very nearly the opposite of the truth. The world sometimes persecuted them as wizards, and sometimes ran after them as wizards; the sort of pursuing that is the reverse of persecuting. The Church alone regarded them really and solely as scientists" (66).
"...private theories about what the Bible ought to mean, and premature theories about what the world ought to mean, have met in loud and widely advertised controversy, especially in the Victorian time; and this clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of Science and Religion" (88).
"It is the fact that falsehood is never so false as when it is very nearly true. It is when the stab comes near the nerve of truth, that the Christian conscience cries out in pain." This was proved by St Thomas' final stand against heresy in his day. "He had cleared the ground for a general understanding about faith and enquiry; an understanding that has generally been observed among Catholics, and certainly never deserted without disaster. It was the idea that the scientist should go on exploring and experimenting freely, so long as he did not claim an infallibility and finality which it was against his own principles to claim. Meanwhile the Church should go on developing and defining, about supernatural things, so long as she did not claim a right to alter the deposit of faith, which it was against her own principles to claim. And when hd had said this, Siger of Brabant got up and said something so horribly like it, and so horribly unlike, that (like Antichrist) he might have deceived the very elect.
Siger of Brabant said this: the Church must be right theologically, but she can be wrong scientifically. There are two truths; the truth of the supernatural world, and the truth of the natural world.... It was not two ways of finding the same truth; it was an untruthful way of pretending that there are two truths.... Those who complain that theologians draw fine distinctions could hardly find a better example of their own folly. In fact, a fine distinction can be a flat contradiction" (92,93).
About Past Ages...
"The saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint [and maybe we could also use the word prophet] is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same element in every age.... Christ did not tell his apostles that they were only the excellent people, or the only excellent people, but that they were the exceptional people; the permanently incongruous and incompatible people..." (23).
"...as the eighteenth century thought itself the age of reason, and the nineteenth century thought itself the age of common sense, the twentieth century cannot as yet even manage to think itself anything but the age of uncommon nonsense" (25). And what would GKC think of the twenty-first century?
"Nobody can understand the greatness of the thirteenth century [when St. Thomas lived], who does not realize that it was a great growth of new things produced by a living thing. In that sense it was really bolder and freer than what we call the Renaissance, which was a resurrection of old things discovered in a dead thing" (41).
"That is what makes the riddle of the medieval age; that it was not one age but two ages. We look into the moods of some men, and it might be the Stone Age; we look into the minds of other men, and thy might be living in the Golden Age.... There were always good men and bad men; but in this time good men who were subtle lived with bad men who were simple" (63,64).
"I think there are fewer people now alive who understand argument than there were twenty or thirty years ago; and St. Thomas might have preferred the society of the atheists of the early nineteenth century, to that of the blank sceptics of the early twentieth" (126).
Referring to the Reformation of Martin Luther, "It had a peculiar horror and loathing of the great Greek philosophies, and of the Scholasticism that had been founded on those philosophies.... Man could say nothing to God, nothing from God, nothing about God, except an almost inarticulate cry for mercy and for the supernatural help of Christ, in a world where all natural things were useless. Reason was useless. Will was useless. Man could not move himself an inch any more than a stone. Man could not trust what was in his head any more than a turnip. Nothing remained in earth or heaven, but the name of Christ lifted in that lonely imprecation; awful as the cry of a beast in pain" (194,195).
Re-Narrate the Story of Your Life
A narrator is a story teller. It doesn't matter if the story is true or not, that is his job. To narrate is the action. The narrative is the subject. It seems that this word has come of age, so to speak; being used in such ways as a meta-narrative, the same party-line narrative, etc. I don't intend to add anything substantial to the definition of this word,. Rather, I hope to introduce it to those who are not familiar with it and explain a use we may not automatically think of.
To start with something familiar. When a child comes to an adult and explains in thorough detail how he got a quarter when his tooth fell out, the adult listens to the child's narrative, and without any contradiction, responds by emphasizing the wonder of the story. In the adult's mind, however, he thinks kindly of the adults, not the Tooth Fairy, who put the quarter under the child's pillow. In his mind, the adult has re-narrated the story of the child using information only he, as opposed to the child, has.
We actually do this a lot throughout the course of life. Think of interacting with a child on any major topic and one will probably have a, let's say, "different" narrative of the events. Take how the sun comes up, how grass grows, why birds lay eggs, where babies come from, etc. Moving away from children, we actually do this with those who lack certain knowledge that we may possess. For those seasoned mothers, a first-timer might explain some bizarre connection she has noticed between watching a particular TV show and her indigestion, yet you are able to discern it's the fact that she is watching it in bed sitting up, or while eating a bowl of grapes with hot sauce. So you actually might "re-narrate" the young mother's story in order for her to better understand her experience.
This may also happen with people who are superstitious and believe certain events of their lives happened because of some freak incident. I have contact with a man who makes comments that sometimes honestly surprise me related to how he believes he got sick, why his baby gets sick, why the cops pulled him over, why the boss doesn't like him, etc. His lens of reality is based on many misperceptions, superstitions, or simply a lack of knowledge about the world around him. A similar example of this is some African cultures' understandings about AIDS and how it is transmitted. To explain what the Western world has come to learn about diseases, hygiene, or even translate the cultural disparity of an African vs. Western concept of warfare (why African militias may cut the breasts off of the women of their enemies, for example) is all a version of re-narrating a story.
Well on to my point. When a Christian faces trials or suffering there are many ways to narrate the experience. There is the superstitious view or the "Health and Wealth Gospel" view that informs one's understanding of what happened. My Master's Thesis addressed "The Power of Story to Sanctify Suffering...". The basic concept of how re-narrating what has happened to people more consistently with the "Story" of God's working in human history has the ability to bring peace, and even hope, so much so that one can find some "value" to what has happened. Sometimes the ability to re-narrate an event is not possible until some time afterwards. However, I also believe it is possible to simply narrate your personal journey through suffering in a way this is consistent with God's over all character and eternal purposes WHILE you go through it. This is the ideal scenario. Regardless, there is a Story that is being told. God is telling it. The issue is whether or not we are narrating our story consistently with His or "innocently" telling others about the Tooth Fairy.
If this is to "work", however, the lynch pin is knowing God's Story accurately and well.
To start with something familiar. When a child comes to an adult and explains in thorough detail how he got a quarter when his tooth fell out, the adult listens to the child's narrative, and without any contradiction, responds by emphasizing the wonder of the story. In the adult's mind, however, he thinks kindly of the adults, not the Tooth Fairy, who put the quarter under the child's pillow. In his mind, the adult has re-narrated the story of the child using information only he, as opposed to the child, has.
We actually do this a lot throughout the course of life. Think of interacting with a child on any major topic and one will probably have a, let's say, "different" narrative of the events. Take how the sun comes up, how grass grows, why birds lay eggs, where babies come from, etc. Moving away from children, we actually do this with those who lack certain knowledge that we may possess. For those seasoned mothers, a first-timer might explain some bizarre connection she has noticed between watching a particular TV show and her indigestion, yet you are able to discern it's the fact that she is watching it in bed sitting up, or while eating a bowl of grapes with hot sauce. So you actually might "re-narrate" the young mother's story in order for her to better understand her experience.
This may also happen with people who are superstitious and believe certain events of their lives happened because of some freak incident. I have contact with a man who makes comments that sometimes honestly surprise me related to how he believes he got sick, why his baby gets sick, why the cops pulled him over, why the boss doesn't like him, etc. His lens of reality is based on many misperceptions, superstitions, or simply a lack of knowledge about the world around him. A similar example of this is some African cultures' understandings about AIDS and how it is transmitted. To explain what the Western world has come to learn about diseases, hygiene, or even translate the cultural disparity of an African vs. Western concept of warfare (why African militias may cut the breasts off of the women of their enemies, for example) is all a version of re-narrating a story.
Well on to my point. When a Christian faces trials or suffering there are many ways to narrate the experience. There is the superstitious view or the "Health and Wealth Gospel" view that informs one's understanding of what happened. My Master's Thesis addressed "The Power of Story to Sanctify Suffering...". The basic concept of how re-narrating what has happened to people more consistently with the "Story" of God's working in human history has the ability to bring peace, and even hope, so much so that one can find some "value" to what has happened. Sometimes the ability to re-narrate an event is not possible until some time afterwards. However, I also believe it is possible to simply narrate your personal journey through suffering in a way this is consistent with God's over all character and eternal purposes WHILE you go through it. This is the ideal scenario. Regardless, there is a Story that is being told. God is telling it. The issue is whether or not we are narrating our story consistently with His or "innocently" telling others about the Tooth Fairy.
If this is to "work", however, the lynch pin is knowing God's Story accurately and well.
The Detergent Church by Doug Giles; Part 3
Well here it is! Although he's dragging the conclusion out for another week, here is this week's portion. Print and copy for your church leaders, men's group, boys program...heck, the whole congregation to read.
"...Here’s my advice to all you “relevant” boys and girls: Make sure when you are overhauling your wardrobe, urbanizing your vocabulary, gelling your hair to new heights, switching from Dunkin Donuts coffee to Starbucks, and praying to Jesus what appendage to pierce next and where to place another tribal tattoo on your white, skinny arm that you don’t dispense with the offensive aspects of Christ’s credo, for it is here, all you Justin Timberlake believers, that the truth truly sets men free....
As much as it is a believer’s duty to become all things to all people and not be removed freakish monks stuck in an ecclesiastical time warp, it is first and foremost the Christian’s duty to stand for God—which means a good chunk of the culture ain’t going to like you, more than likely. This isn’t a big deal, however, at least to the culture warrior who loves God and this country. Why? Well, for one reason, they’re not whiners, and secondly they understand that true progress comes through resistance."
As much as it is a believer’s duty to become all things to all people and not be removed freakish monks stuck in an ecclesiastical time warp, it is first and foremost the Christian’s duty to stand for God—which means a good chunk of the culture ain’t going to like you, more than likely. This isn’t a big deal, however, at least to the culture warrior who loves God and this country. Why? Well, for one reason, they’re not whiners, and secondly they understand that true progress comes through resistance."
Hijab: Whatever does not come from faith is sin...
I found this article very enlightening for a few reasons. First, it is a personal account of an Iraqi Muslim woman who came to the US to study. She had to wrestle with the decision whether to wear the traditional head covering in America, as she had in Iraq, or not. Her story is actually very similar to some of my own faith struggles growing up in Christianity. As a very conservative faith, for the most part, deciding whether or not it was OK to drink alcohol or maybe watch rated "R" movies was a "soul-searching" experience. There is no universally-correct answer. But the reference I make in the title is the most explicit teaching that I can think of in the Bible. If my conscience says it's wrong, it's wrong. And until my "faith" allows it, it should be considered a sin.
And so is the situation with a Muslim woman's decision to wear, or not to wear, the Hijab. She adds:
The other interesting point was simply the cultural phenomena she describes in Iraq:
And so is the situation with a Muslim woman's decision to wear, or not to wear, the Hijab. She adds:
"We shouldn't have to hide the fact that we're Muslims in order to be treated like everyone else. In some ways, it's as bad to feel pressure to take off the hijab in the United States as it is to be pressured to keep it on in Baghdad. It's sad that people here do not always accept you for who you are."
Like I stated above, I don't think this is an exclusively Muslim or woman experience, as much as a universal faith experience dealing with maturing in the culture one finds themselves.The other interesting point was simply the cultural phenomena she describes in Iraq:
"After the fall of Saddam Hussein, there was a dramatic increase in the number of women wearing the hijab. Since then, as religious groups have gained more power, it has become dangerous to be spotted without one -- so much so that even Christian women now wear the hijab when they go out. To me, that signified that something was wrong with my country."
Something to ponder, for sure. When considering that part of Democracy's value is religious freedom, it is interesting that this was the consequence on the ground, albeit unintended.The Detergent Church by Doug Giles
Wow! Don't know what to think completely, but this guy is on fire! Check out this article by columnist Doug Giles from Townhall.com called The Detergent Church. He offers 10 suggestions to "help the church cease to stink and thus cause our nation to maybe, just maybe, continue to be the great experiment it is." Here's the list, but check out the article for the explanations.
Here's what Giles says, in part, regarding the first point above:
1. Get men who dig being rowdy back in the pulpit.
2. Could we have some sound doctrine, por favor?
3. Preach scary sermons (at least every fourth one).
4. Get rid of 99.9% of “Christian” TV.
5. Quit trying to be relevant and instead become prophetic contrarians, I’m talking contra mundus, mama!
6. Put a 10-year moratorium on “God wants you rich” sermons (yeah, that’s what we need to hear nowadays, you morons, more sermons about money, money, money!).
7. Embrace apologetics and shun shallow faith.
8. Evangelize like it’s 1999.
9. Push lazy Christians to get a life or join a Satanic Church.
10. Demand that if a Christian gets involved in the arts that their “craft” must scream excellence and not excrement.
"If your church is remotely serious about salvaging society then here’s a little raw 411 for you, el pastor: You’re not going to change the USA by being nice but by being bold. And to be bold boys you must have high doses of holy testosterone. Matter of fact, in Moses’ day you couldn’t be a priest if you didn’t have cojones (see Deut. 23:1-4). I say we, the Detergent Church, start kickin’ it old school again and retable that deuteronomic prerequisite for current ministers and wannabes; i.e. you don’t get to lead if you don’t have your boys intact."
To read his thoughts on points 2-5, check out his second article here. A third one is on the way. Can't wait.Laminin
If you want to be encouraged in your faith, here is a fascinating video (as part of an altar-call at a Christian conference by Louie Giglio). At about the 2:30 min mark he starts to talk about Laminin. It truly is amazing. I don't want to give too much away without you seeing the video, so here it is:
This page contained an embedded video. Click here to view it.
Evangelical Intelligentsia
Here is an interesting article from the Washington Post that might give Christians some insight as to how the world views us, and maybe how we should view ourselves. The article is titled: Exploring Evangelical Minds, and looks at the Intelligentsia in the Evangelical world. From the article,
"...The study is being directed by Berger and Timothy Shah, an evangelical political scientist at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Shah is documenting the history of the evangelical movement, including its hostility to higher learning, a revival of scholarship, and the minds and ideas it has since produced.
Some aren't convinced that evangelical scholars have made as much progress as they think.
Boston College sociologist Alan Wolfe, who wrote an article in the Atlantic in 2000 called "The Opening of the Evangelical Mind," said despite the success of some evangelical scholars, many have retained an insularity and defensiveness that limits their effectiveness...."
This is a sad commentary on those of us who are called to serve the Lord with all our MINDS. If this study is any accurate indication of our success on that front, I think we really need to evaluate ourselves and what we are doing to represent the all-wise God that we serve and represent.
Christian Environmentalism
A friend forwarded me a link to a new website he has created in culmination with his Master's Degree from Trinity. The Website is Not One Sparrow and is dedicated to offering a Christian approach to the welfare of animals (maybe you could call it a Christian PETA). It's a new effort, but I encourage you to check out the site and email him with questions and comments to make this the best possible resource for those concerned with animals and animal advocacy in light of a biblical world view.
Well, on to my point. As I read his research paper, I came across a footnote referencing an article by a professor I respect, titled The Four Most Important Biblical Passages for a Christian Environmentalism. For those in a teaching position, whether Sunday School, pulpit ministry, or other, this would be a great article to read and possible share through your venue. I tried to summarize the article for those who wouldn't have time to read the whole thing. Here are the highlights:
Well, on to my point. As I read his research paper, I came across a footnote referencing an article by a professor I respect, titled The Four Most Important Biblical Passages for a Christian Environmentalism. For those in a teaching position, whether Sunday School, pulpit ministry, or other, this would be a great article to read and possible share through your venue. I tried to summarize the article for those who wouldn't have time to read the whole thing. Here are the highlights:
The contribution of Psalm 104 might be summarized as follows:
1. God created the earth and all things in it, and he continues to sustain the earth and all things in it by the loving exercise of his sovereign power.
2. The earth and all things in it belong to God by virtue of his creative work, and all things find their reason for being fundamentally in relation to him.
3. The earth and all things in it were created perfectly each creature in itself and the entire creation in its interrelatedness.
4. Even after the entrance of sin into the created order this perfection still shines through so as to be perceivable by man. Thus, creation continually bears witness to the perfections of God and promotes in man praise toward God.
...
The contribution of Genesis 1-2 might be summarized as follows:
1. God created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them.
2. All that which God created he pronounced good, i.e., it existed exactly as he intended it.
3. Of all his creation God created only man in his own image, thus causing man to occupy a position distinct from and above the rest of creation.
4. God blessed both human and non-human creation by imbuing both with powers of procreation and encouraging both to exercise those powers liberally.
5. God gave to mankind the responsibility of mastery over non-human creation, and he commanded him to exercise that mastery toward the preservation of, and fuller realization of, creation's goodness.
...
The contribution of Gen 9:8-17 is single and simple but essential to a Christian environmentalism.
God has established an everlasting covenant with all living creatures of every kind wherein he has promised never again to destroy them by the waters of a flood.
...
The primary contribution of Rom 8:18-23 can be summarized as follows:
1. Nonhuman creation was cursed by God as a consequence of man's sin. This curse has profoundly affected all of creation by keeping it from realizing God's original intention for it.
2. However, the condition in which creation presently exists is temporary, for at some point in the future, in connection with the glorification of the children of God, all of creation will be set free from the curse and the ongoing effects of man's sinfulness and will enjoy a glorious renewal of its ability to be as it was created to be.
Auction Your Soul?
Well, so it seems someone did that a while ago in order to give someone the chance to send him to a church of their choice. Here's the scoop:
So whatever an atheist sees as "evangelistic mistakes" may simply be the necessary distinction of a Christian community that must be translated for a non-Christian, especially as it relates to the theology behind worship (which is not just a concert), and many other aspects of what happens in a corporate setting.
Very interesting, but way off the mark, in my opinion.
"Mehta, an atheist, once held an unusual auction on eBay: the highest bidder could send Mehta to a church of his or her choice. The winner, who paid $504, asked Mehta to attend numerous churches, and this book comprises Mehta's responses to 15 worshipping communities, including such prominent megachurches as Houston's Second Baptist, Ted Haggard's New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Willow Creek in suburban Chicago. (Mehta ranks Willow Creek as the church most likely to draw him back.) Mehta, who grew up Jain, offers some autobiographical context, then discusses nonreligious people's approach to topics such as death and suffering. But all that is just a preamble to Mehta's sketches of the churches he attended. He doesn't find much community in churches; families sit far apart from other families, and people race "out the front doors to their cars" as soon as the service ends. Churches earn high marks for Mehta when they offer great speakers and focus on community outreach, but they also do many things wrong, including singing repetitive songs and alienating non-Christians by ubiquitously proclaiming them to be "lost." Mehta's musings will interest Christians who seek to proselytize others and who want to identify their evangelistic mistakes."
This is a very interesting "social experiment", but I have one foundational error to suggest. I suppose the reason that Willow Creek got a good review and other churches didn't is because their reason for being is different. Willow was designed specifically for the unbeliever. However, that would be the foundational error I would point to. Nowhere in Scripture is the church described or designed to function as an "outreach center". The church is for believers and their instruction and edification. Non-believers were "won", or converted, outside the church and then brought into the church as a believer. The "culture" of the church is not intended to transcend a non-Christian culture. It is not supposed to be a hang-out, a social club, or a civic center. There may be activities that resemble these functions at times. But this is the byproduct, not the product.So whatever an atheist sees as "evangelistic mistakes" may simply be the necessary distinction of a Christian community that must be translated for a non-Christian, especially as it relates to the theology behind worship (which is not just a concert), and many other aspects of what happens in a corporate setting.
Very interesting, but way off the mark, in my opinion.
The Church of Oprah
So it has finally come to this. I was just reading an article detailing the incomparable popularity of Oprah Winfrey and then the sudden fall after her endorsement of Obama. Then I stumbled on this video tonight that, in spite of some cheesy-ness, is quite alarming and sad.
Oprah explains that there cannot be only one way to God, and Jesus isn't the only way, specifically. She tells of how when she heard that "God is a jealous God" that it didn't feel right to her so she set out on a "search for something more than doctrine." She explains how "God is a feeling experience not a believing experience" and that if your God is still about believing something, "you still have not found God."
Considering her unmatched popularity among women, including Christians, this is something that should be communicated clearly to those in the church. "But for the sake of the elect...."
Oprah explains that there cannot be only one way to God, and Jesus isn't the only way, specifically. She tells of how when she heard that "God is a jealous God" that it didn't feel right to her so she set out on a "search for something more than doctrine." She explains how "God is a feeling experience not a believing experience" and that if your God is still about believing something, "you still have not found God."
Considering her unmatched popularity among women, including Christians, this is something that should be communicated clearly to those in the church. "But for the sake of the elect...."
The Math Problem of Suffering
How we view the “problems” in life makes all the difference. If we view them as a simple math equation where we take known life circumstances and add them up (or subtract them for the negative things), the “bottom line” is always different. Sometimes life is fair. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes God is good. Sometimes He’s not, etc.
For example, “I serve God for 20 years” minus “my teenage daughter gets pregnant” or “my husband leaves me” = “God has forsaken me.” Or, “I give money to a missionary” plus “I get a promotion at work” = “God is good.” This view leaves us constantly assessing God’s Word and His Nature in light of our personal experiences. It is not biblical and it does not honor God who is by nature good and does not change.
However, if we view the “problems” in life like an algebra equation, then we always know the “bottom line” ~ God is good, or “immovably good” as D.A. Carson says when talking about James 1. What is unknown, rather, is the value of the variables x, y or z. So whether earthly wealth, human suffering, job promotion or cancer are the known factors, our job in understanding the “problem” is not to determine the bottom line. Our job is to find the value of the unknown variables that support the “bottom line” conclusions of God’s unchanging nature and Word.
For example, in the equation “my cancer” + “z” = “God is good,” “z” may be worth God’s faithfulness to his promises to never leave me, or it could be worth his grace that is sufficient for all things, or it could be worth the peace that passes understanding in the valley of the shadow of death. The value of my cancer in addition to the value of God’s all-sufficient grace leads me to conclude God is good! God’s Word is true. His promises never fail. And whether we can ever make sense of it and find the value of the unknown variables, or we find the problem too complex for our finite minds, we can always know without a doubt, the sum (and also the “summary”) of life’s “problems” is always “God is good.”
For example, “I serve God for 20 years” minus “my teenage daughter gets pregnant” or “my husband leaves me” = “God has forsaken me.” Or, “I give money to a missionary” plus “I get a promotion at work” = “God is good.” This view leaves us constantly assessing God’s Word and His Nature in light of our personal experiences. It is not biblical and it does not honor God who is by nature good and does not change.
However, if we view the “problems” in life like an algebra equation, then we always know the “bottom line” ~ God is good, or “immovably good” as D.A. Carson says when talking about James 1. What is unknown, rather, is the value of the variables x, y or z. So whether earthly wealth, human suffering, job promotion or cancer are the known factors, our job in understanding the “problem” is not to determine the bottom line. Our job is to find the value of the unknown variables that support the “bottom line” conclusions of God’s unchanging nature and Word.
For example, in the equation “my cancer” + “z” = “God is good,” “z” may be worth God’s faithfulness to his promises to never leave me, or it could be worth his grace that is sufficient for all things, or it could be worth the peace that passes understanding in the valley of the shadow of death. The value of my cancer in addition to the value of God’s all-sufficient grace leads me to conclude God is good! God’s Word is true. His promises never fail. And whether we can ever make sense of it and find the value of the unknown variables, or we find the problem too complex for our finite minds, we can always know without a doubt, the sum (and also the “summary”) of life’s “problems” is always “God is good.”
The Devil's Gauntlet by Os Guinness
For the life of me I cannot recall which blog I was reading that strongly recommended this little pamphlet, but I believed them and bought it -- and loved it. Guinness actually wrote this in 1989 and it is just as relevant today as I'm sure it was back then. The subtitle is "The Church and the Challenge of Society." Guinness opens by stating, "Speak intelligently for more than two minutes and with more than one thought in each, and you are considered dangerously intellectual and unspiritual.... We must forswear simple answers to tough questions and be prepared to pray, think and sweat intellectually in order to see where we are and what the Lord would have us do. One of the most momentous of these questions is this: How should the church today be related to society today?" (3).
He explains, "The purpose of this pamphlet is to set out first principles and general guidelines" related to this issue. Guinness then offers (1) 2 Perspectives, (2) 2 Principles, (3) 2 Great Deficiencies, (4) 2 Reminders of where we are today, (5) 2 Requirements in relation to society, and (6) 2 Requirements in relation to the Lord.
In summary:
1 - "Society is always and everywhere two things at once: God's gift to us and the Devil's gauntlet thrown down before us, to challenge us to worship him and not Christ.... The world is simply our hearts writ large. Our hearts are simply the world writ small. So our view of society needs to be deeply realistic."
2 - There is both a protagonist and antagonist relationship with society. Christ is over all and over against all. "In short, God and the world stand crosswise. We are in the world, but not of it. To be faithful to him, we have to be foreign to the world."
3 - We have broken the link between belief and behavior and between the private and public world of faith. "From the Hallmark-card theology of a thousand churches to the nauseating nonsense of PTL, American evangelicalism is awash in a sloppy, sentimental, superficial theology that wouldn't empower a clockwork mouse, let alone a disciple of Christ in the tough, modern world."
4 - "...the United States is approaching the close of a generation-long crisis of cultural authority [remember this was written in '89]. After the great sixties' lurch in directions liberal, radical and secular came the great eighties' counter-lurch in directions conservative, traditional and religious. Now, with the failure of both revolutions on their own terms, we enter the showdown years that will reveal which faiths, which world views and which moral principles are going to prove decisive in shaping the nation over the next generations."
5 - We need a Christian mind and a public philosophy. "Failure to 'think Christianly' is the Achilles' heel of English-speaking evangelicalism.... When will we face the fact that our deep-rooted anti-intellectualism is worse than ineffective? It is sub-Christian, disobedient, antispiritual and unloving. Only when we root out the last traces of it can we hope to exercise the public influence that faithfulness to Christ demands." "Christian justice is not justice for Christians. It is justice for everybody.... The public is tired of the trench warfare over religion and public life. But if we are not careful, the danger is of a great sea change in public attitudes. Instead of faith and freedom being viewed as blood brothers, as they have been for two hundred years, they will come to be viewed as in opposing corners--with titanic implications for the gospel and for the nation."
6 - What we need most is "God Himself... - a proclamation of the Word and a visitation of the Spirit." "Having visited almost all the countries in the English-speaking world, I would say that I know none where the churches are more full and the sermons more empty than in America.... I am never hungrier and rarely angrier than when I come out of an American evangelical church after what passes for the preaching of the Word of God.... The real problem is that in what is said there is almost no sense of announcement from God; and in what is shown, there is almost no sense of anointing by God."
Referencing a speech by Paul Weyrich, a leading conservative strategist, called 'Taking Stock',
"Even if we conservatives win our entire agenda, we've lost." He shocked his audience further. "Yes," he said, "abortion, school prayer...win them all, and we will still have failed." Why? Because social change has changed too much, political change can change too little. Culture is flowing away faster than any piecemeal action can remedy. Nothing short of a total cultural transformation of America will do. Curiously, evangelicals a generation ago would have taken that as a truism. But in a day when political activism is in vogue, many who used to pray confidently, realistically and practically for revival no longer have that hunger for a visitation from God."
"The ultimate factor in the church's engagement with society is the church's engagement with God."
And I shout, "AMEN!"
He explains, "The purpose of this pamphlet is to set out first principles and general guidelines" related to this issue. Guinness then offers (1) 2 Perspectives, (2) 2 Principles, (3) 2 Great Deficiencies, (4) 2 Reminders of where we are today, (5) 2 Requirements in relation to society, and (6) 2 Requirements in relation to the Lord.
In summary:
1 - "Society is always and everywhere two things at once: God's gift to us and the Devil's gauntlet thrown down before us, to challenge us to worship him and not Christ.... The world is simply our hearts writ large. Our hearts are simply the world writ small. So our view of society needs to be deeply realistic."
2 - There is both a protagonist and antagonist relationship with society. Christ is over all and over against all. "In short, God and the world stand crosswise. We are in the world, but not of it. To be faithful to him, we have to be foreign to the world."
3 - We have broken the link between belief and behavior and between the private and public world of faith. "From the Hallmark-card theology of a thousand churches to the nauseating nonsense of PTL, American evangelicalism is awash in a sloppy, sentimental, superficial theology that wouldn't empower a clockwork mouse, let alone a disciple of Christ in the tough, modern world."
4 - "...the United States is approaching the close of a generation-long crisis of cultural authority [remember this was written in '89]. After the great sixties' lurch in directions liberal, radical and secular came the great eighties' counter-lurch in directions conservative, traditional and religious. Now, with the failure of both revolutions on their own terms, we enter the showdown years that will reveal which faiths, which world views and which moral principles are going to prove decisive in shaping the nation over the next generations."
5 - We need a Christian mind and a public philosophy. "Failure to 'think Christianly' is the Achilles' heel of English-speaking evangelicalism.... When will we face the fact that our deep-rooted anti-intellectualism is worse than ineffective? It is sub-Christian, disobedient, antispiritual and unloving. Only when we root out the last traces of it can we hope to exercise the public influence that faithfulness to Christ demands." "Christian justice is not justice for Christians. It is justice for everybody.... The public is tired of the trench warfare over religion and public life. But if we are not careful, the danger is of a great sea change in public attitudes. Instead of faith and freedom being viewed as blood brothers, as they have been for two hundred years, they will come to be viewed as in opposing corners--with titanic implications for the gospel and for the nation."
6 - What we need most is "God Himself... - a proclamation of the Word and a visitation of the Spirit." "Having visited almost all the countries in the English-speaking world, I would say that I know none where the churches are more full and the sermons more empty than in America.... I am never hungrier and rarely angrier than when I come out of an American evangelical church after what passes for the preaching of the Word of God.... The real problem is that in what is said there is almost no sense of announcement from God; and in what is shown, there is almost no sense of anointing by God."
Referencing a speech by Paul Weyrich, a leading conservative strategist, called 'Taking Stock',
"Even if we conservatives win our entire agenda, we've lost." He shocked his audience further. "Yes," he said, "abortion, school prayer...win them all, and we will still have failed." Why? Because social change has changed too much, political change can change too little. Culture is flowing away faster than any piecemeal action can remedy. Nothing short of a total cultural transformation of America will do. Curiously, evangelicals a generation ago would have taken that as a truism. But in a day when political activism is in vogue, many who used to pray confidently, realistically and practically for revival no longer have that hunger for a visitation from God."
"The ultimate factor in the church's engagement with society is the church's engagement with God."
And I shout, "AMEN!"
Church Discipline Again
Between Two Worlds made me aware of this WSJ article on church discipline and a very commendable, and articulate defense in response to the article here. Yes, sometimes the church does things those outside do not understand. It is right and good that we try our best to explain it. I have posted previously on church discipline here, for those inside the church who don't understand it well themselves. Truth AND love, always.
Christians In Culture
My friend Keith has an amazing post on why Christians SHOULD see The Golden Compass. He has persuaded me. I have not had time to review all his links, but this is one well-thought-out essay on Christians in contemporary culture. I challenge you to read and think about it. (Of course there is the issue of letting children see it and preempting their interest in the books, but we are adults and there is something worth considering in his post!)
A Just War?
Here's a great article by Russel D. Moore on a balanced perspective between pacifism and warmongering. The conclusion of the article states:
In truth, the guy with the "Visualize World Peace" bumper sticker is partly right. And so is Toby Keith when he talks about justice raining down with vengeance on the enemies of what's good and true. Both are grasping at something that can only be found in the gospel story of Christ Jesus. War is sometimes necessary, and we as Christians should be willing to support, fight, and die for our country in those times.
But every time we see a war-even a just and necessary one-we should be reminded that it means we're still living in a world groaning under the weight of sin.
We shouldn't tie dye our shirts and pretend a United Nations enforced peace can end bloodshed. But neither should we callously cheer the violence of war, as if it were a video game. Yes, we should visualize peace-but only a real peace, when the true Emperor of the universe rules over a world so pacific that we cannot even imagine the violence we once saw on CNN, or on Animal Planet. On that day, and maybe not until that day, there won't be the sound of rattling swords, firing guns, or bombs bursting in air.
The True Meaning of Christmas
This brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes! Seriously! After my last post about Christmas, I was so delighted to see this on Between Two Worlds. Thank you for the reminder and the powerful truth presented to the world every year in a cartoon! How amazing that the MSM actually puts this on. Unfortunately, just like most Christians, most Americans probably don't get the weight of it. Remember, if we aren't careful we will dismember the gospel by how we celebrate this holiday. Thanks Charlie Brown for helping us "remember" it correctly! Peace on Earth! Goodwill to Men! Joy to the World, a Savior has come! He is Christ the Lord!
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)
