Jesus Wept….

And one of the things I read recently  that “fills me with words” is Mike Huckabee's Twitter comment on the gay marriage rulings. The Internet is abuzz about it. Google it and you will come up with pages and pages of results. Some in support.  Some that thoughtfully disagree.  Some that poke fun.  I am no doubt one of the last bloggers to post about it..but post, I must, because it is just so....annoying.  Huckabee said:

Gov. Mike Huckabee ✔ @GovMikeHuckabee

My thoughts on the SCOTUS ruling that determined that same sex marriage is okay: "Jesus wept."

Really? You really think that?

I'm more inclined to believe that Jesus weeps over things like the torture and murder of Matthew Shepard. Or Mark Carson, the man who was shot point blank in the face in Greenwich Village this May; harassed and killed by a  stranger because he was gay. Or what about the countless lives that are wasted through suicide or years of reparative therapy....

Jesus wept about the SCOTUS ruling? Nuh-uh.

Next post….more about Jesus wept. 

Full of…..words…

It's been a while. A long while. I'm not sure what happened, exactly, but I just stopped writing here on this blog. I didn't run out of ideas....but I seemed to run out of time.

I started a new position at work about a year ago that required a bunch of overtime. The "hum drum ho hum" day to day issues of life kept me busy, distracted.  My brain is tired after sitting in front of a computer all day...thinking.  And even though I have the best of intentions on the weekends....somehow, when Sunday night arrives, the bathrooms are clean and the carpets are vacuumed...but nothing is written.

A while ago, I came across a verse in Job that stuck with me.  Elihu has had it with Job and his miserable comforters. Being the youngest, he waited and listened to the others, no doubt biting his tongue bloody. Finally, exasperated, he declares.....

I, too will answer, yes, I will tell what I know.  For I am full of words and my spirit compels me to speak.

Sometimes, the things I read on the internet...especially Facebook ... have me biting my tongue. But Facebook is intimidating and feels a little too much like oral communication class in high school. It is so....public. Like getting up in front of a bunch of people and spouting off. But like Elihu, I have stuff to say....and my spirit compels me to speak....so I'm going to try to spout off on a more regular basis here on this blog. 

The Blessing of Growth

I happened upon an article this morning on Huffington Post…written by Shane L. Windmeyer, the founder and executive director of Campus Pride. His organization advanced the national campaign against Chick-fil-A.  The article is entitled Dan and Me: My Coming Out as a Friend of Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A

I haven’t cared much for Dan Cathy since the firestorm a few months ago…..when Chick-fil-A became the unwitting symbol for the fight to save traditional marriage….I mean the right of free speech.  Uh-huh…... 

I was more than a bit put off by all the Christians, who stood in line for hours, called to action by Sean Hannity, to demonstrate their support for free speech by buying a Chick-Fil-A sandwich. Let’s just say, I strongly suspect that the motive of most of the people who stood in those long lines was to make an anti gay rights statement. I don’t think it was about free speech.  

So I didn’t care much for him….or his views….or his values….or his monetary contributions to what some would consider hate groups. 

So I was surprised….convicted….and then encouraged by the article this morning on Huffington Post.  It’s an example of how folks who hold almost polar opposite world views can sit down and have a civil conversation, showing each other mutual respect.  And in doing so they can actually find common ground and opportunities to grow and make the world a better place. 

Dan Cathy called it the “blessing of growth.”

There were numerous cynical, sarcastic comments in response to the article, coming from both sides of the gay rights divide. There was still mud slinging and hate; the “gay guys” didn’t want to give an inch to the “religious bigots” and visa versa.  There were charges of selling out, settling, hypocrisy. From both sides.   

Some people only want to hang on to their world view and beliefs….demonizing the other guy. As long as we are demonizing the other guy, real change and the blessing of growth is very elusive. 

I have to point out that this type of conversation only seems to work when both sides want it to work.  If the agenda is to BE understood rather than to UNDERSTAND….if the agenda is to convince, talk over, debate…..this type of conversation cannot accomplish much.

Some people do not want to understand or extend a hand in friendship. Some people simply want to be right. 

Evangelical Christians are multi dimensional creatures…..and like gay people cannot be defined through an isolated lens.

The world does not need more enemies….it needs more unlikely friendships like these two guys, more open dialogue, more understanding, less hate and intolerance.

I am reminded of the quote by Abraham Lincoln

The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.

And a bonus quote from Martin Luther King

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.

Earth Suits, Space Suits and Blind Beggars

Keith is a skydiver.  Once a skydiver, always a skydiver...even though his interests for the past few years have veered toward staying IN the "perfectly good airplane" rather than jumping out of it.  He worked hard to become rated as a light sport pilot....with plans to move on to the next step (private pilot) when time and money are available.  Anything related to being thousands of feet above the earth is often a topic at our house. So, about a month ago, when Felix Baumgartner made his epic jump from more than 24 miles up, it was a topic of interest and conversation at the McAndrew household.  I probably wouldn't have paid much attention if I wasn't married to Keith...other than maybe a passing "wth" is this guy thinking?

And not too long after Felix's (thankfully) successful jump, I came upon an article that looked at the spiritual implications of his jump....and the similarities between his space suit and our "earth suits" (this body of flesh that houses our spirits).

The article is written by Tzvi Freeman and is entitled

"Sky Dive From Heaven - What I learned from a guy who fell to earth from the edge of outer space at the speed of sound

It begins with a discussion of how (and why) Felix totally freaked out about being in the special suit he had to wear to survive the jump.  It protected his body from the minus 70 degree temps at those high altitudes and the speed of the fall.....prevented his body fluids from becoming gasses and other unpleasant stuff.  Red Bull sponsored the jump....and they called in a psychologist who specializes in these crazy....ahhhhhh, I mean extreme and high-performance sports.  Dr. Michael Gervais, was there to help Felix cope with the multiple panic attacks he was having because of the suit. 

Then the article takes a thought provoking twist by comparing Felix's jump to our leap from heaven.  From the spiritual realm to the earthly realm.  And we needed special suits to survive the jump into this realm....thus....our earth suits.  Our physical bodies. 

There is a line of thought in the Jewish tradition (and the object of musing in other faith traditions) that the skin God clad Adam and Eve with after the fall was not that of an animal but rather the skin of our earthly bodies. Interesting thought....and I've written about it before HERE.

So let's ponder the idea that we did preexist with God before our "jump to earth." What might the consequences be?

The article goes on to say:

But we become focused on the spacesuit. Yes, it’s an ingenious spacesuit, custom design for its mission, with its own built-in intelligence, mirrors, and a wide range of flexibility. But it’s clumsy, nonetheless. The body says, “I want this. I need that. I can’t do this. I must do that.” Our entire reality becomes exlusively that of the body and its demands, while the person within, the divine soul that fell from above starts to panic, to lose control, and eventually to fall into comatose.

Interesting thoughts....interesting comparisons.

Perhaps rather than comatose, one of the consequences of this jump is the blindness....the amnesia it produces.  We forget who we are and where we came from.  Our vision is obscured. We see through a glass darkly.  We gets glimpses of the spiritual now and then....a peek "beyond the veil" and every once in a while, there are "thin places" where the spiritual breaks through into the natural realm.  The more spiritually enlightened folks among us see much clearer....but still, their vision is clouded. 

In Ode: Intimations of Immortality William Wordsworth says this
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy.

    

                 Picture by "nattavut" from free digital photos

And then, a few days ago, while reading in the Gospels, I came upon a few verses in both  that brings some of my scattered thoughts together.  

Bartimaeus Receives His Sight

Mark 10: 46Then they came to Jericho. And as He was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a large crowd, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the road. 47When he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48Many were sternly telling him to be quiet, but he kept crying out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him here.” So they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage, stand up! He is calling for you.” 50Throwing aside his cloak, he jumped up and came to Jesus. 51And answering him, Jesus said, “What do you want Me to do for you?” And the blind man said to Him, “Rabboni, I want to regain my sight!” 52And Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and began following Him on the road.

There are parallels. We are all blind. Christ is the source of our healing, our sight, our understanding.. 

The Bible has been described as an onion....layer upon layer of meaning. Unpeel one layer only to uncover another layer.  There is the obvious, natural meaning of the words...and oftentimes...most times?....always?....there is a deeper spiritual meaning. Looking up the meaning of the words in the original language often deciphers the deeper meaning.  Since I am by no means a Greek scholar, I depend on resources like the Strong's concordance to help peel away layers of "the onion."

In this passage, the word translated "blind" is tuphlos in the Greek.  According to Strongs, it means "blind" and "mentally blind."  Not seeing does not always involve our eyesight. 

And the meaning of the Greek word anablepo translated BOTH as regain and sight in verse 51 means "to look up" and "to recover lost sight."  It comes from two root words....

"ana"
which means "into the midst, in the midst, amidst, among, between"

"Blepo"
Blepo has several meanings...one that has to do with physical seeing, but also another that is metaphorical - to see with the mind's eye.

Notice the blind man wanted to REgain his sight. We, too, need to REgain our spiritual sight.  We need a cure for our spiritual amnesia….and to REmember who we are and where we came from….  

Is God Equally Judge and Equally Father?

Slowly but surely, I am making my way through the list of questions I think are birthed when we believe in the God of eternal conscious torment that Chan talks about in his book Erasing Hell. 
Throughout the book, Chan emphasizes the legal/courtroom/God as judge concept when he uses phrases such as….

After Jesus looks at the evidence
He gives His verdict: Believers are awarded everlasting life, while unbelievers are awarded everlasting punishment.
But Jesus goes on to say that God’s courtroom will be much worse, for here the Judge has the power to sentence you to the “hell [gehenna] of fire”
The legal context of this statement ensures that Jesus is referring to the consequences of judgment day.
When Jesus uses stock phrases like “gehenna of fire” in legal contexts like this one, He means a literal place of punishment after judgment. He means hell.
The phrase sentenced to hell is once again reminiscent of something you would hear in a courtroom.

So…is God mainly judge or is God mainly father?
William Barclay, in I Am A Convinced Universalist explained it this way:

Further, there is only one way in which we can think of the triumph of God. If God was no more than a King or Judge, then it would be possible to speak of his triumph, if his enemies were agonizing in hell or were totally and completely obliterated and wiped out. But God is not only King and Judge, God is Father - he is indeed Father more than anything else. No father could be happy while there were members of his family for ever in agony. No father would count it a triumph to obliterate the disobedient members of his family. The only triumph a father can know is to have all his family back home. The only victory love can enjoy is the day when its offer of love is answered by the return of love. The only possible final triumph is a universe loved by and in love with God.

And John Gavazzoni, a favorite kingdom minister of mine, says it this way in his article “My Dad, God”:

One thing stands out clearly to me when I compare my father's relationship with his children to the way our Heavenly Father is presented in conventional orthodox theology. It is simply this: Lou Gavazzoni's relationship with me was paternal, not legal. Whatever factors came into play, all was built on a familial, not a forensic foundation. There may at times have been a friendship element, associate-in-business element, fellow-musician element, boss-employee element, even lord-servant element and yes, the element of judgment came up as well. But, I never stood before one who was essentially a judge, who might, after legal matters were settled, then allow himself to be fatherly.
I stood before my father who might, as necessary, act in a firm, unyielding and corrective judgment as part of his love for me. Yet, it seems clear to me, that most of Christianity assumes that a relationship with God is only possible after legal matters are settled. Our minds are so entangled with what we perceive to be legal, judicial and forensic necessities that we miss the Father-heart of God.

So is God really everyone’s father…or does he only become Father when we “pray the sinner’s prayer” and “ask Jesus to come into our heart”?
More on that….in my next post…..

And the third mindset spawned by a belief in the ECT God described in the book Erasing Hell

Psalm 16:11 

You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

You couldn’t prove this verse by the Christians who default to the third mindset I've come across in believers of ECT.

A begrudging acceptance and a keen awareness of everything they are missing to toe the "I don't want to burn in hell" line fuels their beliefs and behavior. There is no joy evident in their lives…other than the “joy” that comes from knowing they are (probably) not bound for hell.  At least not if they continue to toe the line. 

Their quiet anger carries over into everything they do and permeates their entire life style. You will usually find them in very fundamentalist churches....conforming their lives to a strict set of rules and regulations they don't want to follow. But they do...

They totally miss the the pleasures and fullness of joy that can only be found at the right hand of the Father. 

I came across the following excerpt a few years ago on the website of a good, Bible believing, home schooling, King James only, submissive wife and mother. The article is called "Hell is Real." Scientists have proven it after all....yes.....it is in the earths core. Proven fact.

I think this excerpt clearly shows just how much this doctrine is stealing from them.

Do you really believe in Hell?  I should hope that if I walked into any fundamental church and ask the question, “Do you really believe in Hell?" that everyone would say, "Yes."  I mean after all, that is supposed to be a point of our doctrine, that we believe in a Hell that has fire.  That is what good fundamentalists believe.  But do you really believe in Hell?

If you don't believe in Hell, then there is no point. 

Then she poses the rhetorical question…

But if we don't believe in Hell, why then do we go to church?  We could be down at a park where they have a festival going on.  We could be eating Tostitos, burritos and all that other stuff. 

If we didn't believe in Hell, we could sleep in on Sunday mornings.  We could watch football in the afternoon, drink an Old Style, eat lunch, sit back at a pool, and enjoy ourselves.

If you do believe in Hell, you need to go soul winning.  If you do believe in Hell, you need to work on a Sunday school bus, maybe kicking in some money to buy a few more busses.  If you do believe in Hell, you need to find a street corner and preach on the subject of Hell. If you do believe in Hell, you need to find a room somewhere in church and start a Sunday school class and fill it.  Knock on doors, preach on street corners, go to the neighborhood and bring them.  Build a Sunday school class.  Build a bus route.  Build the church.  Get people saved.  Get them baptized.  Get them serving God, so that they can win others. Do you really believe in Hell? Then it is time to get busy.

You tell me….is there even a hint of fullness of joy in what she has to say?

I’m going to close this post with a quote from Derek Flood…from his article How Can a Loving God Sent People To Hell.

 It is often said that without the threat of Hell that no one will repent, and no one will evangelize. I would propose that the opposite is true. If you come to God because you are afraid of going to Hell, or if you evangelize out of a fear of Hell, then your motivation is based on fear and not love, And that is wrong. Fear of punishment is a selfish motivation, and if that is your motivation you need to change it. We do not love God or our neighbor because of what we can get out of it - maximizing our self-interest. We love because it is right. Period. If you find that you no longer love God, or your neighbor after the weight of a motivation of guilt and fear are lifted from over your head, then I would question whether you ever really loved them at all.

What kind of mindset is spawned by a belief in the ECT God described in the book Erasing Hell? Part 2

In my last post, I wrote about the believers who seem to delight in the Lord's wrathful judgment of sinners. They are content to let scores of their friends and family endure endless tortures in hell without so much as a feeble protest. They think God has every right.  He's God.  He can do whatever he damn well pleases. 

And then there are the folks who have always been taught there is an eternal hell where all nonbelievers will spend forever....and ever....and ever....and ever...and ever....and.....you get the idea.  It offends their sense of justice.  It offends their sense of what is fair.  Yet, since "the Bible tells me so" they see no way around the doctrine. There is a hell...they don't want to go there.  They don't want their friends or loved ones to go there...but you know, "God doesn't send anyone to hell.  You send yourself to hell." (by making bad choices like not asking Jesus to come live in your heart)

Unless of course you are a Calvinist.  If you are a Calvinist, you believe God chooses who goes to hell and who doesn't.  The double predestination thing.  The elect are heaven bound.  The non elect are....not.  It doesn't matter how sincerely you plead with Jesus to come live in your heart...if you aren't one of the lucky ones chosen before the foundation of the world...well, too bad, so sad, he's not moving in. 

Either way, these folks struggle with their belief in hell but they think it is THEIR under developed sense of justice that prevents them from rejoicing.  Francis Chan says this :

And so it is with many things about God that don't seem to add up.
And so it must be with hell.
As I have said all along, I don't feel like believing in hell.  And yet I do. Maybe someday I will stand in complete agreement with Him, but for now I attribute the discrepancy to an underdeveloped sense of justice on my part.  God is perfect.  And I joyfully submit to a God whose ways are much, much higher than mine. 

And the quote I found on the Challie's blog......

I hate hell. I hate that it exists and hate that it needs to exist. I’m amazed to realize that, when we are heaven, we will praise God for it and that we will glorify him for creating such a place and for condemning the unsaved to it. But for now I am too filled with pride, too filled with sin to even begin to justly and rightly rejoice in the existence of such a place of torment. I cannot rejoice in such a place; not yet. It is just too awful, too weighty. And I know that I deserve to be there. 

And they struggle to conform their sense of justice to their perception of God's sense of justice.

One more mindset I want to take a look at…in my next post….