Did He or Didn't He?

Here on Mercy, I’ve written posts based on thoughts and topics piqued by Adam Hamilton. I’ve  thought about/meant to write many more posts based on things I’ve read that he authored (Why?) and sermons that he preached. On the Church of the Resurrection website, where he is senior pastor, there is a vast collection of sermon archives dating back to 1999.

This new year, as part of my goal of getting more structured in my “devotions”, I decided I would listen to sermons (by Adam Hamilton, Nadia Bolz-Weber and Greg Boyd) AND read the Bible (Book of Common Prayer reading plan) while exercising at the gym. Talk about multitasking. So far, so good. Well….so far, pretty good. Not a failure, not a raging success. Still plugging along.

So, I randomly picked a sermon series from last January called Jesus: Myth, Madman or Messiah and listened to the first sermon in the series, “Searching for the Historical Jesus.” I listened to it twice. Learned a thing or two and picked up a different perspective about the historical Jesus. From the sermon notes available on the website:

Let’s begin with an easy question, as there is great consensus even among secular scholars,agnostics and atheists that Jesus actually lived. He was a real, historical person. Dr. Louise Antony, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts and a noted atheist stated,“I don't personally know a single atheist who would deny that Jesus existed.” Bart Ehrman, a popular agnostic writer and professor at the University of North Carolina recently wrote a book called, Did Jesus Exist? in which he offers an emphatic yes....

Well, isn’t that cool? And if you want to read a short writing by Bart Ehrman on Huffington Post discussing why he is sure Jesus existed, click HERE.

More from the sermon:

I finished reading Zealot last week. Aslan lays out the premise of the book,

writing: “In the end, there are only two hard historical facts about Jesus of Nazareth upon which we can confidently rely: the first is that Jesus was a Jew who led a popular Jewish movement in Palestine...the second is that Rome crucified him for doing so.”

To watch a 27 minute Huffington post video of Aslan discussing his views about Jesus, click HERE.

Another New Year’s goal...to post more frequently on this blog. In order to do that (and also fit in living my life/exercising/and working at a challenging and full time plus some job) I’ve got to be less picky. This post feels a bit unfinished and unpolished. In the past, I would save it in draft form and plan a series…..which most of the time never actually came to fruition.  

So here it is...as it is. There is fodder for those who might want to read/listen to a bit more. I have intentions to write more about the sermon because it piqued many thoughts and insights. We’ll see if that happens.  For now...I’ve gotta’ get moving and get ready for work.

Evangelizing – Let’s Talk About Jesus….

I came upon a quote on my Facebook feed the other morning.

"How much do you have to hate someone to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them?"

The quote was spoken during an interview by Penn Jillette, of the Penn and Teller duo. It was his response to a fan who, after seeing his show, approached him to evangelize....and throw in a complimentary Bible. It did not change his mind, but the guy did impress him...and it provided fodder for future jokes about all the wishy washy Christians who confine their faith to Sunday mornings. The whole quote, in context follows...

He walked over to me and he said, “I was here at the show last night, I saw the show and I liked it.” He was complimentary about my use of language and my honesty… he said nice stuff… and then he said “I brought this for you” and he gave me a pocket Gideon’s Bible with the New Testament and Psalms… he said “I brought this for you, I wanted you to have it… I’m proselytizing… I want you to know I’m a businessman, I’m sane, I’m not crazy.”  And he looked me right in the eye, and it was really wonderful.  I believe he knew that I was an atheist.  But he was not defensive, and he looked me right in the eyes.  And he was truly complimentary.  It didn’t seem in any way that it was empty flattery; he was kind, and nice, and sane, and looked me in the eye and talked to me, and then gave me this Bible.  And I’ve always said, I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize.  If you believe there is a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life or whatever and you think “well, it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward.”  How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize?  How much do you have to hate someone to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?  If I believe that there is a truck bearing down on you, and you didn’t believe it, there’s a certain point at which I tackle you.  And this is more important than that.  This guy was a really good guy.  He was polite and honest and sane and he cared enough about me to proselytize and give me a Bible which had written in it a little note to me and five phone numbers and an email address in case I want to get in touch.  Now, I know there is no God, and one polite person living his life right doesn’t change that.  But I’ll tell you, he was a very, very, very good man, and that’s really important, and with that kind of goodness, it’s okay to have that deep of a disagreement.  I still think religion does a lot of bad stuff, but that was a very good man.

So what is the message? The message many Christians hear is a call to get out there and knock on some doors or to stand on a street corner and shout things like "the end is near"

This reminds me of a cartoon I saw once....two men standing at a bus stop...both with briefcases, one wearing a suit and tie, the other wearing a t-shirt with big, bold letters that said

“LET'S TALK ABOUT JESUS!!!! “

The guy wearing the t-shirt is explaining to the guy in the suit, "it guarantees me a seat all by myself."

I bet it does!!  Anyone who has ever been an unwilling participant in a conversation with an over zealous Christian can surely relate.  And while there is a message in Penn's quote, I don't think it is necessarily the message understood  by many Christians. You know what I think the message is?

How about....follow the lead of the spirit.  I don't think it is a call… or an excuse..to evangelize to everyone who happens to cross our path throughout the day.  Jesus didn't evangelize to everyone he met. 

In fact, Jesus said,

 For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.  I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.” John 12:49-50

People can only hear what they are ready to hear. Trying to convince them prematurely only causes them to dig in their heels and fight like crazy for what they believe.  I think it was my friend Martha who said:

Sometimes one is not ready for the "truth" at that time, and to just be compassionate is the way to go. If you went ahead and told them the "straight truth" it would in essence be like talking to the wall. Making it so when they are "ready" they are already tuning you out.

Timing is everything. Who better than the Holy Spirit to know just the right time and place? So pay attention to the nudge…

The encounter left Penn with a positive impression of at least one Christian. A seed planted.

And what about the encounter itself....?

Note that there was no discussion of theology...no high pressure sales tactics (guilt, threats or fear). None of the usual rhetoric like...if you died tonight do you know where you would spend eternity? No mention of the sinners prayer....or questions like have you asked Jesus into your heart?  And no warnings about hell. Just one human being interacting with another human being...sharing the gospel.

The guy who spoke to Penn was respectful, sincere, authentic and genuinely seemed to care. His BEHAVIOR declared the gospel as much as anything he had to say

A quote usually attributed to St. Francis of Assisi instructs us to…

Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary use words. 

Actions really do speak louder than words. 

Do all spirit led encounters look like this interaction? I don’t think so. Sometimes the reception will be chilly or even hostile, but spirit led encounters will always produce fruit...someday.

“The very man who has argued you down, will sometimes be found years later, to have been influenced by what you said.” ~ C.S. Lewis

Colorado Shootings, Where Were You God?

Lots of people around the internet are talking about the Colorado shooting. About the victims...about acts of heroism...about the coincidences that brought some to the theater and the coincidences that kept some away.

And they are talking about the shooter, his history, his friends and family, his mom's comments, (that Keith tells me were taken totally out of context by some over zealous reporter) About the "I'm a crazy man" look in his tortured eyes.

And of course there is ongoing, heated debate about guns and gun control. For the record, I loathe guns...but if my neighbor, or my dad, or my boss wants to own a gun and is responsible with the use and storage of the weapon...I am content to "myob." However, I see no feasible reason ( or how it could be construed as a threat to the 2nd Amendment) to not do whatever it takes to keep weapons that can fire dozens of bullets without reloading...out of the hands of crazy men. Out of the hands of EVERYBODY for that matter. But I digress. That is the subject of another post....someday. Back to the Colorado shooting.

So the conversation goes round and round. Everybody has an opinion. Everybody has questions. Ultimately, the discussion turns to God....and most everyone, in one way or another wonders the same thing..and (consciously or subconsciously)asks the same question of God. "Where the hell were you??!! when these victims were being gunned down??? And why didn't you do something??"

That question is the crux of the age old mystery of theodicy. The immortal question, "If there is a good, all powerful God, how can evil exist?"

The conclusion many come to is that there is no God. "Sorry folks, you're on your own."

Others (like Harold Kushner of the "When Bad Things Happen To Good People " fame) settle on the belief that God is not all powerful. He would like to do more to help but, sadly, his hands are tied.

Others settle on the belief that he is not all good...because as far as they’re concerned not stopping atrocities like the shooting is as bad as actually causing them.

And some folks...the total determinist/absolute sovereignty believers believe just that….that he actually causes these things to come down. They believe he is all powerful, all good and the first cause of all causes. In other words, he directly ordains these things(for our own good, of course) There is a case to be made for that viewpoint.

Some folks believe man's free will is the ultimate deciding factor and that God never...or rarely, intervenes. There is a case to be made for that viewpoint, too.

Although diehard believers on both sides of the “free will/sovereignty” line will disagree that a case can be made for the opposite side.

I see so many things in shades of gray, along the lines of Adam Hamilton's book "Seeing Gray In a Black and White World.” I suspect that the truth about most things is somewhere smack dab in the middle, or at least not totally to the far left or the far right.

This question haunted me for years. I read, I pondered, I obsessed. I was totally pissed off at God for the way he set things up...starving children in Africa, death, disease and pestilence everywhere. I couldn't just write him off as an imaginary friend because I've felt his touch and know he exists as surely as I know I do. Non belief was not an option. Pouting at him was. But in my heart, I knew that whatever evidence gets stacked against him, he is good, he is love and his mercy endures forever.

I've stopped pouting. I've even stopped asking the "where were you" kinds of questions. And I'm not dead set sure what I think about his involvement in world events but I suspect sometimes he causes, sometimes he prevents and sometimes he intervenes in very mysterious ways.

A Facebook friend posted a link shortly after the shooting. It leads to blog post written by a pastor in Colorado. He told the story of a young woman in his congregation. Petra Anderson. She is in her early twenties (22, I think) and she was in the theater that night. She was shot multiple times. One of the shotgun blasts sent a pellet through her brain....front to back. The prognosis was bleak but when the neurosurgeons operated, they discovered Petra had a brain anomaly that had been present since birth. It caused no symptoms. She had no idea it was there. Nobody did except, of course, her Maker.

It was a tiny channel that ran from front to back. Just big enough for a shotgun pellet. The bullet entered her nose at that exact spot and made its way to the back of her brain, via the channel, causing next to no damage. The blog author said that the tiniest variation in the entry point would have caused the pellet to bypass the channel, ripping through and damaging/destroying vital brain tissue.

No matter what your theology or opinion about the POE (problem of evil), sovereignty and free will, this story (that has also been mentioned on the news and other sources) gives one cause to pause and ponder. An old hymn and two Bible verses come to mind.

The Bible verses...

Isaiah 43: 7"...everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

and

Psalm 139:14 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. NLT

The blog post about Petra went viral and received hundreds of comments, many that expressed disdain for the idea that God was responsible for this anomaly/ miracle yet didn't come through for the other victims.

Which brings me to the words of the old hymn by William Cowper -

'God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform"

There is another thing about the Anderson family that seems to deepen the mysteries of God's ways.  Petra's mother is battling a reoccurrence of (terminable) breast cancer...her prognosis is not good...and she is not expected to survive. 

Since this is getting long, I'll finish up in another post (really, I will)

Wurmbrand on Truth, Burning Hearts and Finite Crimes

I’ve been listening to Wayne Jacobsen’s multi part series, The Jesus Lens.  Today, while hoofing it around the neighborhood, on a perfectly gorgeous, sunny Easter Sunday, I took note of a quote he used to illustrate his point….a quote by Richard Wurmbrand. 

I know who Richard Wurmbrand was. He came up a time or two in discussions with Keith during my five or so year stint of wrestling with theodicy and the suffering that abounds all around us. The, if there is a good God, how can there be starving children question. Wurmbrand’s book, Tortured For Christ, moved here with Keith ten years ago and is in the bookcase…along with a few other books he authored.

The short version of his life story can be found on the Voice of the Martyrs website….an organization he founded after he was finally released from prison….the second time. He spent years in a Communist prison…enduring tortures that defy the imagination.

So when I got home from my walk…and settled down on the couch with my I Pad, I looked up the quote on Google.  I came across several other quotes that struck me…and I am sharing them in this blog post…..

On Truth…the one Wayne used:

The Bible is a wonderful book. It is the truth about the Truth. It is not the Truth. A sermon taken from the Bible can be a wonderful thing to hear. It is the truth about the truth about the truth. But it is not the truth. There have been many books written about the things contained in the Bible. I have written some myself. They can be quite wonderful to read. They are the truth about the truth about truth about the Truth. But they are NOT the Truth. Only Jesus Christ is the Truth. Sometimes the Truth can be drowned in a multitude of words.

On the flame in his heart:

"In solitary confinement, we could not pray as before. We were unimaginably hungry; we had been drugged until we acted like idiots. We were as weak as skeletons. The Lord’s Prayer was much too long for us—we could not concentrate enough to say it. My only prayer repeated again and again was, 'Jesus, I love You.' And then, one glorious day I got the answer from Jesus: 'You love me? Now I will show you how I love you.' At once, I felt a flame in my heart, which burned like the coronal streamers of the sun. The disciples on the way to Emmaus said that their hearts burned when Jesus spoke with them. So it was with me. I knew the love of the One who gave His life on the cross for us all." Tortured For Christ

And how all crimes….no matter how horrendous….are crimes of a finite nature.  Sheds a bit of light…perhaps… on the age old, “What about Hitler” question.

"God sees things differently than we see them, just as we see differently than an ant. From the human point of view, to be tied to a cross and smeared with excrement is a horrible thing. Nonetheless, the Bible calls the sufferings of martyrs light afflictions. To be in prison for fourteen years is a long period to us. The Bible calls it 'but for a moment,' and tells us that these things are working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory (2Co 4:17). This gives us the right to suppose that the fierce crimes of the Communists, which are inexcusable to us, are lighter in the eyes of God than they are in our eyes. Their tyranny, which has lasted almost an entire century, may be before God, for whom a thousand years are like one day, only a moment of erring astray. They still have the possibility of being saved." Tortured For Christ

Lots to ponder in those three quotes.  More quotes can be found HERE.  Some of his books can be found HERE and HERE

What we need to apologize for?

Right about the same time I was pondering Thomas Merton’s gracious message to unbelievers, I ran across a blog post about Mark Driscoll’s recent interview with Justin Brierley on a blog called Cognitive Discopants. 
The interview turned into a my church is bigger than your church because there is strong male leadership…namely….”me” (Mark Driscoll)  Your church (Brierley’s) is a wussy church because there are no strong male leaders. Your church is pastored by a….WOMEN….who just happens to be Brierley’s wife.  In fact, according to Driscoll, there really aren’t any strong young leaders in all of England who are preaching the true gospel. 
And the true gospel?  Well, of course the true gospel is a belief in penal substitution and a literal hell with eternal, conscious torment.  Otherwise….you are wishing for a God who is a mom….who embraces everyone. 

Driscoll: Do you believe in a conscious literal eternal torment of hell?
Brierley: What has that got to do with the issue of women in leadership, if you don’t mind me asking?
Driscoll: It does. It depends on your view of God. Is God like a mom who just embraces everyone? Or is he like a father who also protects, and defends, and disciplines? If you won’t answer the question, I think I know the answer.

There is so much offensive in this quote…where do I start?  How about with another quote?  Not from this interview but from a sermon series at his church…Mars Hill.  From Jesus Took Our Wrath (Propitiation)

You have been told that God is a loving, gracious, merciful, kind, compassionate, wonderful, and good sky fairy who runs a day care in the sky and has a bucket of suckers for everyone because we're all good people. That is a lie... God looks down and says 'I hate you, you are my enemy, and I will crush you,' and we say that is deserved, right and just, and then God says 'Because of Jesus I will love you and forgive you.' This is a miracle.

I could (should?) stop here…but here’s another

There is a strong drift toward the hard theological left. Some emergent types [want] to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in his hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a pride fighter with a tattoo down his leg, a sword in his hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up. I fear some are becoming more cultural than Christian, and without a big Jesus who has authority and hates sin as revealed in the Bible, we will have less and less Christians, and more and more confused, spiritually self-righteous blogger critics of Christianity. Mark Driscoll, Relevant Magazine, 2007

The above quote is well known and oft repeated.  While I was  looking for the original source…when and where it actually came out of the “horse’s mouth”….. I came across a post on Justin Scott’s blog that had not only the source of the quote but also an interesting post about being a “chick-ified” Christian man.  Well worth a visit to read the post from last July. I added his blog to my Google Reader feed. 
Yes, indeed…penal substitution….eternal conscious torment…..two of the more heinous doctrines associated with Christianity held up as benchmarks of the faith.
Check out the whole Driscoll /Brierley interview HERE.  And check out Driscoll’s response to some of the backlash HERE.
 

Merton’s Aplology to Unbelievers

While surfing here and there the other day….not sure what I was looking for or researching….but I happened upon a blog post from “yesteryear.”  Yesteryear as in 2008…Thomas Merton’s Apologies to an Unbeliever on a blog still “open for business” The Other Journal – The Intersection of Theology and Culture. 

Like Merton, I often feel Christians owe nonbelievers (not to mention followers of other faith traditions) a big, fat apology.

Merton died shortly after he wrote the essay and the conversations that might have taken place with unbelievers never happened.  In fact, the ensuing years saw an uprising of religious fundamentalists like Phyllis Schlafly and the Eagle Forum, Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority,  Pat Robertson and The Christian Coalition, Anita Bryant and Save Our Children. The list goes on and on…Focus on the Family, American Coalition for Traditional Values, Concerned Women for America, Family Research Council, Christian Right. 

Robert Inchausti, the author of the article, sums it up

But in the years following his death, the late seventies and eighties, religious people launched an offensive against secular society, science, and atheism. Their primary weapon was a rigid, reductive, Biblical literalism. This new passionate, doctrinal rigidity ultimately gave birth to the backlash of militant atheisms we are now currently experiencing.

 And it goes on to say….

In recent years Christopher Hutchins, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and others have published best-selling polemics challenging Christianity with little or no recognition of the apophatic tradition. The combative tenor of these books is no doubt a response to the onslaught of twenty-plus years of know-nothing pop apologetics that has so polarized and dumbed down the national conversation concerning faith that when I read these books, I find myself agreeing with everything they say.

And no wonder these guys…the atheists with the loudest voices… are so pissed about some of the things these right wing, fundamentalist groups have tried to implement and enforce through the years! (check out some of the links in the list of right wing organizations)

And yet at the same time, I also find in them the flawed logic of the straw man fallacy. The God they do not believe in is not a God I ever believed in.

Me, neither!! I’ve long believed that militant atheists and militant Christians have a lot in common in the way they read the Bible.  Both groups take it literally…at face value.  One group picks away at its inconsistencies and contradictions,  The other group goes to great linguistic gymnastics in order to reconcile the obvious inconsistencies. 

But Merton wrote about a new day that he hoped was dawning.

Quoting the article’s author again….

This is the culture where every practicing contemplative, mystic, and true scientist has always labored, and now that the skeptics have vented some of their resentments and the magic Christians have had their say, perhaps a real conversation about our place in the cosmos can begin free from invective, straw man arguments, and polemical grandstanding.

Free from polemical grandstanding and invective straw man arguments? For some of us…not quite yet.  More in my next post…after this bonus quote from Merton

“The dread of being open to the ideas of others generally comes from our hidden insecurity about our own convictions.  We fear that we may be “converted” – or perverted – by a pernicious doctrine.  On the other hand, if we are mature and objective in our open-mindedness, we may find that viewing things from a basically different perspective – that of our adversary – we discover our own truth in a new light and are able to understand our own ideal more realistically. Our willingness to take an alternative approach to a problem will perhaps relax the obsessive fixation of the adversary on his view, which he believes is the only reasonable possibility and which he is determined to impose on everyone else by coercion…This mission of Christian humility in social life is not merely to edify, but to keep minds open to many alternatives.  The rigidity of a certain type of Christian thought has seriously impaired this capacity, which nonviolence must recover.”
From Passion For Peace by Thomas Merton

OH MY GOD, the movie....2

This afternoon, Keith and I watched the movie I mentioned in my last post.  Oh My God.  It was a documentary....just like it advertised itself to be.  I was intrigued by the far flung and diverse opinions of God expressed by the folks around the globe....from many walks of life.....believers of many different religions. It included the opinion of a devout fundamentalist evangelical Christian (Tim LaHaye) and the almost carbon copy, other side of the same coin.....devout fundamentalist kill the infidel Muslim (who both were quick to express their belief that anyone from another faith system...other than theirs, of course....were going straight to hell. 

Another part of the movie that intrigued/repulsed me was the sacrifice of a live goat....snapping the bones....skinning it.  Pretty much what you might have seen if you stepped back into the pages of the Old Testament when blood sacrifice was rampant.  The group was an African tribe...who had converted to Christianity but still believed sacrifices were necessary. 

It showed one particularly unlikely pair of friends walking hand in hand....arm in arm.  A rabbi and a Muslim cleric....outside of Palestine....where Jews and Muslims are not supposed to be friends. 

If you get a chance it's worth the 90 minutes it takes to watch the movie.  It doesn't give definitive answers...but stimulates questions that just might lead us a bit closer to our own answers to the question the movie revolved around....."what is God?"

Time to dust off the Christmas letter again….

I’ve posted the following “letter from God to his children” the past few Christmases. I’m posting it again….spurred on by a visit to the AFA website where they are, once again, bravely defending Jesus in the ongoing Christmas Wars. Again. Another year.  SSDD. 

They are “naming names” of the merchants who don’t use the specific catch phrase for this time of year, the ONLY true north statement of the season. 

Merry. Christmas. 

OR…they don’t use it appropriately. 

OR…they don’t use it often enough. 

Happy Holidays doesn’t cut it.  Season’s Greetings….nope. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS. 

Petsmart was named way back in October…yes….October because their advertising and their website set up seemed to slight Christmas.  They groveled sufficiently to warrant a move from the “Companies Against” to the “Companies For” Christmas list. 

Yes, they have a list.  

They have a button too….!!!

But I digress…..

And Walgreens was on the verge of the shit list….but they groveled too.

And so keeping with my annual tradition…along with reading the Christmas story in Luke (several times)…a story that always brings tears to my eyes and a lump in my throat….I am posting this annual letter from God to his children. 

I don’t know who authored this brilliant letter….but he certainly deserves a high five, a thumbs up and a wish for the “happiest of holidays.”

Dear Children,
It has come to my attention that many of you are upset that folks are taking My Son's name out of the season. Maybe you've forgotten that I didn't send my Son in December, it was some of your ancestors who decided to celebrate My Son's birthday at what was, in ancient times, a pagan festival; although, I do appreciate Jesus being remembered...anytime.

How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children of your own. I don't care what you call the day. If you want to celebrate Jesus' birth just, GET ALONG AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn't allow a scene depicting My Son's birth, then make room on your lawn for the nativity scene on your own front lawn. If all my followers did that there wouldn't be any need for such a scene on the town square because there would be many of them all around town.

Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the tree a holiday tree, instead of a Christmas tree. It was I who made all the trees. You can remember me anytime you see a tree.

Instead of fusing over trimmings and traditions, consider giving My Son one of the gifts below this Christmas…

1. Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way My birthday is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to soldiers away from home. They are terribly afraid and lonely this time of year. I know, they tell Me all the time.

2. Visit someone in a nursing home. You don't have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.

3. Instead of writing George (Barack) complaining about the wording on the cards his staff sent out this year, why don't you write and tell him that you'll be praying for him and his family this year. Then follow up. It will be nice hearing from you again.

4. Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts you can't afford and they don't need, spend time with them. Tell them the story of My birth and why I came to live with you down here. Hold them in your arms and remind them that I love them.

5. Pick someone who's hurt you in the past, forgive them, and give them the gift of a future-free from the pain, shame, and guilt of yesterday's yuck.

6. Did you know that someone in your town will attempt to take their own life this season because they feel so alone and hopeless? Since you don't know who that person is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile, it could make the difference. Also, you might consider supporting the local Hot-Line: they talk with people like that every day.

7. Instead of nit picking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word. Even if they aren't allowed to wish you a "Merry Christmas" that doesn't keep you from wishing them one.

8. If you really want to make a difference, support a missionary, especially one who takes My love and Good News to those who have never heard My name. You may already know someone like that.

9. Here's a good one. There are individuals and whole families in your town who not only will have no "Christmas" tree, but neither will they have any presents to give or receive. Be sensitive to the needs of others. A few cans of food or a simple gift can go along way towards good will on earth.

10. Finally if you want to make a statement about your belief in Me, then behave like a Christian. Don't do things in secret that you wouldn't do in My presence. Let people know by your actions that you are one of mine.

Don't forget; I am God and can take care of Myself. Please, if you love me, love my children-all of them, especially the ones that challenge your traditions. I'll take care of all the rest.

Invite others to a Christmas festival that has more to do with eternity than all the trimmings and traditions of December 25th.

"Merry Christmas!" means: "I love you." – God

 

Just prayed to a god that I don’t believe in….

After a year long (and then some) hiatus, I’ve been hitting the gym just about every morning. I’ve been getting up early (as usual) but instead of lollygagging around on the internet sipping a strong “not for wimps” cup of coffee for an hour or more, I’ve been heading out to my cold, frost covered car and driving to Planet Fitness.  Once there, I read the blogs I’ve saved in google reader and other miscellaneous stuff I’ve earmarked to read…on my Kindle 3 while pedaling or hoofing it on the treadmill.  Killing two birds with one stone.

I suspect some insights and thoughts are a result of the endorphins that are circulating through my system.  I’ve read there is a difference in the way the brain processes thoughts when you are exercising.

I’ve gotten so many ideas for blog posts, I’m pondering a new  “at the gym” tag. We’ll see.  No telling how long this early morning exercise resolution will hang on. 

The idea for this post came, not from google reader or anything saved on my kindle, but from the Planet Fitness music blaring from their speakers.  Usually an annoyance that fades to the background, these lyrics captured my attention. 

“I’m still alive but I’m barely breathing”

“Just prayed to a god that I don’t believe in”

The song is called Breakeven from The Script.  It is an ode to lost love.  An “I’m dying here while you are out there living it up” song.  The song emphasizes that he is “falling to pieces.”

It made me think about how often we turn to the god that we “don’t believe in” when our world is crashing down around us and we are “falling to pieces.” 

Wasn’t is C.S. Lewis, no stranger to incredible pain when he lost his beloved wife, Joy, who penned the words

But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. --C.S. Lewis

And George MacDonald said this

As cold as everything looks in winter, the sun has not forsaken us. He has only drawn away for a little, for good reasons, one of which is that we may learn that we cannot do without him. --George MacDonald

And there is the oft repeated “no atheists in foxholes” quote.

I won’t get into the perpetual, seemingly unanswerable question of whether God merely allows or directly causes our suffering.  I suspect it’s a bit of both and not strictly an either or thing.  But he uses our distress as his megaphone to break thought our deafness.  Many times when we have nowhere else to go, we turnj to the god that we don’t believe in….and find, to our utter amazement, that he is indeed there. 

My “testimony” is a variation of that very theme. 

I’m including a video of the song in this post.  Videos come and go on You Tube, so it will inevitably become a dead link.  I think it’s really interesting what they do with the photographs in the video. 

 

The Conversation Between the Brothers….

Long ago and far away, I ended the first post in this series….The POE Revisited….

More in my next post about the conversation between the two brothers, Ivan and Alyosha.   Here is the link to the excerpt.....Fyodor Dostoevsky on the Problem of Evil from the Brothers Karamazov.

Perhaps the title of this post isn’t quite accurate.  What goes on between the brothers isn’t actually a conversation….it is a one man dissertation.  Ivan presents his complaints against God to his brother …monologue fashion. Alyosha… mainly listens. 

And it is the children…the suffering children….the stereotypical argument that is so often raised against God…that bothers Ivan the most.  He makes his case using examples of suffering children….facts and anecdotes that he’s collected from newspapers and books.  And he has some really abhorrent examples.

The “theory of theodicy” he rails against is one of the many explanations mankind has come up with to reconcile the big three pillars of theodicy….the goodness of God, the omnipotence of God…and the existence of suffering.

Ivan is a made up character birthed from the mind and imagination of Fyodor Dostoevsky but he is a composite of many real life people who also find the POE and mystery of suffering….especially the suffering of children, to be the ultimate paradox…the unexplainable enigma…the “fly in the ointment”….the unforgiveable sin for a God who is supposed to be love.  The suffering of children is a frequent theme in Dostoevsky’s work so perhaps he, too, is trying to hash it all out…make sense of it…through his writings?

The angle Ivan chisels away at in his monologue is the necessity of suffering for an eventual, eternal harmony. The conclusion comes to is “no way, Jose’” It’s not worth it.   And he uses the examples of children to prove his point….even though he muses that….

I meant to speak of the suffering of mankind generally, but we had better confine ourselves to the sufferings of the children. That reduces the scope of my argument to a tenth of what it would be.

but….

I took the case of children only to make my case clearer.

Of the other tears of humanity with which the earth is soaked from its crust to its centre, I will say nothing. I have narrowed my subject on purpose.

I’ve had trouble getting started on this series. Perhaps because I don’t know exactly what I want to say.  There is so much to say…so many aspects of it to explore.  I’m just going start typing and see what unfolds…looking at it from several angles. Writing brings a clarity to thoughts, gives them form and order.  A bit like free style mind mapping, without the map. 

More to come in my next post. 

I...Miss...Him!!!!

I digress..

Last night Keith watched the movie, Billy, the Early Years.  Well, to be technically correct....Keith watched AND listened the movie. I watched. I diverted my attention (back and forth) between my computer screen and the TV screen.  No sound. 

At my request (and wearied by the countless times he heard the words "Can you please turn that down") Keith opted for a wireless headset for almost all his TV viewing.  I think he may have ulterior motives, though, because when the house is loud and there are distractions he can jack up the sound...and not be disturbed. Poof...none of us exist.  Either way...win/win. 

But often my attention is drawn to the big screen...and it is a big screen...48 inches or so and hard to ignore since it sits directly across the room from where I usually hang out with my lap top.  And I have watched a lot of movies...sans the sound.  Keith is usually reluctantly willing (who can blame him) to fill me in on any details that pique my curiosity and cannot be discerned without the sound track.  The story line of Billy was about the early years of Billy Graham's ministry and his friendship and shared ministry with Charles Templeton, the Canadian evangelist who later renounced Christianity and remained an agnostic until his death. The story was told through the perspective of Charles Templeton...as an old man, very sick with Alzhemers....using flashbacks...and his commentary on the events. 

His bitch with God? Same old same old--the timeless, oft cited reasons people give for disbelief.  The inerrancy of the scriptures - the contradictions and statements that don't make sense...that defy the facts of science...that violate our moral code.  At least from a surface view.  And, of course, the biggie...the one that I struggled with for several years...theodicy...the problem of evil....suffering.  I think the Holocaust particularly bothered him.  The movie showed scenes of some of the cleanup at the prison camps.  Pretty hard to look at. 

So he left the faith...and stayed gone the rest of his life. 

As is often my habit, after something piques my interest, I spend a chunk of time researching it on the internet.  There is not as much about Charles Templeton as I expected....but I did come across a story about him on the Christian Courier in an article called "A Skeptic Reflects upon Jesus Christ." This is the author's view of an incident included in one of Lee Strobel's books, The Case For Faith"

Strobel interviewed Templeton in his high rise apartment overlooking Toronto.  The following excerpt is from the Christian Courier article. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

During the course of their conversation, Charles Templeton had again vigorously defended his disavowal of God and his rejection of the Bible. There was no apparent chink in the armor of his callused soul. Then, Strobel directed the old gentleman’s attention to Christ. How would he now assess Jesus at this stage of his life?

Strobel says that, amazingly, Templeton’s “body language softened.” His voice took on a “melancholy and reflective tone.” And then, incredibly, he said:

“He was the greatest human being who has ever lived. He was a moral genius. His ethical sense was unique. He was the intrinsically wisest person that I’ve ever encountered in my life or in my reading. His commitment was total and led to his own death, much to the detriment of the world.”

Strobel quietly commented: “You sound like you really care about him.”

“Well, yes,” Templeton acknowledged, “he’s the most important thing in my life.” He stammered: “I . . . I . . . I adore him . . . Everything good I know, everything decent I know, everything pure I know, I learned from Jesus.”

Strobel was stunned. He listened in shock. He says that Templeton’s voice began to crack. He then said, “I . . . miss . . . him!” With that the old man burst into tears; with shaking frame, he wept bitterly.

Finally, Templeton gained control of his emotions and wiped away the tears. “Enough of that,” he said, as he waved his hand, as if to suggest that there would be no more questions along that line.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More tomorrow...on the Quran. 

God On Trial...

Another digression from the current series...a digression that was initially birthed as a digression from a series I was writing several months ago.  I started this post about "God on Trial" after watching the movie with Keith...but never got around to finishing it.

Imagine that.

I feel compelled to post it now because otherwise, it could get lost among the topics I want to post about someday....and also because it goes along with the posts I've written lately about Bonhoeffer.

  Like Bonhoeffer, the characters in God on Trial are in a Nazi prison camp.  They also have lots of unanswered questions.  True, the characters are fictitious but their questions are not.  They are as old as time.  Almost everyone has asked these same questions at some point or another. They have been whispered in imploring prayers.  They have been shouted angrily to the heavens. They have been used as proof by skeptics.

This movie is for anyone who has ever questioned the God of the Old Testament, the book of Job, the God who allows suffering and evil to exist in the world.  It tackles free will, and atheism, humanism, the covenant with the Jews.  This is all set against the bleak backdrop of a Nazi prison camp.

There is an interesting cast of characters.  Some are believers.  Some not.  Some are Jews.  Some not.  Some are honorable men. Some not. Among them are rabbis, fathers, sons, thieves, businessmen, craftsman, con men. 

During a morbid kind of lottery...where the group is separated into two smaller groups, half of them chosen for the gas chambers the next day.  The prisoners can only guess which group will live and which will die when morning comes.  It is the last night for some of them. 

How do they spend the night?  They put put God on trial.  They seek to decide for themselves, once and for all.... If God is good and all powerful, why is there evil?  If he can stop evil and does not is he good?  If he wants to stop the evil but cannot, is he all powerful? It is riveting

Following is a YouTube video...an eloquent 10 minute summation, given by Akiba, an old-fashioned Rabbi from the countryside. He is a Melamed, or religious teacher, and a healer who has committed holy writings to memory. Although quiet for most of the trial, when Akiba eventually speaks, everyone is drawn to him.

And does he ever say a mouthfull. He recites a a laundry list of many of the atrocities and unfair, cruel doings attributed to the God of the OT.  One does not have to look too hard to find many, many atrocities. 

Particularly poignant, is his comparison of their plight to the plights of some of the people Adonia's wrath was vented against in the OT.

He muses:

For the Egyptians, the Amalekites...what was it like for them when Adonai turned against them?  It was like this.

He asks (knowing full well the answer)

Today there was a selection, yes?  When David defeated the Moabites, what did he do?

Schmidt a well-educated Rabbi appointed the Father of the Court, replies:

He made them lie on the ground in lines and he chose one to live and two to die. 

Akiba continues:

We have become the Moabites.  We are learning how it was for the Amalekites.  They faced extinction at the hand of Adonai.  They died for his purpose.  They fell as we are falling.  They were afraid as we are afraid.  And what did they learn?  They learned that Adonai, the Lord our God, OUR God, is not good.  He is not good.  He was not ever good.  He was only on our side.

He goes on to talk about the Flood, God's demand of Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac.  He repeats the sad conviction he has come to about God...

He is not good...he has simply been strong.  He has simply been on our side. 

And he's not finished....

When we were brought here we were brought by train.  A guard slapped my face.  On their belts they had written  "God is with us."  Now who is to say he is not?  Perhaps he is.  Is there any other explanation?  What do we see here?  His power, his majesty, his might.  All these things...but turned against us.  He is still God...but not our God.  He has become our enemy....

That's what's happened to the covenant.  He has made a new covenant with someone else.

 

 

Plot spoiler...God does not fare well in the final verdict. 

I rewatched parts of the movie tonight.  It is available in its entirety in four parts HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE. 

Akiba's number is among those called to go to the gas chamber.  When another prisoner, one who has declared he does not believe in God, is also called, he panics and implores of Akiba, "What do we do now." And Akiba's answer?

Now, we pray...

And they covered their heads with their hands and prayed....and they continued to pray as they were led into the gas chambers to die...

Without quoting the chapter and verse, they demonstrated by their actions....as Job did....

Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.....

About Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity

So what exactly did religionless Christianity mean to Bonhoeffer?  He didn't have any hard and fast answers.  He was in the pondering stage.

How this religionless Christianity looks, what form it takes, is something that I'm thinking about a great deal, and I shall be writing to you again about it soon. It may be that on us in particular, midway between East and West, there will fall a heavy responsibility.

.......but he did say some things about it.  For one, he thought it would be religionless but not faithless.  

It will be a new language, perhaps quite non-religious, but liberating and redeeming as was Jesus' language; it will be the language of a new righteousness and truth, proclaiming God's peace with men and the coming of His kingdom.

That's pretty cool, don't you think?  Quite "non denominational."  In prison, he was drawn to the non denominational.....the religionless....

I often ask myself why a "Christian instinct" often draws me more to the religionless people than to the religious, by which I don't in the least mean with any evangelizing intention, but, I might almost say, "in brotherhood."

One thing that strikes me again and again: here one meets people as they are, away from the masquerade of the "Christian world", people with passions, criminal types, little people with little ambitions, little desires and little sins, all in all people who feel homeless in both senses of the word, who loosen up if one talks to them ~ a friendly way, real people; I can only say that I have gained the impression that it is just these people who are much more under grace than under wrath, and that it is the Christian world which is more under wrath than under grace .

It occurs to me that much of the Christian world is under wrath because they put themselves under wrath....with their "do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign"  theology. 

I've picked Beth up a couple of times near a run down "church" called "Freedom House." It advertises "spiritual deliverance" and "spiritual counseling." 

Somehow, I think freedom is not on the agenda at Freedom House.  There is this heavy aura surrounding it. The place gives me the creeps. 

Only half in jest, I told Beth she should not dilly dally when she passes by Freedom House...with her blue hair, tight, low riding jeans....octopus tattoos, a skull ring on her finger....wearing her "your God is dead" t-shirt.  Oh...and carrying a long board. (kidding...kidding....just using a bit of poetic license.  Her hair is not blue anymore.  It is a respectable shade of damaged brown.  And she hasn't worn the "dead God" T-shirt for ages...but we certainly made some memories with it in its heyday)  I think Freedom House might consider her a perfect candidate for a dose of spiritual deliverance...

But I digress.....

Bonheoffer goes on to say.....

While I'm often reluctant to mention God by name to religious people - because that name somehow seems to me here not to ring true, and I feel myself to be slightly dishonest (it's particularly bad when others start to talk in religious jargon; I then dry up almost completely and feel awkward and uncomfortable) - to people with no religion I can on occasion mention him by name quite calmly and as a matter of course. 

So it seems Bonhoeffer was looking beyond traditional Christianity and has been called a heretic by some. I think his faith remained to the end even though his foundations were being shaken.  The Holocaust and a year in a Nazi prison camp tends to rattle one's beliefs hard enough so only what cannot be shaken remains...

Last Bonhoeffer post tomorrow....

Whisperings Out of the Dust....

I have a series planned in my head on the carnal/natural/spiritual man. A comparison of...pondering about....musing over. I've read some stuff, saved some stuff, thought about some stuff. Eventually it may come to fruition.

Hmmmmm....a series planned. Whenever I talk about writing "a series" the term hoity-toity comes to mind. Seriously and truthfully, I have an unknown number of series popping around in my head at any given time. I've devised a way to keep track of them....a somewhat meticulous, detailed multi-step process in keeping with those anal retentive tendencies I seem to have.

But, more often than not, deciding what to write about on any given day is a process akin to picking the winning numbers in the lottery. Whatever ball (idea) I happen to grab is what I write about.

So anyway...I think Preston Eby nails it as far as a Biblical description of the carnal man.....or as Eckhart would refer to it...the egoic mind. The following excerpt from Eby's The Heavens Declare Series...Number 18:

In Genesis 3: 1 we read, "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" The word serpent in our language comes from the Latin "serpo" meaning "to creep," but the Hebrew term has no relation to the form or motion of any external attribute of a serpent The word used here for serpent is the Hebrew word NACHASH which is a primitive root meaning "to hiss or whisper." It, furthermore, means "to search or scrutinize closely, to find out by experiment, to practice divination, augury, incantation or enchantment." According to Webster incantation means "the chanting of special words or a formula in magic spells or rites," Incantation may speak in addition of hypnotism. The Serpent, then, is a HISSER, a WHISPERER, a DIVINER, an EXPERIMENTER, an ENCHANTER, a MAGICIAN, and a HYPNOTIST! And, I might add, so is the carnal mind!

The old adage, If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it probably IS a duck fits here. To my way of thinking

carnal mind = egoic mind

Same as, either or. Many of the things Tolle points out about the ego and its tricky ways are mirrored in Eby's studies. I like the way Eby brings out the nuances of the words in the original languages of scripture. Layer upon layer of truth has been buried in the Bible. Those who take it literally miss the whole point!!! Whether they be atheists who use the literal interpretation to "disprove" the Bible's authenticity or fundamentalists who defend its inerrancy to the point of downright silliness...they are both great examples of the egoic/carnal mind at work.

So anyway, he goes on to say:

In Isaiah 8: 19 the Holy Spirit has recorded for our learning a most significant exhortation. "And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? For the living to the dead?" The same inspired prophet penned a prophecy concerning Jerusalem under the prophetic term "Ariel," saying, "Thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be. . . out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust" (Isa. 29: 4). Here we read of spirits that "peep and mutter," which speak "out of the ground" and "whisper out of the dust." Is this not reminiscent of the Serpent in Eden, the hisser and whisperer, calling to Eve and speaking hypnotically from the dust realm?

Whisperings out of the dust — there is something sinister in the thought, but beyond the evil that is suggested, there is also the thought of subtle suggestion — a whispered temptation — something so subtle one could wonder from whence it comes, a word so low and so whispered as to be almost imperceptible —or is it a thought, a desire, a command from an inner nature These whisperings ARISE FROM THE DUST OF THE CARNAL MIND, OUT OF THE GROUND OF THE ADAM NATURE where lies the Serpent! It is significant to note that "the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made" (Gen. 3: 1). The contrast is drawn between theGarden and the field Adam lived and walked in the Garden, and his responsibility was to "dress and keep it." Garden is from the Hebrew GAN, meaning a fenced or protected area. It was, furthermore, cultivated and tended. Field is from the Hebrew SADEH, indicating that which is spread out; flat land; wild farm or wilderness. The field where the Serpent dwelt was an unfenced and uncultivated area. This field bespeaks of the mind of the flesh — the unbroken, unharnessed, unbridled, untended, unplowed, unprocessed, undisciplined, unprotected sphere from whence the Serpent "whispered out of the dust" — the subtle voice whispering enticingly from the unexplored wild lands of the FLESH! This whisper, this tantalizing hiss is communicated through the thoughts, reasoning, desires, passions, plans, hopes, fantasies and cravings of the CARNAL MIND! In the first age of Adam's creation, God used the Serpent to reveal what lay dormant, undiscovered and uncultivated within man's innermost being — a CUNNING NATURE — EGO — SELFHOOD independent of God. If by the grace of God you can see the truth of this, you will then plainly discern in all the propensities of the carnal mind the CREEPING, SLITHERING, WHISPERING, DIVINING, ENCHANTING, HYPNOTIZING SERPENT OF EDEN!

More on this...tomorrow.....