The F Word and the R Word

Recently, I’ve undertaken to explore the differences between faith and religion. I guess the greatest reason for doing this is because I’ve ceased to identify myself with the American Christian church at large. What I’m really looking for is an intermediate term that identifies me with Jesus the Messiah, but not with the American church and Christian Conservatism, and especially not with conservatives and republicans. They do not represent me as a Christian, or represent Christ either.

There are a lot of problems as I see them with the way we use the words faith and religion and how they compare with how they were used traditionally and originally especially in a Christian context. Western thought now often espouses the idea of a spiritual life separated from a work life, a sex life, a financial life, and the overall concept of life as it is. In Jesus time and in ancient thought in the near east in general, there was no such thing as a spiritual life, there was just life. It was expected that everything you did affected and was affected by everything you were and believed. Fortunately, thinkers today are in some ways returning to this mode of thought. Today, faith and religion are used almost interchangeably, and even some try to delineate them in ever more creative vocabularial gymnastics. Contemporary preachers are now heard describing religion as a bad thing, a set of rules, while faith is what we should do if we follow Jesus.

I myself find that I want to get away from those rules and focus on a more personal faith. Faith after all is only as efficacious as the object in which it is placed. However, I do want to associate myself with the orthodox Christian faith, and am definitely interested in the history of the church. One of the ways I’ve explored this is by studying the Mennonites recently. Since the inception of their tradition, they have been committed to non-violence (well, most of them, you know how it is.) Jesus said “Blessed are the Peacemakers” so, naturally, I assumed that meant that it was a good idea not to be starting wars and killing people. Apparently, according to the Christian conservatives, I was mistaken. I’ve come to understand a completely new (to me) meaning of the Beatitudes as well. For as long as I can remember, the beatitudes have been another list of things that you should do if you want to be blessed by God. This is not the correct interpretation. If the beatitudes are a new law, then Jesus did not fulfill the law, he made a new one. This stands in the face of everything Jesus actually did, to restore the universe to its rightful order. Read the text carefully, it does not say “Blessed are you when you do such and such.” It says “Blessed are you when you are such and such.” Blessed are you, fortunate are you when you are just as you are, broken, wrecked, and longing for a better way. This interpretational difference really codifies the difference between faith and religion for me.

Recently, a friend, in a moment of startling lucidity, explained it in this way. "There IS a difference between religion and faith. Faith is something that is very personal and is understood by an individual. Religion is an attempt by man to explain faith and allow a group to understand the faith of the individual." In some cases, I’d say it is an attempt to coerce or convince a group to understand the faith of the individual or even to fall in line with a certain dogma.

One of the unfortunate things the church is doing is getting the attention of the world, but in a bad way. The ones who are getting the attention of the world lately are the unfortunately conspicuous like Pat Robertson, Joel Osteen, and James Inhofe. Ask a non believer what they think of Christians and they will say “hypocrite.” Ask a non believer what they think Christians should be doing and they’ll say “helping the poor.” One of these things Jesus preached for, the other he preached against. Lately it seems, more than anything, that the world knows Christians for only one narrow set of political doctrines, being against abortion and gay marriage. Abortion aside, it’s not just good enough to be against gay marriage, but further to try to make it illegal, to take it so far as to desire to soil the great Constitution of this Union with the requirement that marriage be between only one man and one woman. Interestingly enough, the Bible only makes that stipulation for leaders of the church. Are politicians to be leaders of the church?

I want to be noticed by the world for positive things. The Christians who get noticed for the good they do today are those like Mother Theresa who live in poverty to help the poor. They notice those like Shane Claiborne who made national news by going to Iraq and comforting the people as the bombing started. They notice teachers like Rob Bell who like the Mennonites eschew words like “heretic” for words like “love” and “community.” The world sometimes notices people like me who believe so strongly in caring for creation that they decide not to waste water by pooping in it. That kind of radical lifestyle gets people’s attention. When you dare to be different in a positive way, the world takes notice.

For a while now, I’ve been saying that I am spiritual but not religious, because I love Jesus but I’m not a republican. But I’m not only spiritual; I also want to reach out to the larger faith movement of my day. And I do mean movement, I am a progressive, I believe in moving forward and making things better. It’s not a movement if it’s not moving. And it’s not a certain church or ideology that I follow. I follow progressive radical faith movements, like Mars Hill Bible Church who are doing and thinking of things so differently. I follow movements like Cornerstone in Simi Valley who decided to give up their nice building so they could devote more money to humanitarianism.

The truth is you can have faith and religion apart from one another. You can be faithful without belonging to an organized religion. And you can certainly belong to a religion, or be religious without having the faith. It’s like James talks about with faith and works. In a very literal sense, you cannot have faith without it being unconsciously outpoured through what you do. But you can have good works without even having the slightest positive attitude about it. People hear me say this and try to pass it off as legalism, but it is so much beyond legalism. Legalism says “You have to do this or you’re not in.” Faith says “People who are in do this.” You have to make your own conclusion.

One of the things I’ve come to realize is that non believers don’t really care what happens to me after I die. Much of evangelism has included as part of its message threats of hell. The thing is, when you use fear to motivate someone, you only motivate them if they are actually afraid. How does a person fear hell when they don’t even believe it exists? Non believers don’t care what I do after I die; they care what I’m doing when I’m alive. You can’t manipulate people with the threat of hell if they aren’t threatened by hell.  All those years of studying apologetics, and I find that I have all the answers to the questions no one is asking.

The kind of Christianity I want to get away from is the kind that can’t be distinguished from other parts of the culture. Today, we have “God and Country” when in reality it’s just “God.” Jesus doesn’t want Christians who act like Muslims with their understanding of revenge. Revenge is an entirely non-biblical concept while Islam is undeniably a revenge incorporating religion. We can’t fight the “War on Terror” with guns and bombs. Muslims wreak violence, because first, they’re hungry, and second, it’s like we want them to hate us. We keep working by their system, you kill one of them, their brother vows to kill you, so you kill him too, so his wife and children vow to kill you, and you kill them so their siblings and cousins vow to kill you, so you kill them, so very quickly, you have thousands of family members making death threats and generally trying to destroy you. This is not Jesus’ system of peacemaking. Jesus’ way involves sacrifice. He says you have to feed them, pray for them, and love them like you love yourself.

According to Wikipedia, the definition of religion is: “A religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a supernatural agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.” The definition I was taught in World Religions class was this: “Religion is the belief that there is an unseen order, and our good as a people lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.” I like the second definition just a little better because you can interpret it to include atheism as well. For atheists, the unseen order can be naturalism, or entropy, or simply lack of an unseen order, and our good as a people, or as individuals would lie in adjusting ourselves to that understanding. At any rate, a religion does not require actual belief in any god, or even following a specific set of guidelines. And this is where religion meets with philosophy, but that’s a discussion for a different day.

Individually, the concept of faith really works well in the Christian context, even among conservatives, and I believe that individual people are really rather good in the world. When we all have to work as individual agents, having only one to a team, peace tends to reign because one is less likely to make waves with few allies. On the other hand, you rarely see large groups of people storming around fixing things. You see large groups of people roaming around and destroying things. Individually, people are nice, generally friendly and sane. Corporately, humanity is a bunch of bastard coated bastards sprinkled with bastard and with a bastard filling. This is where faith meets religion. This is where the practices of the individual meet the practices of the group.

In this study and the several weeks of research I’ve undertaken to gather ideas, the one aspect of faith and religion that I have grabbed hold of is the discipline. Spiritual disciplines are important to one’s wellbeing. And I’m not just talking about reading the Bible and praying, I’m also talking about practicing silence, purity, and moderation. It’s not just about not doing the don’ts; it’s really about doing the dos. Remember, Jesus had disciples, and a disciple, as you may know is one who comes under the discipline of another. However, the word disciple is used in many contexts I’m not willing to adhere to as well, so I’m going to go with something a little more complex. From now on, under religious affiliation, I’m going to use the term “Under the discipline of Jesus of Nazareth.” I want to fully embrace the faith, but also the movement, the man, the messiah, the message and the commission.

WiredForStereo

Did Jesus Drink Alcohol? Wine? Or was it non-alcoholic?

For some reason after 2000 years there's still question as to if Jesus actually drank wine or not, so I've actually waited a while to answer this question because I wanted to get it right. Now I think I've got enough evidence so I'm going to go about this a few different ways. I've talked to pastors, professors, home brew beer makers, and made wine and mead myself. I've heard a bunch of arguments, and I've even heard if from the pulpit of several churches including First Baptist of Bentonville. I've actually even heard that the wine Jesus drank was nonalcoholic. So let's explore this.

First of all, let's talk about grape juice. It may surprise you to know that there really was no such thing as grape juice before about 150 years ago. This guy named Welch (that's right) came along and figured out that you could Pasteurize grape juice and refrigerate it and it wouldn't ferment. In fact, he even advertised and sold it as alcohol free communion wine. Until that point, virtually all communion wine was in fact wine.

I've also taken time to get a scientific perspective on this question. I've spoken to University of Arkansas microbiology Professor Dr. Timothy Kral about this subject and he has had quite a bit to say and in no uncertain terms. It goes like this. There are wild yeasts (single celled organisms of the fungi kingdom which produce alcohol as a waste product) which naturally grow on grapes. When the grapes are pressed, the yeasts begin to reproduce and rapidly consume sugar and oxygen in the juice until the whole mix becomes anaerobic. At this point, the yeasts cease respiration as a means of energy production and expand to fermentation as a sole means of survival. They feed off the glucose (sugar) and other nutrients in the mash until one of two things happens. First, they either run out of food, or second, alcohol (waste product) kills them off. Some yeasts can stand a higher alcohol content that others, but just about all yeasts can stand above 10% which is well higher than beer. The yeast completely spread throughout the liquid fermenting the sugar into alcohol. Since alcohol is a toxic waste product, it then preserves the entire batch and it can be stored indefinitely. I asked Dr. Kral if it were possible to keep the juice aerobic to keep the fermentation from happening and possibly make non-alcoholic wine. He said absolutely not. Firstly, if the juice were kept completely aerobic, it would spoil and no one would drink it because it would be nasty and disgustingly acidic. Secondly there will always be some yeasts in the mix making at least some alcohol.

Let's look at the Bible. One of the best known cases is the wedding at Cana when Jesus turns water into wine. There are several arguments here. Some say that the bad wine was wine wine while the "wine" Jesus makes and everyone likes so much is actually grape juice. There are a few problems with this. First, logically, which wine is good wine? The rule of thumb is generally the older the better. Any grape juice more than 6 hours old is wine. Better wine is older wine. Jesus made the better wine. Secondly, this even took place around the time of Passover, in the spring. Grape harvest is in the fall. Without pasteurization, refrigeration and hermetically sealed containers, all grape juice is completely fermented into wine by this time. There would have been some mighty suspicious people if Jesus showed up with grape juice. No, Jesus made the good wine, the aged high alcohol content good wine.

Jesus also tells a parable about wine skins. He says that if you put new wine in old wine skins it will burst the skins. He is right. "New wine" or freshly squeezed grape juice will begin to ferment immediately releasing carbon dioxide. A sealed container not able to stretch (an old wine skin for example) will burst within hours. A new wine skin will be fresh and able to stretch and so won't break. But there's another clue in here. Only a sealed container will have the possibility of bursting. Why would it be sealed? Because if it wasn't, it would not ferment and it would rot and ruin the wine and the skin. Jesus knew you had to seal the container to make wine, wine that has alcohol. There wasn't any uncertainty at all, Jesus was talking about real wine.

Finally, think about the cultural perspective. Ancient cultures, the Jewish culture especially, used wine ubiquitously. It was the only way to purify water. Paul told Timothy to mix some wine with his water because of his stomach. Paul knew well as did everyone of the time that the alcohol in wine stopped stomach ailments which as we know now is due to the the killing of the microorganisms by the toxic alcohol. Think about what the main ingredient in hand sanitizer is. Wine or beer was the only way store or purify water. Many sources of water were polluted, especially near cities and the alcohol in wine was the only thing beside boiling that the ancients could use to kill the stomach bug.

The Jews were very much into wine. One of their official prayers basically says "Dear God, we like grapes, amen." Jesus was a Jew. Though there were some Jews, the Nazarites, who never consumed any wine or alcohol or grapes or anything, Jesus was not one, he was a Nazarene, they're different. The Nazarites eschewed even grapes because they as well as modern day scientists know that if you have grape juice, you have wine, it happens automatically. The yeast grows on the grapes, you can't escape it. In fact, it is general practice to boil wine after mixing it because you want to kill all the wild yeasts so you can add special breeds or blends to get just the right taste. You can't have unrefrigerated juice without having wine. Jesus most certainly drank real wine. He drank real wine with alcohol in it. Science says it, history says it, culture says it, the Bible tells it, logic dictates it.

Before 150 years ago, there was no big argument about whether Jesus drank grape juice or wine because everyone understood the reality that there was no such thing as grape juice. How ignorant some of us have become.

WiredForStereo

Be a Christian First, American Second.

As Americans, we often take many things for granted and when making decisions and forming opinions, we often misplace our priorities. I was speaking with a good friend of mine the other day and we were discussing different forms of democratic government ranging from republics to socialist states. He opined how he had not spent much time thinking about a social democratic type of government but his basis for forming the opinion was formed largely on the foundation of how many freedoms he had to give up.

So I went to the Bible (figuratively, I was driving, kinda hard to read while you're driving.)

I said "The Bible doesn't promise us any freedoms (politically.)"

Holy Crap what?!? You mean my freedom to do such and such isn't guaranteed by Almighty God in his inspired word? No. In this physical temporal natural world, there is no such guarantee, and our freedoms are provided only by ourselves and our government system.

This American view that we are guaranteed all these "freedoms" is something that is doing a lot of damage to what could be a great thing in this country. The political discord sown by the right through the Christian Right to the gullible masses is hindering bringing health care to the poor, something the Bible explicitly endorses. Doing it the wrong way you say? Well sure, the "right" has had all the opportunity in the world to do it "right" and has instead opposed providing anything to anyone but the rich, and especially not the the most needy, both of which the Bible explicitly condemns.

I just recently heard a pastor (not in front of church) talk about tired he was of all the "spiritual" people he knew up in arms simply because Obama is president. He was talking about these people going so far as to set up "safe houses every 20 miles" I guess so if we get universal health care they can hide from it or something.

Be followers of Jesus people. Hate your country, hate your freedom, hate your political party, hate your ideology all for the aim of following Jesus. A lot of people hate conservatives, a lot of people hate democrats, but when it comes right down to it, it's really hard to hate Jesus. Our english Bibles sometimes gloss over the fact that the word for "servant" in the New Testament is perhaps better translated as "slave" or "bond servant" which means nearly the same thing. Freedom is not our goal, freedom is not our salvation, freedom is not our reward, Jesus is. To be his "servant" is to be his "slave" and slaves have no freedom. So when Jesus gives you a government, make the best of it. Revolution is not a Christian ideal, it's Marxist, and Marx was not a Christian.

So no matter how many freedoms you think you may have to give up (not likely many or any) when we become a more (believe it or not, we already are quite a bit) socialized nation, just remember, it doesn't matter. Like my dad always said "it doesn't amount to a hill of beans." Because there are Christians in every country in the world, in communism, fascism, socialism, totalitarianism, monarchies, constitutional monarchies, Islamofascism, theocracy, democracy, republics, emirates, territories, dictatorships, and anarchies. And the last thing that really matters in the world is what Americans think because we've lost all the respect in the world we had earned, and no one gives a burning sh!t about what we think. But as Christians, some fantastic things can and will be done.

Because Jesus never bombed brown people.
WiredForStereo

Jesus Turns the Tables

Someone I know of made a comment recently about when Jesus turned over the tables of the money changers in the temple. There seems to be some misunderstandings running around about what was really happening there. So here's the impression that I get.

In Jesus time, the temple was not the kind of place that it was envisioned to be when it was built. When it was built, it was the holy place of Jewish worship. Jews from all over the world were required to come to the temple once a year and offer a sacrifice. For some, the sacrifice was a bull or a ram. Obviously, more expensive sacrifices were required from those who could afford them. Those who could not afford a sheep were required to sacrifice a dove or pigeon. Another requirement was that the animal be perfect, that is to say, it could have no blemishes, birth defects or diseases.

From the beginning of the temple, there were those who did not have their own animals to bring to the temple to sacrifice. A carpenter for instance didn't raise sheep or doves and therefore likely would have to buy an animal for the sacrifice. Day laborers (otherwise known as the poor) also often didn't have any livestock of their own and were required to buy an animal. Also, people from far away likely lived in a kingdom or area with a different kind of currency than was accepted at the temple, so money changers were employed in the same way they are now in international airports.

What began to happen as time wore on in the temple was what happens in many situations when you leave a ruling establishment in charge for a long period. They started taking advantage of the situation. Money changers started to charge exorbitant fees to transfer into the local currency. Some even say that those in charge of inspecting the animals began to say that the animals were not free of blemishes, requiring the person to buy an animal from the temple staff for the sacrifice. In some cases, they even say that the person's old unclean animal was even resold in the same market as a clean animal.

The net result of all this as in most cases of corruption was the disenfranchisement of the poor. The poor are the most likely to be affected by any corruption since they cannot afford to buy what they may be forced to buy. Later in the same discourse, Jesus addresses this by mentioning the widow's two copper coins and that she had given all she had. The highlight is when we understand that those coins were equal to 1/128th of a denarius which was a days wage. As you can see, it was a minuscule amount of money, yet it was all she had.

So it was not simply the selling of items in the temple that Jesus detested for such sales were a necessity to provide the people with sacrifices. Neither was it the changing of money because that was also a necessary part of temple business. Instead, it was the dishonesty, the usury and the taking advantage of the people who came to worship. The Jewish system of religion required a blood sacrifice for the atonement of sins and it was the "paid religious professionals" of the "church" who were blocking the people from attaining the forgiveness they sought. This is why Jesus called them "thieves" or "robbers" depending on your translation.

Why Don’t We Make a Difference?

I was having a conversation the other night with a Honduras mission trip alum at Perspectives and he was asking a very good question. The teacher that night was Bobby Gupta and he was kind of giving us a Christian pep talk. He was telling us how Evangelical Christianity is growing faster than any other religion and how many churches had been planted and how many people were coming to believe the gospel. These are very good things to know, it's nice to know that the movement you belong to is vibrant and growing, but my friend was asking the question "why don't we make a difference?" Dr. Gupta was kind of addressing this question, but not really and my friend really wanted to know where the meat was. Pep talks are good I said, but it's like a battle. We can get the soldiers really fired up and encouraged, but if you don't give them weapons, they're gonna lose the battle.

Then it hit me. In one of my great moments of bullcraptitude I conjured a truly profound thought. I said "We live in a culture where everyone is either spiritual but not religious or religious but not spiritual." The difference is one of those groups will readily admit it, the other one wont.

Let us explore. On one hand are the religious, the typical white Anglo Saxon protestant Christian conservative republican. On the other hand you have the typically non-religious educated yuppie liberal who still believes in some form of spirituality whether it be an eastern philosophy or Crossing Over with John Edward. Yes I know there are other hands here, but keep with me.

Why are the Christians not making a difference in this country? A recent event speaks to this, at least in my mind. A few days ago, thousands of people lined up at various ponds and lakes and threw tea bags in the water. They were protesting taxes, all good and fine, but so many of them had signs protesting taxes in God's name. I believe the when Jesus was asked about whether or not to pay taxes, he said "Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's." He didn't say "F*** Caesar, don't give that m0~#&* f@(&#$ a g@& d@!* thing!"

Why aren't we fighting poverty? Why aren't we caring for unwed mothers? Why aren't we feeding the hungry? These are all things that Jesus explicitly wanted us to do, he never said anything about fighting taxes. Forget the blessed money; if Jesus wants you to have money, there isn't a tax on earth that can take it away from you. These are the things this country needs. In other countries they need clean water to drink before you can tell them about the gospel, they need food in their bellies before they can listen to stories about Jesus. In this country, we have food, we have water, what people need is for someone to care about them, to care for them, to love them.

That's why American Christians don't make a difference, because the only difference between them and the guy in the car next to them in traffic is that they go to church on Sunday or Saturday or they have a fish with no legs on the back of the car. The reason why American Christians don't make a difference is because there is no difference. There just is no difference.

I'm not trying to float my own boat, but those of you who know me, you know, there is a difference and it's not the difference you'd expect. There is a difference because I choose to be more like them than I do you. And believe me, I know, you don't take all that kindly to it, and I am willing to bear that burden. But I will live what I believe, because I'm not religious in that I'm not a republican, but I am spiritual because I am a Jesus Freak. Christianity is not a religion, you don't just do and believe stuff and are a Christian, signing a piece of paper doesn't make it so and answering an alter call has no effect.

You meet Jesus. And when you meet Jesus you are a Christian. You have to meet Jesus.

WiredForStereo

Rebadged Environmentalism (Creation Care) vs. Creation Theology

I was recently invited to participate in a sermon series for our church’s youth. The youth were allowed to vote on a variety of issues for the kinds of things they’d like to hear about. One of the issues they wanted to hear about was Stewardship of the Earth. Our female youth pastor Amanda invited me to speak for a few minutes about the kinds of things that I do in my own home to be more efficient. Everyone was of course appalled at the sawdust toilet. It went well, there were a few sour reactions, but this is Arkansas, the South and the Bible Belt. It is going to take some time. But in listening to Amanda’s message, I couldn’t help but thing that our message was missing something. I felt it was explained too simply without having the proper theology to back it up so that’s what I’m gonna try to do here. So, Amanda, I’m not trying to rebut anything you said last Sunday, I’m just trying to build upon it and flesh out my own beliefs and to present them in the best way I see them. What you did was an excellent intro, but I believe this thing is so much more vast. Several of the Hot Topics should have been sermon series in themselves, not single day messages, but that is just my opinion, I’m not a pastor.

A search for “Creation Care” on Wikipedia will give you a page entitled “Evangelical Environmentalism” that starts out like this: “Evangelical environmentalism is a movement in the United States in which some Evangelicals have embraced the environmental movement.” If you look closely and think carefully about that sentence, you will see the problem as I see it. What we have mostly is Evangelicals and other Christians embracing the environmental movement. What we should have is Christians understanding a proper theology of Creation and understanding how God would have us steward the creation he has given us. Christians should never need to embrace the creations of others (isms) but embrace the creation of God. This is obvious to me, as it is obvious in a way to the writers of the Wikipedia article. It is Evangelicals embracing a movement, not Christians in relationship with their creator.

If all believing Christians can do is embrace the environmental movement, I say great. We need to get everyone to do what is right, even if they aren’t doing it for the right reasons. However, we can bring people into an understanding of the real reasons why they should be doing something, we are not trying to get them to do something for the something’s sake, but because the something is right and good and proper to do. It’s like the difference between getting someone to go to church and someone coming to know Jesus as their messiah. One is about rules and attendance, the other is about relationship. And that’s what Creation Care should really be all about, not Environmentalism with a fancy Christian name, but a Creation Theology, an understanding of God and creation and a relationship with them.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I don’t mean to present the relationship we should have with God as the same one we should have with creation. Our relationship with God is one of worship, love, obedience and dependence, our relationship with creation is interdependence, stewardship, care and dominion. We should be interdependent with creation, but we are over it, and God over us, but also God over all creation including us. Interdependence with dominion is stewardship.

So many times I have heard people discuss creation care in useless terms. A friend of mine and I were talking about it the other evening and he spoke of it in terms of “find whatever verse you can to support it.” But it doesn’t work that way. There are very few proof texts. What there is however is a Bible-wide theology of creation, something that must be taken as a mosaic of all its parts, not as a few important verses that agree what I’m trying to say. You can’t “prove” it like the prohibition against murder. You must understand it as a complete theology.

So what is “Creation Theology” or “Theology of Creation?” First I must emphasize that it is nothing new, it only holds new meaning because of new innovations like factory farms, monoculture, pollution, and ballooning population. Theology is the study of God, religion, or spirituality from a religious, that is, from the believers perspective. Creation is that which is created, in this context, that which is created by God, or in other words, everything. Therefore, Creation Theology is the study of God by people who believe in Him without leaving out the bit about creation. Really, it is nothing more than regular theology without ignoring the creation. In most theologies, we have this relationship with God, humans to God, God to humans, but if we look a little deeper, there is this other component, a component God intended to save and restore after the fall as much as the humans themselves. God created it all to work together. Without creation, there would be nothing but the humans and God, and I’m not going to explore the consequences of that except to say that’s not how God intended it to be.

The act of creation was at the beginning. Before the fall, before humans, God created this thing called earth. God created the earth, and called it good. God created humans and what they did and were involved with is called the world. This is a very important distinction to understand. The earth is the thing, the planet, nature, ecological balance, nutrient cycles, water cycles, natural processes God set in motion at the beginning and called good. The world is another matter. The world is the sum of what humans have created and done to the planet and on the planet. Our vocabulary is confused by using these words interchangeably, but the Bible does no such thing. Read along in the bible, the earth is mentioned most in creation, the thing that God called good. The world is mentioned far more often in the New Testament where God sets a distinct delineation between his people and “the world.” He says we are to be in the world but not of the world. The world is man’s domain, earth is the domain God created for man and it is good, or at least that’s what God said it was.

Next we have the command of God before the fall to go out into the world and to multiply and have dominion over the earth. Non-Christians often incorrectly believe the same things about this dominion word just as Christians often do. Non-Christians often blame Christians for environmental problems simply because of this misunderstanding. However, blaming the Crusades on Christians is the same as blaming environmental problems on Christians. If the Christians were following Christ, these things would not have happened. Let’s take a for instance. It was greed, not a biblical mandate to have dominion over the earth that got DDT sprayed all over the place and caused much damage to wildlife and to people. It is greed that keeps companies from warning the public about the dangers of their activities. The correct understanding of dominion is a bit different that we often think it is. For instance, numerous places in the Bible show God having dominion over people. That means that dominion cannot have the purpose of extracting all usefulness out of something as is often done with the earth. The most it can mean is rule or control. Now we obviously have only limited control over the earth. So what would God call us to but a righteous dominion? Jesus’ multiple parables about servants’ caring for the master’s vineyard or fields bear this out beyond any doubt. Psalms says “The earth is the LORD’s…” How can we not draw a perfect parallel between God’s ownership of the earth and our stewardship of it? How good will it be for the righteous steward when Jesus returns?

Another concept built into the Bible is one that is just now being rediscovered in agriculture. The concept of a Sabbath or over a longer period of time, a Jubilee promotes the rest and revitalization of the land. The Sabbath as Jesus says was made for man, but what was the seven year rest cycle for the fields made for? It was made for the earth so that it could recuperate from six years of harvest. Built into the Jubilee cycle is the understanding that overuse will ruin cropland. God built creation care into the law.

Jesus said “consider the lily of the field…” He never said “Look at the workmanship of this aqueduct!” He never points to anything man has made as lasting or of great beauty. Nature however holds promise and importance in his teachings. The greatest building of Jewish antiquity he predicts will fall, but a great many of his parables deal with trees and plants and earth and seeds.

One of the most important aspects of Creation Care is Jesus’ command to love your neighbor. Most of the world’s power is made in coal power plants, which spew nasty stuff like mercury, lead, cadmium and sulfur into the air constantly. These airborne pollutants travel the world over and affect everyone. The question is: how much funk am I willing to pump into the air so that I can have my air conditioner or computer or car? Would I burn trash in my yard and make my neighbors breathe the fumes to power my TV? Like I said to the youth, it’s not loving my neighbor to make them suck my iPod fumes (I don’t actually have an iPod.) The same goes for how companies often site waste facilities in the neighborhoods of the poor. Doesn’t the Bible have a bit to say about making money at the expense of the poor? This is the modern day fulfillment of these verses. We look at those verses and wonder how these things can be done, but corporations the world over have figured it out. The poor don’t complain as much when you try to kill them slowly with chemicals.

Finally, look into your heart. What has God placed on your heart to believe is beautiful? Is it a sunset? How about a mountain waterfall, a majestic river, a coral reef, a centuries old tree, deep blue water, snow covered mountains, a herd of gazelle running across the savannah, a total eclipse of the sun, a woman’s body, a rainbow, or puffy white clouds on a warm summer day? Are you sure it’s not a cell phone or a power plant or a smoking car or a heap of trash or a strip mine or a brick wall or an oil well or a Wal*Mart or a parking lot or a busy street? Which of these things is beautiful and God’s creation and which of these is ugly and of man’s design? The truth is built into your very being.

Creation care is not this new thing that Christians have to do now, it is akin to, and in fact is, loving God and loving your neighbor, Jesus’ strongest commands. It is inextricably tied to everything else involving the following of Jesus. It is inherent in all things God has revealed to us. That realization is the understanding of Creation Theology. It is not only God and man, but also everything else God created.

“All of God’s creation reveals and worships its creator; and our stewardship is an act of glorifying God.”

WiredForStereo

Review of “The Shack” by William P. Young

I just finished reading “The Shack” by William P. Young. You should know that as I begin to write this post it is 12:23 AM, and I’ve just spent about he last hour and a half finishing the last several chapters in the quiet of my office in the late evening. A bit of that time was spent weeping. For a time, I wept about once a page in the early parts of chapter 17. A bit of that time was also spent on my face on the floor weeping and praying, praising God, and all I could tell him was that he was good. My face is stiff from the salt in the tears, and my eyes and cheeks ache from crying, but it is an ache that I would not trade for anything. You see I know now that the God I worship is good. But more about that later.

The story is told by Willie, the author, he inserts himself in the story as a friend of Mack, Mackenzie Allen Philips. Mack’s daughter Missy was kidnapped on a camping trip while he was rescuing his son from drowning in a canoe. Evidence was later found in an abandoned shack in the woods that she had been brutally murdered. More than three years later, he receives an unstamped letter in the mail from someone named “Papa” inviting him back to the shack for a meeting. He decides to visit the Shack and what he finds changes his life forever.

That is my synopsis, it is similar to the one on the back of the book, and it really covers about four chapters of info that is important for the story, but less important for the truth contained within the story, which is what I want to talk about here.

First is the familiar term “Papa” which is used for God the Father principally by Nan, Mack’s wife. A well remembered name for the Father used in the bible is “Abba.” Abba is an equivalent to Dada or Papa depending on the language you speak. It is a term a very small child, perhaps barely speaking, might use to refer to his or her father. But let me ask this question, how many of us speak to our Heavenly Father in those terms? I think in all my (right) years, outside of people simply quoting the verse saying “Abba Father” I’ve only heard one person once call God “Daddy.” She is the very wonderful co-leader of our church youth group. And this brings such sadness to my heart, in the same way that verses in Psalms about singing and dancing with all your might and playing all sorts of instruments with all our might before the LORD are largely ignored in our contemporary church, as will most churches for the last millenniums. At least I have found a church where we can at least joke about it (“I guess we shouldn’t sing that song any more ;-). ”) All joking aside, it is a travesty that the God we love and worship, we cannot invite into our hearts far enough to be able to call him using a name which has a purely personal meaning. We evangelical Christians who believe in a personal relationship with God, largely do not live that out in our lives. It is not that I am criticizing the way we are, but begging that we change because we need so much to be embraced by Papa’s love, and that can be made more available, I believe, by using a name we might call our own father.

This book really does play with your mind, and it is meant to. Papa even explains that if he were to appear to Mack as someone who looked like Gandalf, it would serve only to reinforce his religious stereotypes. So Papa appeared as a large black woman named Elousia. The Holy Spirit appeared as a distinctly Asian woman named Sarayu, which apparently means “wind.” From what I can pick up in the book, she was difficult to look at, not because she was too bright or anything, but simply because she was difficult to see when looking right at her. She seemed to come and go as she pleased, appearing and disappearing at will but reminding Mack, that she had never disappeared at all, she was there all the time, and is everywhere all the time. Lastly, Jesus was portrayed as a slightly unhandsome average looking Middle Eastern man with a big nose, which Jesus was (likely big nosed and all.) There was much emphasis on Jesus being truly, fully and purely human, while at the same time being all that of God as well. I thought as I was reading that, logically speaking, if Jesus was a physical being when he ascended into heaven, then of course, he still is. He has not disappeared anywhere; he still is that way, up there somewhere. I believed it, but never really thought about it before.

Actually, I thought that way about much of the stuff in the book. Really, these things had never come to me in this way before, but I knew of them, and already believed them, but had never really understood them. It made God real to me in a way that he has never been real before. A major breakthrough for Mack, as it was for me, was that a huge gap created between us and God in our relationship with him is that we do not really believe that he is good. Sure, we say he is good, but deep down, most of us do not really believe that because all we can imagine of God is all our best traits to the nth degree, smashed together with all the goodness we can think of, with super powers, and God is not that way. God is in no way confined to our imaginations, because they don’t really exist, and God has no need to be a part of something that doesn’t even exist and never will. Therefore, we see things that we have decided are evil, and then judge God based on our own preexisting judgment. The truth is, the things around us are not ours to judge, to decide whether they are good or evil. Their inherent good or evil is in no way based on our perception of them. In the same way, if I look at a shiny piece of metal and say “That is obviously aluminum,” it has no bearing on what kind of metal it actually is, or even if it is a metal at all. Its essence and existence is entirely outside that of our own. Take that to the infinite power, God is the same way, which is why he says in the bible that his ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts.

A number of negative reviews that I have read have complained of the author doing something like creating God in his own image. I could not disagree more. God in this book is so much different from that. I think if you wanted to pare down everything he said in the entire book, it might fit into the sentence “I am nothing like you.” This is a God who cannot be predicted but can predict your every move, a God who is infinitely loving, caring, and patient and who affects change in your life. These things a human cannot do. So, no, no one made God in their image, they just stood well back and said “I still can’t see all of you Papa.”

One belief that this book specifically challenged was one of my basic beliefs about good and evil, or comfort and discomfort. When my wife and I were attending pre-marriage counseling, I told the pastor that I did not always want sunshine and roses, I was a kind of a realist, believing that you could not truly understand good unless you experienced bad. In a way, I believed that there could not be good unless there was bad, you know, to counteract it, to be the opposite of it. My belief has changed. It is the other way around. You cannot have bad unless you have good. Our infinitely good God came first. His light has always existed. His eternal good has always existed, and evil has not nor will ever overcome it because in the face of light, darkness flees. Darkness can no more resist light than I am able to come up with an apt comparison. By very nature, that is what it is, and what it does. Unimaginable distances of the pure black vacuum of space cannot erase the light of a single star. So, no, I don’t need to experience evil to truly understand what good is. Good is good, it is not confined or defined by evil, rather, like darkness to light, evil is confined and defined by good.

At one point in the story, Mack is directed to follow a trail which leads to a rock wall which he is miraculously able to walk through. Inside he finds a woman who is exceedingly beautiful, and whose words he would be happy to sit and listen to forever. We find out in the next chapter that she is Wisdom from Proverbs and that her name is Sophia, which is not a stretch since Sophia, is actually Greek for wisdom. Sophia is the one who tells Mack the way it is, not that God already hadn’t, but Mack had much to work through. Sophia told Mack that he had come to a judgment, and to his surprise, he was to be the judge. The catch was this. Mack had five children. Two of them would make it into heaven, and the other three were condemned. It was Mack’s job to decide which ones. Understandably, Mack was faced with a difficult choice, and as no father should be able, he was unable to choose which children would face condemnation, so he cried out and begged that he could take their place. We often think that God is some cosmic Judge Judy, going to sit behind a big desk on his throne and judge us for all we’ve done, and we have to find a way (Jesus) to avoid that. We end up loving Jesus, but not really loving our Father because of this misperception of him. What this part of the story says is that God no more wants to condemn us than we want to be condemned. He is our Papa, he created each and every one of us as his children, and his true love never wants us to leave him. That is why Jesus became sin for us, to take our place, because Papa loved us so much, he wanted to save us, and would sacrifice himself more than willingly to redeem us from our independent streak.

This leads to another point. Some I’ve talked to seem to catch a hint of Universalism or something in this book, but they miss what Papa says about relationships, they are a two way street. God can do all the loving in the world, he can reach out, he can perform miracles, he can redeem us from our sin, but he can never nor will never force us to come to him. That is what true relationship is, it is expectancy, not expectation. Expectations leave us hurting when they are not fulfilled, but if we live in expectancy, just waiting to see what wonderful things might happen between us, then there is no hurt, only joy.

One of the most wonderful things about this book was how it treats evil, and what happens when God works through evil to affect the best in the world. Throughout the book, Mack is overcome by what he calls “The Great Sadness,” a darkness shrouding his heart after his daughter Missy was kidnapped and murdered. Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle was talking about Calvinism and mentioned a woman he knew who had been raped who was a staunch Calvinist. She asked him “Why did God have me raped?” A similar question was asked in “The Shack.” Mack asked if his daughter was murdered so that he could be rescued as it were. God made it clear that it is not he who causes evil to happen though he is able to work good through it. This kind of human thinking causes us to be able to sacrifice a few to save many, where God’s way of doing things sacrifices only one, himself. God never works any kind of evil, and it is never in his purpose for any sort of evil to happen, what God does is to work through evil, our choices and independence from him to make good things happen for his purpose. God would never have anyone raped, or murdered, or anything else to bring about anything, no matter how good the ultimate result would be. He uses evil for good, he does not cause evil to happen.

Another complaint I’ve heard, is that Satan and his power is conspicuously absent. In fact, as I remember, Satan is not mentioned once. I don’t have a problem with this. I don’t think this is a story about Satan, I think it is a story about God’s love. It is a parable. In the same way that the parables of Jesus do not mention Satan, neither does this one because there is a specific point to be made, a hurt to be healed, and Satan is not needed to convey the love of our Father toward us. I think the only nod to Satan in this book is when one of the characters says that all sin is a result of the desire for independence from God, and that certainly fits Lucifer as much as it does us. The point of this story is to release people from sadness and anger toward God, and to show that Papa really is good, and as I mentioned before, we don’t need evil to show what good is, it is the other way around.

In conclusion, I strongly recommend reading this book, many have said that it is the most impactful book they have ever read beside the Bible, and I would tend to agree. Whether or not we know it, I think we all need the kind of healing Mack received, because we all tend to hold grudges against God whether or not we know it. We don’t understand God and in our limited human understanding, we hold that against him. We need to know him personally to understand him, all the rules we put upon ourselves do nothing to bring us closer to him unless we can realize that we are powerless to follow those rules. And that’s what the rules are for.

I dare to call him Papa,

WiredForStereo

Collateral Damage

Take a few minutes and read this story.

If you still think that war is a good idea, you need to have your head checked.

This is why war, any war is a bad idea. Have you ever listened to the news or read a news story and were angered to the point of trembling? I have, in fact it happens more than I'd like to admit. But do I jump on the "kill the terrorists" bandwagon?

No, I don't.

Do you know why?

Because I will always stand by the Biblical principle that revenge is never ok. I believe in discipline and punishment, but I will never support revenge.

Do you want some dirt on me? 9/11 happened at the beginning of my senior year in high school. A girl I rode the bus with was in the journalism class that wrote the school newspaper. Naturally, there were more than a few stories related to the then recent happenings. She saw me in the library one day and asked if I'd like to comment on what had happened. I was at the time naturally angry at what had happened and I was quoted as saying that we should get revenge on whoever had committed the atrocity.

I was wrong.

Dead wrong. I realize that now. But now, I don't think that I was a real Christian at that time. Raised Christian yes, but did I know Jesus? Did I know Jesus' will then? No. I think I know better now, and that's what I am standing for now. Jesus said two swords were enough for 12 people. Just enough for defense, not nearly enough for an attack. I think Jesus made a pretty clear point there. He equipped 12 people to spread the gospel, but he only gave two of them swords. Kinda like having two ears but only one mouth, only more so don't you think?

And he gave us hearts to care. So let's feed our enemies if they are hungry, and pray for those who persecute us. Let's do as we would like done to us. It may sound soft, but it taps into the greatest power in the universe.


WiredForStereo