It's been a heck of a few weeks. We just moved into a new townhouse, which, while only a mile or so from our old apartment and very nice, still requires going through the whole moving "thing". Boxes like Tribbles take over your dwelling and you experience a radical sense of disconnect and disquiet in your life. The move went well and we were getting back to a semblance of routine and Memorial weekend hit. Not only was there a funeral of a dearly loved member of church (who had died suddenly), but an election for a new bishop, as well as the requisite BBQ on Monday. Just a crazy handful of days.
All this is to point me to the fact that we are creatures who are forced to remember. We are rooted in the past. Who we are today - with all our "issues", fears, shortcomings, and even joys - are almost entirely the product of our past. It is the unavoidable reality of life that the present is always flying past us into the past (the present is always becoming the past), and we are irrevocably people of the past. Never mind what Garth says ("live in the now!" - Wayne's World), everything we deal with, or rather, how we deal with everything, is phenomenally dependent on what happened in our past.
Furthermore, very few people that I meet who are "dealing" with stuff in the present, have difficulties and challenges in dealing because they had such a wonderful high school graduation. Or really enjoyed their cotton candy at a beautiful day at the zoo in fourth grade. Just about everyone I know (including myself) who is struggling to deal with something in the now is struggling not because of a positive thing from their past but a negative.
We are creatures formed and sculpted by the past. But we are creatures who are undeniably formed particularly by the negative things in our past. Not 100% shaped by the negative, but without a doubt upper 90s%. Why do some women fear and even hate men? Not because of a positive thing from their past, but a negative. Why do some people have a really hard time opening up in a relationship? Not because of positive things in their past but negative - a bad breakup/rejection in high school, or perhaps experiencing a divorce in the family.
For God to be Gospel he has to be able to impact us not just today but also yesterday (and tomorrow too for that matter, but for now I'm not going to focus on the future aspects of the Gospel, but the past). Jesus said, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). If I was meeting with someone who was struggling with something and they were bearing their soul and I were to respond, "I hear what your saying, that's really heavy. Let me ask you this: have you tried being perfect? Why don't you go home today and try being perfect for the next few days and see what that does for your situation." If you were that person you'd want to slap me, wouldn't you?!
The reason being is that the demand to be perfect, whether from counselors, friends, or even God, does not do anything to help you in a season of distress. If anything, all it does is crush your soul. And we all know this because our pasts are littered with the strewn carcasses of our failure to be perfect. Our pasts are searing indications of our imperfection. When Jesus says, "Be perfect," it is not a suggestion, nor hyperbole for literary effect or shock value, but the simple truth. The righteous demands of God in our lives are simply summed up in the demand: Be Perfect. In the end, however, this demand only crushes us, it does not inspire. We can fake ourselves into being inspired, but that only prolongs the inevitable.
What the crushing weight of "Be Perfect" does to us is forces us to cry for a savior. In the face of my history of imperfection I am forced to cry out "Save me!" Save me from my past, from my failures, from myself. Your past, when truly remembered, experienced, and exposed, will force you to either lie (to yourself and others) or to cry "Mercy!"
Incidentally, the only person who could take that demand and say, "yes" is the one who said it: Jesus. And it is Jesus, the Perfect one, who ends up loving the imperfect and also dying for their imperfections. And what happens when you trust this radical truth? When you remember your failures, you will not only see them for what they are, but you will also see him. The pain and frustration don't necessarily go away, but under the cool shadow of the cross, something else becomes present in our past - peace, and love. The sense of fear or loss or sorrow doesn't evaporate, but rather something covers it over like a balm, so that when you revisit those emotions and memories, the sting is not as sharp.
This is a taste of the peace which passes all understanding. When an utter Failure finds they are loved by the complete Success, that is called grace, and grace heals. Grace soothes, and by the power of Jesus' own Spirit, grace changes. That is why when Christians remember, they don't just remember their failures (like in a worship service during the confession), but they go way back to remember the Cross where the righteous died for the unrighteous, so that the negative, formative failures of the past might be mended by undaunted love..."love to the loveless shown that they might lovelier be".
Mike, we love you and we miss you but you are with Christ, which is better by far.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
Discipleship....Yaaayyyy!!
When did you last take a survey or a test or questionnaire where you had to fill out the personal identity section? You know the ones where you have to check the box on your gender, ethnicity, economic range, etc. Did you know that a few years ago in England the census had a write-in space for the category of religion, and enough people put "Jedi Knight" that the government legally had to recognize it as a religion! Interesting tales in the world of identity...
If you are a Christian, how often, if ever, do you think of your primary identity as "disciple". One of the last things Jesus ever said to his followers before he left the earth and ascended into heaven was, "make disciples of all nations". He wanted his disciples to make more disciples. The intentional life lived as a follower of Jesus, i.e. a disciple, i.e. a Christian, is aften called discipleship. When most Christians hear about "discipleship" there is typically one of two reactions: The Monty Python Reaction, or The Pat Benatar Reaction. The first reaction is embodied by Graham Chapman's King Arthur in , "Run awwwaaayyyy!". The second reaction is embodied by the hit 80s song, "Hit me with your best shot."
The first reaction is often the most common because most people, at the end of a long day don't want another list of "do's" they have to be subjected to. So when the crazy demon bunny jumps at their neck with a laundry list for being a good Christian, they 'Run Away."
Then there's the second reaction. It springs from the person who views discipleship as a list of accomplishments, so "hit me with your best shot," as in, I can take it. Like Happy Gilmore in the batting cage getting ready for next year's hockey season their Christian faith is lived out with rigorous devotions or even spiritual disciplines with the understanding that the more you do the better you become.
Both reactions derive from viewing discipleship through the Law. Discipleship is about doing a list of things (that list changes depending on who you talk to, BTW). Not that any of these things, like prayer, studying Scripture, meditation, or fasting are bad, but discipleship does not begin nor end with them.
Most answers to the question "What is a disciple of Jesus" focus on what to do. That is to say, the task of making disciples involves tips on better Bible study and prayer and ideas for outreach or worship. If you do these things then you are a disciple, if you get better at them that is called discipleship.
There is certainly plenty for disciples of Jesus to do, and really ought to do - this is what I call "doing disciples". But there is another, more important dimension called "being disciples." In the Christian life all doing, if it is to be good 'doing', must flow from a right being. A disciple of Jesus is first and foremost a receptacle of the Gospel of Jesus, that is, being justified (set right) by God's grace alone through faith alone (Ephesians 2:8-9). All disciple 'doing' must come from this.
In Philippians 3:3-6 the Apostle Paul is describing his life under the Law. Granted, he is referring to his status and behavior as a devout Jew before his conversion on the Damascus road, but he is not lifting that life up as the way to be a better Christian. Quite the opposite, in fact. He notes his (former) confidence in his lineage of the right people and right tribe and his zeal for what mattered most: keeping the mandates of God (i.e. keeping the Law)
But then he discovers, or rather it was revealed to him, that what he thought mattered the most in fact mattered the least. His status, standing, and pursuit of the law, he realized, did not matter. Why? If you give me a list of things to do and I am able to do them, what happens in my mind is that the list becomes the source of my goodness. You gave me all these things to do, I have done them (or at least think I have done them), and on the basis of that list do I begin to think of myself as good and righteous.
But for Paul this was the worst place to be in, because in the end, when someone relies on the Law for righteousness, they will eventually see themselves as the source of their own righteousness. Furthermore, life continually presents you with failures not success. To think that one can consistently keep God's Law and be righteous in His sight according to the Law is a serious case of denial. What Paul realizes is his need for a new source of righteousness.
In Philippians 3:7-15 Paul talks of discipleship under grace. He counts everything as a loss compared to knowing Christ. That is to say, he rejects all other sources of righteousness apart from faith in Christ. He considers all other sources as dung (the original Greek is actually more explicit, but you get the picture). He wants to know the power of Jesus' resurrection and to share in Jesus' sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, not in His success. This new way of looking at his life blew all of Paul's old performances out of the water. And what did that produce in him? Joy!
In the end, then, all discipleship "doing" must be things which redirect you to the things in the preceding paragraph, and must flow from them. Worshipping, serving, studying the Bible, and inviting others with this Gospel message are the "do's" of discipleship, and they are good. But unless you understand and are redirected, daily, to God's grace in Jesus Christ you will implode.
Let me close with this one last thought. When a crisis hits, what you and I need to know is that we are loved, not evaluated. I recently watched a movie called "Relative Strangers" with Kathy Bates, Danny DeVito, and Neve Campbell. Great cast, absolutely awful movie. I actually couldn't finish it because the acting and the story were soooooo bad. Not profane or gross, but just really bad (see trailer). The main character plays a self-help psychologist who's message (and recently published book) is "Ready, Set, Let Go!". While on a radio broadcast he leads his listener audience through this simple mental exercise to "let go" and the scenes cut to people screaming in traffic and family members fighting. They are listening to the broadcast, go through his steps, and find calm. And then two seconds later get cut off by another car and start screaming all over again. It actually makes you laugh, but only because we all know how true it is and have been there ourselves. The point is this, that peace does not come from within, by following steps, but from without - from Christ. Thus discipleship is first and foremost no what you can do (with five easy steps!), but what Christ has done and being connected and reconnected with Him.
[In the next part of our discussion on discipleship, "Disciples of Grace", we'll take a look at this dynamic between the madness within and the remedy without, and just how radical grace really is]
If you are a Christian, how often, if ever, do you think of your primary identity as "disciple". One of the last things Jesus ever said to his followers before he left the earth and ascended into heaven was, "make disciples of all nations". He wanted his disciples to make more disciples. The intentional life lived as a follower of Jesus, i.e. a disciple, i.e. a Christian, is aften called discipleship. When most Christians hear about "discipleship" there is typically one of two reactions: The Monty Python Reaction, or The Pat Benatar Reaction. The first reaction is embodied by Graham Chapman's King Arthur in , "Run awwwaaayyyy!". The second reaction is embodied by the hit 80s song, "Hit me with your best shot."
The first reaction is often the most common because most people, at the end of a long day don't want another list of "do's" they have to be subjected to. So when the crazy demon bunny jumps at their neck with a laundry list for being a good Christian, they 'Run Away."
Then there's the second reaction. It springs from the person who views discipleship as a list of accomplishments, so "hit me with your best shot," as in, I can take it. Like Happy Gilmore in the batting cage getting ready for next year's hockey season their Christian faith is lived out with rigorous devotions or even spiritual disciplines with the understanding that the more you do the better you become.
Both reactions derive from viewing discipleship through the Law. Discipleship is about doing a list of things (that list changes depending on who you talk to, BTW). Not that any of these things, like prayer, studying Scripture, meditation, or fasting are bad, but discipleship does not begin nor end with them.
Most answers to the question "What is a disciple of Jesus" focus on what to do. That is to say, the task of making disciples involves tips on better Bible study and prayer and ideas for outreach or worship. If you do these things then you are a disciple, if you get better at them that is called discipleship.
There is certainly plenty for disciples of Jesus to do, and really ought to do - this is what I call "doing disciples". But there is another, more important dimension called "being disciples." In the Christian life all doing, if it is to be good 'doing', must flow from a right being. A disciple of Jesus is first and foremost a receptacle of the Gospel of Jesus, that is, being justified (set right) by God's grace alone through faith alone (Ephesians 2:8-9). All disciple 'doing' must come from this.
In Philippians 3:3-6 the Apostle Paul is describing his life under the Law. Granted, he is referring to his status and behavior as a devout Jew before his conversion on the Damascus road, but he is not lifting that life up as the way to be a better Christian. Quite the opposite, in fact. He notes his (former) confidence in his lineage of the right people and right tribe and his zeal for what mattered most: keeping the mandates of God (i.e. keeping the Law)
But then he discovers, or rather it was revealed to him, that what he thought mattered the most in fact mattered the least. His status, standing, and pursuit of the law, he realized, did not matter. Why? If you give me a list of things to do and I am able to do them, what happens in my mind is that the list becomes the source of my goodness. You gave me all these things to do, I have done them (or at least think I have done them), and on the basis of that list do I begin to think of myself as good and righteous.
But for Paul this was the worst place to be in, because in the end, when someone relies on the Law for righteousness, they will eventually see themselves as the source of their own righteousness. Furthermore, life continually presents you with failures not success. To think that one can consistently keep God's Law and be righteous in His sight according to the Law is a serious case of denial. What Paul realizes is his need for a new source of righteousness.
In Philippians 3:7-15 Paul talks of discipleship under grace. He counts everything as a loss compared to knowing Christ. That is to say, he rejects all other sources of righteousness apart from faith in Christ. He considers all other sources as dung (the original Greek is actually more explicit, but you get the picture). He wants to know the power of Jesus' resurrection and to share in Jesus' sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, not in His success. This new way of looking at his life blew all of Paul's old performances out of the water. And what did that produce in him? Joy!
In the end, then, all discipleship "doing" must be things which redirect you to the things in the preceding paragraph, and must flow from them. Worshipping, serving, studying the Bible, and inviting others with this Gospel message are the "do's" of discipleship, and they are good. But unless you understand and are redirected, daily, to God's grace in Jesus Christ you will implode.
Let me close with this one last thought. When a crisis hits, what you and I need to know is that we are loved, not evaluated. I recently watched a movie called "Relative Strangers" with Kathy Bates, Danny DeVito, and Neve Campbell. Great cast, absolutely awful movie. I actually couldn't finish it because the acting and the story were soooooo bad. Not profane or gross, but just really bad (see trailer). The main character plays a self-help psychologist who's message (and recently published book) is "Ready, Set, Let Go!". While on a radio broadcast he leads his listener audience through this simple mental exercise to "let go" and the scenes cut to people screaming in traffic and family members fighting. They are listening to the broadcast, go through his steps, and find calm. And then two seconds later get cut off by another car and start screaming all over again. It actually makes you laugh, but only because we all know how true it is and have been there ourselves. The point is this, that peace does not come from within, by following steps, but from without - from Christ. Thus discipleship is first and foremost no what you can do (with five easy steps!), but what Christ has done and being connected and reconnected with Him.
[In the next part of our discussion on discipleship, "Disciples of Grace", we'll take a look at this dynamic between the madness within and the remedy without, and just how radical grace really is]
Crazy Bible Verses
A friend of mine sent me a link to this page on Cracked magazine's website. These are the Bible verses that would never be read in Church, even bible-based evangelical churches. My only regret about this article, which i belive is written by a non-Christian, is that i didn't write it!
http://www.cracked.com/article_15699_9-most-badass-bible-verses.html
http://www.cracked.com/article_15699_9-most-badass-bible-verses.html
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Of Generals and Particulars
There are quite a few aspects to Christianity that are ‘general.’ Christianity carries with it moral commands and exhortations, the most culturally familiar one being the Golden Rule – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” which was said by Jesus himself. Many people connect with Christianity in this general sense would agree that the moral imperatives are good and match up well with what other religions teach about being good people. Will Smith recently stated that Scientology and the Bible teach basically the same things, and he quoted the Golden Rule as his prime example. In additional general terms Christianity encompasses ideas about good versus evil, transformation of society, and what is often referred to as ethical monotheism, all of which many people identify with in a positive way.
However, Christianity also carries with it particularities which sharply define the generalities given above. This is the part of Christianity which many people do not like. If all that the Bible and 2000 years of Church history teaches is “be good to people”, then anyone that came along and also taught “be good to people” would be teaching the same thing, and Will Smith would then be right. But Christianity has some particulars which define it distinctly, and to identify or define the Christian faith only by its generalities is simply inaccurate and disingenuous (not to mention blatantly reductionist).
What are some of these particulars? Two immediately spring to mind. The first is the divinity of Jesus Christ, and the second is the concept of original sin. These two particulars are radically distinct in the world of religious and moral concepts. No other religion pronounces its founder as divine in such a manner as Jesus Christ is portrayed in the New Testament. While Mohammed is viewed as a prophet by Muslims, he is not viewed as divine. While Buddha is highly Enlightened and revered in such a fashion as to be god-like, he is not viewed like Jesus as “the image of the Invisible God,” “by whom all things were created” and in whom “all the fullness of God is pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:15,19). Theologically speaking, this is called a high Christology (i.e. a high theology of Christ)
Now this particular feature of Christianity, that is, the divinity of Christ Jesus, on its own does not create much of a stir. What I mean is this: many people think it’s a great idea for God to come to earth as a human and teach us all the right things. And why not, we’re certainly worthy of such attention, after all we are created in his image. But this is where the second particular cuts to the quick. If humans do in fact have original sin, that is, a sinful nature that all people are inherently born with – something both Old and New Testaments clearly teach – then it follows that something must be done about original sin. Even if God came to earth as a human in Jesus Christ, if all he did was teach a great moral philosophy, that does not change our inherent situation. Ours is a situation of a tragic inability to produce goodness on any kind of lasting or consistent way – if we could the world would be perfect. Deep down we all know this inability is real, despite our best efforts to deny it. No other religion has such a view of human nature. Theologically speaking, this is called a low anthropology (i.e. a low theology of human nature).
This low anthropology, the idea of original sin, indicates that just telling a person to “be good” does not guarantee they will. Maybe for like a day, or ten minutes, but not every moment for their whole life. And as many of you may already know, for all the good we may do, there is inevitably some ‘bad’ in our life that seems to offset the good. Furthermore, the most ‘heavy’ moral command given by Jesus is, “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) – a pretty tall order for even the staunchest of the morally upright. So tall that most either ignore such a rigorous command or water it down by alluding to Jesus’ penchant for hyperbole. While Jesus did use hyperbole on occasion (and even sarcasm, wit, and many other means of communication), the Sermon on the Mount is hardly the setting for such hyperbole. No, Jesus meant what he said and we are left to deal with it.
How we deal with it is of great importance. As I stated above, Christianity carries much that is general, especially moral imperatives, which can be quite appealing. However, dealing with this question of “being perfect” requires us to look not at Christian generals, but to its particulars. If we are unable to live up to the moral commands of God as found in the Bible, because of a low anthropology, then we must have a savior. Not just any nice teacher will do either. In truth, only God himself can do something for us and to us. We are helpless. This is what the Bible teaches. This is the view of Jesus Christ himself, who said, “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28). This is the Christianity of St. Paul, who writes in Romans 5:8, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This is the Christianity of the Apostles, like St. John, who wrote, it is “not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation [i.e. the atoning sacrifice] for our sins (1 John 4:10).
These passages tell us of the atonement – the death of Jesus on the Cross where he took our sins upon himself, making atonement for them before God. This is the ultimate particular of Christianity. In the atonement the other two particulars of a low anthropology and a high Christology meet. Helpless people are rescued by their divine Lord, and he saves them not with platitudes or advice, but with his very blood. These three particulars are what make Christianity distinctly Christian. They do this because they make Jesus Christ utterly essential to Christianity. Much of what passes for “Christianity” today is essentially Christianity without Christ – knowing God apart from the Son.
What I mean is this: it seems to me that a great deal of effort is put into being “spiritual” these days, but this is an extremely general term to which generalities of all kinds of religions are applied. I practice a type of prayer style, I try to be a good person like Jesus or Buddha teaches, I am interested in studying religious ideas, and so on – therefore I am spiritual. What concerns me is that this is seen as sufficient for many Christians, so that what they get is a Christianity with no Jesus Christ, apart from some general ideas about him and his ‘teachings’. Jesus himself said that in order to know God you must know the Son (John 1:18; 14:7). There seems to me to be quite a strong and appealing movement to strive to know ‘God’ by bypassing the Son. Now, one may do this, but in all integrity they can’t call it Christianity. This is the offensive particularity of Christian revelation – if you want to know God, experience God, follow God, you must go through the Son of God, who is Jesus Christ.
What is in desperate need for Christians of all walks, and churches across the globe (but especially in North America and the West) is a reclamation of the particulars of the Faith, rather than a vague celebration of its generalities. Not in a shrill manner of vigorous ‘bible thumping’, but a firm stand on what is true about our Faith (1 Corinthians 15:58). The heart of reclaiming the particulars of Christianity are the three that I have mentioned above: the divinity of Jesus Christ, the lowly estate of humans, and the power of Christ’s death on the Cross (and subsequent bodily resurrection) as remedy for humans. Over the next few months we shall take a deeper look at these particulars, in terms of how they were explained by a lovely little statement developed in the sixteenth century that goes like this: salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone, so that God alone gets the glory – or to put it in Latin: sola gratia, sola fide, solus Christus, soli Deo gloria.
However, Christianity also carries with it particularities which sharply define the generalities given above. This is the part of Christianity which many people do not like. If all that the Bible and 2000 years of Church history teaches is “be good to people”, then anyone that came along and also taught “be good to people” would be teaching the same thing, and Will Smith would then be right. But Christianity has some particulars which define it distinctly, and to identify or define the Christian faith only by its generalities is simply inaccurate and disingenuous (not to mention blatantly reductionist).
What are some of these particulars? Two immediately spring to mind. The first is the divinity of Jesus Christ, and the second is the concept of original sin. These two particulars are radically distinct in the world of religious and moral concepts. No other religion pronounces its founder as divine in such a manner as Jesus Christ is portrayed in the New Testament. While Mohammed is viewed as a prophet by Muslims, he is not viewed as divine. While Buddha is highly Enlightened and revered in such a fashion as to be god-like, he is not viewed like Jesus as “the image of the Invisible God,” “by whom all things were created” and in whom “all the fullness of God is pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:15,19). Theologically speaking, this is called a high Christology (i.e. a high theology of Christ)
Now this particular feature of Christianity, that is, the divinity of Christ Jesus, on its own does not create much of a stir. What I mean is this: many people think it’s a great idea for God to come to earth as a human and teach us all the right things. And why not, we’re certainly worthy of such attention, after all we are created in his image. But this is where the second particular cuts to the quick. If humans do in fact have original sin, that is, a sinful nature that all people are inherently born with – something both Old and New Testaments clearly teach – then it follows that something must be done about original sin. Even if God came to earth as a human in Jesus Christ, if all he did was teach a great moral philosophy, that does not change our inherent situation. Ours is a situation of a tragic inability to produce goodness on any kind of lasting or consistent way – if we could the world would be perfect. Deep down we all know this inability is real, despite our best efforts to deny it. No other religion has such a view of human nature. Theologically speaking, this is called a low anthropology (i.e. a low theology of human nature).
This low anthropology, the idea of original sin, indicates that just telling a person to “be good” does not guarantee they will. Maybe for like a day, or ten minutes, but not every moment for their whole life. And as many of you may already know, for all the good we may do, there is inevitably some ‘bad’ in our life that seems to offset the good. Furthermore, the most ‘heavy’ moral command given by Jesus is, “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) – a pretty tall order for even the staunchest of the morally upright. So tall that most either ignore such a rigorous command or water it down by alluding to Jesus’ penchant for hyperbole. While Jesus did use hyperbole on occasion (and even sarcasm, wit, and many other means of communication), the Sermon on the Mount is hardly the setting for such hyperbole. No, Jesus meant what he said and we are left to deal with it.
How we deal with it is of great importance. As I stated above, Christianity carries much that is general, especially moral imperatives, which can be quite appealing. However, dealing with this question of “being perfect” requires us to look not at Christian generals, but to its particulars. If we are unable to live up to the moral commands of God as found in the Bible, because of a low anthropology, then we must have a savior. Not just any nice teacher will do either. In truth, only God himself can do something for us and to us. We are helpless. This is what the Bible teaches. This is the view of Jesus Christ himself, who said, “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28). This is the Christianity of St. Paul, who writes in Romans 5:8, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This is the Christianity of the Apostles, like St. John, who wrote, it is “not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation [i.e. the atoning sacrifice] for our sins (1 John 4:10).
These passages tell us of the atonement – the death of Jesus on the Cross where he took our sins upon himself, making atonement for them before God. This is the ultimate particular of Christianity. In the atonement the other two particulars of a low anthropology and a high Christology meet. Helpless people are rescued by their divine Lord, and he saves them not with platitudes or advice, but with his very blood. These three particulars are what make Christianity distinctly Christian. They do this because they make Jesus Christ utterly essential to Christianity. Much of what passes for “Christianity” today is essentially Christianity without Christ – knowing God apart from the Son.
What I mean is this: it seems to me that a great deal of effort is put into being “spiritual” these days, but this is an extremely general term to which generalities of all kinds of religions are applied. I practice a type of prayer style, I try to be a good person like Jesus or Buddha teaches, I am interested in studying religious ideas, and so on – therefore I am spiritual. What concerns me is that this is seen as sufficient for many Christians, so that what they get is a Christianity with no Jesus Christ, apart from some general ideas about him and his ‘teachings’. Jesus himself said that in order to know God you must know the Son (John 1:18; 14:7). There seems to me to be quite a strong and appealing movement to strive to know ‘God’ by bypassing the Son. Now, one may do this, but in all integrity they can’t call it Christianity. This is the offensive particularity of Christian revelation – if you want to know God, experience God, follow God, you must go through the Son of God, who is Jesus Christ.
What is in desperate need for Christians of all walks, and churches across the globe (but especially in North America and the West) is a reclamation of the particulars of the Faith, rather than a vague celebration of its generalities. Not in a shrill manner of vigorous ‘bible thumping’, but a firm stand on what is true about our Faith (1 Corinthians 15:58). The heart of reclaiming the particulars of Christianity are the three that I have mentioned above: the divinity of Jesus Christ, the lowly estate of humans, and the power of Christ’s death on the Cross (and subsequent bodily resurrection) as remedy for humans. Over the next few months we shall take a deeper look at these particulars, in terms of how they were explained by a lovely little statement developed in the sixteenth century that goes like this: salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone, so that God alone gets the glory – or to put it in Latin: sola gratia, sola fide, solus Christus, soli Deo gloria.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Big Bend
My wife and I just returned from a four day camping/hiking trip to Big Bend National Park. It's one of the most remote NP's in the country, but it is absolutely breathtaking.
The concentration of diverse and mind-blowing geological features is truly remarkable. One of the moments that stands out for me (on a trip that was pretty much non-stop "oh wow, look over there!") was when we first looked across the valley from the Chisos Mountains to the ridge through which Santa Elena Canyon is cut by the Rio Grande [pictured above]. 1500 foot cliffs in a straight line rise up out of nowhere and run for miles north and south and in the middle is a huge gouge that looks, from a distance, like part of the cliffs have just caved in (That's the canyon). Think Argonath but without the statues. Anyway, one of my first reactions to such a vista was that it was so amazing that it looked fake. Have you ever looked at something in nature so cool that the only way you can process it is by categorizing it as "fake". Perhaps another way of putting it is surreal. Maybe you felt this way the first time you ever saw the Grand Canyon in person, at some point you almost have to ask yourself, "wow, is this really real?"
In his book "The Great Divorce", CS Lewis writes a fictional account of a man who journies from hell up to heaven in a bus. At one point he asks one of the heavenly dwellers if he can take a piece of fruit back with him. The answer he gets is no, but because "all of hell could not contain that apple, because the apple is real." In TGD, Lewis talks of heaven as that which is really and truly real, the ultimate reality, and hell is a grey place of fake-ness and unreality (although everyone there seems to think its real enough).
If I am unable to process the grandeur and majesty of earthly "glory", found, say in a beautiful canyon, because it is so real that I perceive it to be fake, how much more will I be unable to process the glory of God and heaven? Fake things are only shown to be what they are in the face of real things. If Lewis is right, and God is as real as it gets, then I am a fake, shown for what I am even in something as simple as a beautiful vista. And who would do anything for a fake? Maybe someone would do something nice for a good person, but not a fake. But God demonstrates his love for us in this, that while we were still fakers, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8)
You know, i really did enjoy and find beauty in the vista, certainly on some leve for its own sake. But in revealing to me the invisible qualities of God (Rom 1:18) and my own shortcomings, I am now ever more grateful for His mercy and grace.
Monday, September 17, 2007
The Potter's Hand
It’s been two whole months since the Harry Potter saga came to a dramatic close, and since I ended my last post with a reference to a meaningful quote from the Potter series, I wanted to jot down a few thoughts, post-Hallows.
I just read that the Harry Potter movies have surpassed James Bond as the highest grossing movie franchise in history (when not adjusted for inflation). I continue to be amazed at the staggering numbers that Mr. Potter has wracked up. For example, Book 6 sold more copies in its first 24 hours than The DaVinci Code sold in a year (and you remember what a big deal that book was when it hit the stands).
All number crunching aside, what makes Harry Potter so profound for me is that Book 7 ratified the underlying theme for the whole series – that it is ultimately a reflection on death. Underneath the lovable characters and memorable moments and a most engaging writing style, is a very deep and thought-provoking mediation on life and death.
From the opening chapter of Book 1, “The Boy Who Lived”, the whole Potterverse is moved and shaken by one man’s pathological fear of death and his willingness to go to any means to avoid it (that would be Voldemort), and one boy’s life shattered by death and healed by love (that would be Harry).
At the heart of the life-death dynamic is the power of love. Not namby-pamby, fairy tale or even classic romantic love, but sacrificial love. This kind of love is what Harry learns about and acts upon, and of what Voldemort has no knowledge whatsoever. Sacrificial love is the agent which defeats death, and while this truth comes up throughout the series, Book 7 abolishes any doubt to Rowling’s intentions otherwise.
HP is hardly the first fiction to wrestle with the subject of death, or even to name sacrificial love as the counter to death, but what made the whole series ring true was the way death was addressed in Book 7. Prior to the release of Deathly Hallows, one literary critic I read (whose name and article reference I’ve tried to find but so far have been unable) notes that what essentially dies in the HP books is God. The world of Potter, he observers, is utterly devoid of faith, prayer, or even mention of church or God. While this is actually an accurate observation, the deeper issue implied is not so much that ‘God’ dies in HP, but rather that the Christian God dies. And, really, up to the close of Book 6, there would be little to refute this position.
Then Deathly Hallows arrived. Interestingly, I had read the aforementioned (and so far elusive) article just prior to July 21st, and so this ‘absence of God’ was very much on my mind as I began reading Book 7. That is also why I was struck early on when, after George Weasley is seriously injured (he loses an ear) Mrs. Weasley tells Harry that George is going to be alright, and Harry says, “Thank God” (pg 74), which might be the first time “God” is specifically mentioned in the whole series. That is fairly innocuous, but as the book goes on, when Harry and Hermione go to Godric’s Hollow and visit the graveyard, two quotes from Scripture are found on gravestones. One quote on Kendra Dumbledore’s grave is from Jesus himself, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matthew 6:21). The other on James & Lily Potter’s grave is from 1 Corinthians 15:26, “And the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” 1 Corinthians 15 is one of the most profound passages on the bodily resurrection in all of Scripture.
Perhaps this may be construed as mining for nuggets of “Jesus under every rock,” perhaps I’m reading too much into this, but I don’t think I am. Granted, the verses of Scripture are never explicitly identified as such in the text, but Rowling is subtly telling us that the love which defeats death is in fact love in the Christian sense – that is “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay his life down for his friends” (John 15:13). After all, she very well could have used other verses, or none at all.
This type of love empties the self and pours out for the sake of the other, even to the point of death (Philippians 2:8). This concept of love (agape in the New Testament) is distinctly Christian. Not that Rowling’s characters are Christian, nor are the stories themselves “Christian”, but the themes and concepts of love and life and death and the way she resolves them are very much Christian. If this is so, was it intended, or is this all just a radical coincidence? I don’t think so.
While Harry is hardly a Christ-figure, nor is he intended to be, the sacrificial love he demonstrates is. Does this make HP a Christian series (much to the dismay of the angry fundamentalists who condemned it from very early on)? No. HP is “Christian” as much as Lord of the Rings is “Christian,” in that, while the stories and characters themselves are non-Christian, the themes and concepts that they deal with are (for example Gandalf’s resurrection as Gandalf the White, and Aragorn being the true returning King, whose hands are healing hands).
And so, the greatest books of this present day and age (despite what Harold Bloom and company may think, they are) end with a resoundingly subtle Gospel message. Not just that love defeats death, but it is love that drives one to take the place of anther in death which is at the heart of the HP stories. From the fateful substitution of Lily, Harry’s mother, to Harry’s own journey to the forest (Harry’s Gethsemane) to give his life that others may live, these stories convey a Christian understanding of sacrificial love. And note, it is not “I love these people so much that I will die,” but rather, “I love these people so much that I will die in their place so they might live.” There’s a big difference between the two. Changing gears to a more theological bent, the former basically attributes to the Cross a moral example atonement, whereas the latter ascribes the classic understanding of substitutionary atonement – that Jesus Christ died for our sins, that is, in our place for the just judgment against our evil hearts and deeds.
I look forward to re-re-reading the whole series again sometime in the near future, after I have finished my latest enterprise of taking on, once again, the Lord of the Rings.
I just read that the Harry Potter movies have surpassed James Bond as the highest grossing movie franchise in history (when not adjusted for inflation). I continue to be amazed at the staggering numbers that Mr. Potter has wracked up. For example, Book 6 sold more copies in its first 24 hours than The DaVinci Code sold in a year (and you remember what a big deal that book was when it hit the stands).
All number crunching aside, what makes Harry Potter so profound for me is that Book 7 ratified the underlying theme for the whole series – that it is ultimately a reflection on death. Underneath the lovable characters and memorable moments and a most engaging writing style, is a very deep and thought-provoking mediation on life and death.
From the opening chapter of Book 1, “The Boy Who Lived”, the whole Potterverse is moved and shaken by one man’s pathological fear of death and his willingness to go to any means to avoid it (that would be Voldemort), and one boy’s life shattered by death and healed by love (that would be Harry).
At the heart of the life-death dynamic is the power of love. Not namby-pamby, fairy tale or even classic romantic love, but sacrificial love. This kind of love is what Harry learns about and acts upon, and of what Voldemort has no knowledge whatsoever. Sacrificial love is the agent which defeats death, and while this truth comes up throughout the series, Book 7 abolishes any doubt to Rowling’s intentions otherwise.
HP is hardly the first fiction to wrestle with the subject of death, or even to name sacrificial love as the counter to death, but what made the whole series ring true was the way death was addressed in Book 7. Prior to the release of Deathly Hallows, one literary critic I read (whose name and article reference I’ve tried to find but so far have been unable) notes that what essentially dies in the HP books is God. The world of Potter, he observers, is utterly devoid of faith, prayer, or even mention of church or God. While this is actually an accurate observation, the deeper issue implied is not so much that ‘God’ dies in HP, but rather that the Christian God dies. And, really, up to the close of Book 6, there would be little to refute this position.
Then Deathly Hallows arrived. Interestingly, I had read the aforementioned (and so far elusive) article just prior to July 21st, and so this ‘absence of God’ was very much on my mind as I began reading Book 7. That is also why I was struck early on when, after George Weasley is seriously injured (he loses an ear) Mrs. Weasley tells Harry that George is going to be alright, and Harry says, “Thank God” (pg 74), which might be the first time “God” is specifically mentioned in the whole series. That is fairly innocuous, but as the book goes on, when Harry and Hermione go to Godric’s Hollow and visit the graveyard, two quotes from Scripture are found on gravestones. One quote on Kendra Dumbledore’s grave is from Jesus himself, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matthew 6:21). The other on James & Lily Potter’s grave is from 1 Corinthians 15:26, “And the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” 1 Corinthians 15 is one of the most profound passages on the bodily resurrection in all of Scripture.
Perhaps this may be construed as mining for nuggets of “Jesus under every rock,” perhaps I’m reading too much into this, but I don’t think I am. Granted, the verses of Scripture are never explicitly identified as such in the text, but Rowling is subtly telling us that the love which defeats death is in fact love in the Christian sense – that is “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay his life down for his friends” (John 15:13). After all, she very well could have used other verses, or none at all.
This type of love empties the self and pours out for the sake of the other, even to the point of death (Philippians 2:8). This concept of love (agape in the New Testament) is distinctly Christian. Not that Rowling’s characters are Christian, nor are the stories themselves “Christian”, but the themes and concepts of love and life and death and the way she resolves them are very much Christian. If this is so, was it intended, or is this all just a radical coincidence? I don’t think so.
While Harry is hardly a Christ-figure, nor is he intended to be, the sacrificial love he demonstrates is. Does this make HP a Christian series (much to the dismay of the angry fundamentalists who condemned it from very early on)? No. HP is “Christian” as much as Lord of the Rings is “Christian,” in that, while the stories and characters themselves are non-Christian, the themes and concepts that they deal with are (for example Gandalf’s resurrection as Gandalf the White, and Aragorn being the true returning King, whose hands are healing hands).
And so, the greatest books of this present day and age (despite what Harold Bloom and company may think, they are) end with a resoundingly subtle Gospel message. Not just that love defeats death, but it is love that drives one to take the place of anther in death which is at the heart of the HP stories. From the fateful substitution of Lily, Harry’s mother, to Harry’s own journey to the forest (Harry’s Gethsemane) to give his life that others may live, these stories convey a Christian understanding of sacrificial love. And note, it is not “I love these people so much that I will die,” but rather, “I love these people so much that I will die in their place so they might live.” There’s a big difference between the two. Changing gears to a more theological bent, the former basically attributes to the Cross a moral example atonement, whereas the latter ascribes the classic understanding of substitutionary atonement – that Jesus Christ died for our sins, that is, in our place for the just judgment against our evil hearts and deeds.
I look forward to re-re-reading the whole series again sometime in the near future, after I have finished my latest enterprise of taking on, once again, the Lord of the Rings.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Another 2 Worlds
Since my last posting regarding "between 2 worlds", I came across an article in TIME magazine called "Second Life's Real World Problems" - see the article for yourself: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1651500,00.html
and i thought it would be a fitting sequence to write about Second Life, having just written about living between two worlds, even if the two subjects are completely different.
If you don't know Second Life, it is an online virutal world where people create computer characters (called avatars) who can open businesses, travel the "world", drink, party, have sex, and shop for shoes in this enormous, highly interactive virtual world. Admittedly, having never personally signed up for it, I've been following articles on Second Life for a while now, and finally have decided to reflect on it. What promted such reflection was this TIME article. A major development recently has been that real businesses in the real world are opening virtual businesses in Second Life and selling virtual products (like Nike shoes for your avatar) but for real money. Apparently its becoming quite a big deal and lots of real money is being exchagned, a veritable virtual economy.
When i first read about Second Life, my first inclination was not suprise, but rather, 'well, it was bound to happen sooner or later.' And of course shortly thereafter stories appeared about folks who spend more time on Second Life than they do at their jobs in real life, which they probably have consequently lost. Initially my concern was, and to some extent still is, the Matrix factor. In all seriousness, we are only one step away from plugging our brains in to interface with this technology, rather than use our hands. And every sci-fi movie ever made on the subject seems to think that jacking in is a bad idea. Nonetheless, my point is not to throw rocks at Second Life, but rather to see it and the many other products, novelties, and technologies out there like it, in terms of what is revealed about human nature in them.
People are hard wired for relationships. We seek them out no matter what. 'Any relationship is better than no relationship' is the mentality, conscious or subconsious, that often leads to co-dependent abusive situations. In "Cast Away", tom hank's character forms a relationship with a volleyball while trapped on his deserted island. When relationships in the real world become to difficult or painful or just not there, we still seek them out online. What struck me in the above article, is that people are now getting significantly malcontent online.
This is quoted from the article: "some devotees are so upset by increasing commercialization that a group called the Second Life Liberation Army last year gunned down virtual shoppers at American Apparel. So-called griefing, or on-site harassment, is on the rise. Says Gartner research chief Steve Prentice: "Second Life is moving into a phase of disillusionment." Wow, even VR can't escape it.Now we have avatar shooting rampages happening - the world, it seems, is an ugly place, and you can't hide from that fact, even in a virtual world.
So where does all this lead me? Being a bit of a Potter-phile, I re-read the whole series before Deathly Hallows was released, and there is a remarkable line by Dumbledore in Book1. He says to Harry, who has been spending a lot of time looking into a magical mirror (which has been showing him images of his long dead parents), that the mirror gives us neither knowledge nor truth, and that "It does not do to dwell on dreams, and forget to live in the real world." Perhaps an ironic truth to be told by a wizard in a world famous fantasy novel series, but the point is taken. There is no substitute for real relationships, however appealing and fun, and even deeply connective virtual ones may be. Even if this is all true, it is still only diagnostic. How do people deal with the ugliness of the world and the problems of relating to other people?
and i thought it would be a fitting sequence to write about Second Life, having just written about living between two worlds, even if the two subjects are completely different.
If you don't know Second Life, it is an online virutal world where people create computer characters (called avatars) who can open businesses, travel the "world", drink, party, have sex, and shop for shoes in this enormous, highly interactive virtual world. Admittedly, having never personally signed up for it, I've been following articles on Second Life for a while now, and finally have decided to reflect on it. What promted such reflection was this TIME article. A major development recently has been that real businesses in the real world are opening virtual businesses in Second Life and selling virtual products (like Nike shoes for your avatar) but for real money. Apparently its becoming quite a big deal and lots of real money is being exchagned, a veritable virtual economy.
When i first read about Second Life, my first inclination was not suprise, but rather, 'well, it was bound to happen sooner or later.' And of course shortly thereafter stories appeared about folks who spend more time on Second Life than they do at their jobs in real life, which they probably have consequently lost. Initially my concern was, and to some extent still is, the Matrix factor. In all seriousness, we are only one step away from plugging our brains in to interface with this technology, rather than use our hands. And every sci-fi movie ever made on the subject seems to think that jacking in is a bad idea. Nonetheless, my point is not to throw rocks at Second Life, but rather to see it and the many other products, novelties, and technologies out there like it, in terms of what is revealed about human nature in them.
People are hard wired for relationships. We seek them out no matter what. 'Any relationship is better than no relationship' is the mentality, conscious or subconsious, that often leads to co-dependent abusive situations. In "Cast Away", tom hank's character forms a relationship with a volleyball while trapped on his deserted island. When relationships in the real world become to difficult or painful or just not there, we still seek them out online. What struck me in the above article, is that people are now getting significantly malcontent online.
This is quoted from the article: "some devotees are so upset by increasing commercialization that a group called the Second Life Liberation Army last year gunned down virtual shoppers at American Apparel. So-called griefing, or on-site harassment, is on the rise. Says Gartner research chief Steve Prentice: "Second Life is moving into a phase of disillusionment." Wow, even VR can't escape it.Now we have avatar shooting rampages happening - the world, it seems, is an ugly place, and you can't hide from that fact, even in a virtual world.
So where does all this lead me? Being a bit of a Potter-phile, I re-read the whole series before Deathly Hallows was released, and there is a remarkable line by Dumbledore in Book1. He says to Harry, who has been spending a lot of time looking into a magical mirror (which has been showing him images of his long dead parents), that the mirror gives us neither knowledge nor truth, and that "It does not do to dwell on dreams, and forget to live in the real world." Perhaps an ironic truth to be told by a wizard in a world famous fantasy novel series, but the point is taken. There is no substitute for real relationships, however appealing and fun, and even deeply connective virtual ones may be. Even if this is all true, it is still only diagnostic. How do people deal with the ugliness of the world and the problems of relating to other people?
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