Foolish people should not be proud
And rulers should not be liars!(Proverbs 17:7, International Children’s Bible)
Paul told me, the other night during a marathon and often-hilarious Coordinators meeting, that Peter Weir imported Croatian fishermen to be the ship’s crew when he filmed Master and Commander because Americans cannot look natural on film. The Croatians would actually ignore being filmed and look like real people, whereas Americans are always aware of the camera and visbily change when they sense one. We have apparently bred “posing” into our children. It is instinctual now.
Therefore, conforming to the wisdom of the proverb above can be tough. We’re uncomfortable with who we are. Turn on the camera and we lie. We are not ourselves, we are an image. One of the first things we learn as a baby is to pose. By the time we enter college we have mastered being a resume. If we drop out of that nonsense we form a band or an emergent church and strike an anti-pose pose.
Christian leaders in a prayer pose with Trump
One would think that Christians would rejoice in being saved from the damnation of living as a piece of imagination and be real. One would think that we would be content with being exposed as foolish and would stop being proud as a means to cover up our emptiness. Jesus, the great I AM, graced us with the freedom to be who we truly are, just like he IS.
We are not always that happy. We think life is like God, the great parent, pointing a heavenly camera at us all day and we are uncomfortably trying to smile. We bring a friend up the stairs to worship and we can’t help warning them that what we do is “kind of weird,” since we’re sure it probably won’t look right.
Maybe this goes double for the leaders. Like the proverb says, they should not be the chief liars: posing for their audience and performing Christianity for them, acting like the paparazzi are looking for them all the time so they’d better keep their clothes on. If the leaders lie like that, they teach everyone else to lie, and the whole church is less an incarnation of the Spirit of truth and just another film clip.
I know this is on my mind because I watched Bosnian and Serbian TV last week. Their airwaves were filled with American TV or knock-offs. (The knock-offs were the best). I didn’t realize that our country’s main export is probably brilliantly-produced images: Mickey Mouse, CSI (and every other crime show), John Wayne films (they have TCM). And I even ran into the Gaithers beaming themselves into Sarajevo.
Let’s be real. We may be foolish people, but we are saved foolish people. Tell them, “Yes, our meetings might seem weird to you; talk to Jesus about it — he’s OK with what we’ve got, honestly shared.”
Slava! Haleluja! (Glory! Hallelujah!)
Tad moja dusa sretno slavite: Silno boze! (Then sings my soul, my Savior, God, to Thee. How great Thou art!)
Among the Baptists, struggling for a foothold,
Silno boze!
Alongside the next generation looking for a way,
Silno boze!
Along the bullet-scarred path to the crumbling highrises
Silno boze!
Amidst the moslem, peacemaking partners creating a new day,
Silno boze!
In the morning, as the sun rises over the good and the evil,
Silno, boze!
May your Son rise in our hearts this day,
Over all the known goods and unknown evils.
Make us like dawn in trust and hope.
Slava!
Among, alongside, give us hearts to love,
Stoking the goods and listening beyond the evils.
Make us like dawn in trust and hope.
Silno boze!
And Caleb said, “I will give my daughter Acsah in marriage to the man who attacks and captures Kiriath Sepher.” Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s brother, took it; so Caleb gave his daughter Acsah to him in marriage.
One day when she came to Othniel, she urged him to ask her father for a field. When she got off her donkey, Caleb asked her, “What can I do for you?”
She replied, “Do me a special favor. Since you have given me land in the Negev, give me also springs of water.” So Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs. Joshua 15:16-19
No selfies in Acsah’s day, but this might be a good snap.
I have a special fondness for young couples starting out together; so this little bit of history in the book of Joshua is kind of irresistible to me. Othniel went on to be the first judge of the judges of Israel. But at this point, he and Acsah (name your daughter that!) are just setting up their own household. They seem to have been a visionary, ambitious pair. That is what I think, at least, when I envision Acsah and Othniel going back to Caleb’s house to get a better deal on her inheritance. All she had was desert and no water — but she had irrigation plans! It appears that she was pushing Othniel, “Go ask my dad for more!” But as soon as they got there, she jumped off her donkey and asked herself! Caleb undoubtedly knew he had a special daughter; he may have seen “that look” in her eye as soon as she rode up and immediately asked, “What?”
She got her water.
The Prayer
You may think it is too much to make a lot out of these little snippets of the Bible. That’s OK. But see if this moment doesn’t make a good prayer for you, anyway. Here is how it works.
We go to our Father and he sees us just as we are. He says, “What can I do for you?”
We say, “Do me a favor, since you know I’ve been given desert. I need springs of water. Give me also springs of water.”
He gives them.
It is something like that. Try praying it. Should I say, “Get off your ass and ask?” Probably not.
But we need to ask because we have some desert! Should we just take what we appear to have been given and make the most of the desert?
I’m talking about the spiritual desert — not feeling it personally, no faith, hope, joy, love, just a gnawing sense of need.
I’m talking about the relational desert – the friendship circle or marriage feels dry, makes me want to try a new city or a new mate.
I’m talking about the political desert – Philly has lots of water but it has lots of trouble: too much violence, too little money in its coffers, too much injustice and corruption.
Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” John 7:37-8
The vision
Being one woman, going to her father for what she needs and ending up with living water flowing from her in the middle of desert places – that seems to me like the best result of all. Taking her husband with her and irrigating as much territory as she can touch seems to be a life worth living. Acsah couldn’t help but ask. Do you do that anymore?
Maybe you think coming to Jesus and asking for living water is entirely too easy. Snippety. You are into much more complicated things. That’s OK. I have nothing for you. I think I get tinier all the time — just a child going to my Father in the place I know to find him and trusting him to give me what he has for me.
As of today Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince has grossed $461,318,990 worldwide. Gwen and I contributed to that last week at the over-priced Bridge Deluxe near Penn (but how nice to walk to the theatre!). Do you get what is going on here? Just what is selling all these tickets? I have not been able to get into the books and I have been caught looking at my watch during the movies. What is the attraction?
Unseen evil
There is something going on. A bazillion people are concerned that another youngster is threatened by unseen forces and fighting overwhelming evils. Is every movie required to have this plot this year? — By use of some kind of magic (a transforming car, the Starship Enterprise, etc.) young people enhance their developing, misunderstood awesomeness to overcome the evil with the help of their friends, but not at the expense of their own self-esteem and uniqueness.
This propaganda is getting to be old hat. But, if the trailers are any evidence, the expression of it may be getting darker and even more dire. I felt quite educated by the previews before Harry Potter started lumbering into its 2-1/2 hours. I can’t remember them all. The next Twilight was one of them (Bella leaves vampire boyfriend with werewolf boyfriend; danger ensues, but will true love save even the undead?). 2012 was another (John Cusack and Woody Harrelson survive global catastrophe). And there was a creepier, Potteresque something I can’t remember. I was not encouraged, but perhaps enlightened.
Where is my happiness?
This generation has some high expectations of success and happiness and it secretly blames insurmountable, possibly evil, forces for the inevitable shame they feel about their deprivation. That is my lesson du jour. Voldemort gets Dumbeldore killed. My boyfriend wants to suck my blood. We’re all about to be killed by a natural disaster and only John Cusack will survive. Anxiety. Fear. Unfulfilled dreams. Pass the prozac.
Or please! Pass the gospel. You people need a savior! Harry Potter’s wand is not making it (and it is make-believe, anyway, btw).
The other strand that might be running through these movies is this (OK, this is lesson du jour deux): “I really want someone to love; I want community.” Life-long school chums who are as weird as I am and know me, and accept me, as I am; the boyfriend who is wild and crazy but who will resist killing me (he’s so awesome) and may kill others for me; the brave survivors who restart the world from their little tribe.
Connection, Hope. Restoration. Pass the church! (Not make-believe, btw).
I’ve come to love the “how” questions. But for whole segments of the population, I answer them rather poorly. The other night at “rabbi time” one of my favorite people (Jeff not only thinks and sings well, he plays the accordion!) asked one of my favorite questions about the church. “How does it hold together?” I didn’t get all of the back story, but I think he’s seen a few places fall apart. It took him a while to join in, since he was skeptical about Circle of Hope’s staying power! It does not seem to have enough mechanisms for survival; it just kind of is.
My answer received a funny response that I have been pondering since. “Every time you talk about this, you use the words relational, love, incarnational, but I end up not knowing a lot more.” (I felt a bit like Jimmy Carter being humored by Ronald Reagan). That reply echoed a much more incoherent protest by a blogger who objected to the chart I was explaining on the Circle of Hope blog a week ago. (Just how did you come across that blog, Courtney?).
So I thought I would try again.
Most of what I think is better summed up by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians: “[Jesus] gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of [people] in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
What holds us together? Here are five applications of the scripture we are trying to make, with just one example each that demonstrate how we are trying. (Want to comment with more?)
1) We assume people are not infants
(Or at least are not destined to be so). They are gifted and relevant. Jesus is in them to bring fullness and unity.
We expect our Cell Leaders to work out our agreements and follow our very general plan. We do not tell them what to do each week; they are not given a curriculum.
2) The pastors and other leaders are relentless about contrasting the deceitfulness of the philosophies of the age with Jesus.
We know we are a “ship of fools” as far as the deluded world is concerned.
You may have noticed that we are not an “emerging church,” we are not “postmodern.” We tend to rail against modernism, too, and a couple of weeks ago I took a swipe at Facebook and the immortality of the soul in the space of a few minutes.
3) Dialogue is practiced.
Speaking the truth in love is an organizing discipline; not just a personal aspiration.
Our yearly Map-making is an extravagant exercise in taking what people say seriously and encouraging them to say it.
4) We think of ourselves as a body with Jesus as the head,
Not a mechanism with a set of instructions for “how it works.”
The hardest think to understand is being an organism. Right now we have planted the seeds of another congregation and we are watching to see if it will grow. We also have a congregation in Camden that is stretching out roots. We have methods, but they won’t replace Jesus causing the growth.
5) We assume that we will fall apart if people do not love each other, and promote such dissolution.
Some astute historian told me that such an idea is so 70’s — well, 90’s, too. I think it is central to what Jesus is giving us. As Paul says elsewhere, “Nothing matters but faith working itself out through love.” People come to the leaders quite often with a great idea for mission (and I mean often and great). We send them back to create a mission team. If you can’t team, your idea can’t matter. Sometimes teams don’t have the devotion and want the “church” to take over their idea, we let them die.
My dear friend was in wonder that we do not fall apart. Now that I have sketched out why we don’t, so am I. Jesus must be behind it. On a human level, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
We need to know how we know things. This became clear again, lately, as some of my friends needed to make big decisions. They did not have as many resources for discernment as they wished they had! A couple of times we got out the old baseball diamond chart and tried to “run the bases” a few times to figure something out.
The chart offers a way to simplify the process of making decisions — discerning what we need to know. At its most basic level of interpretation the chart is about coming to understand what we consciously know, at this point, about what God is saying to us, and how we might sort that out.
The creation – We start as creatures in God’s creation, with instincts about what is good and bad, safe and dangerous, beautiful and ugly, etc. Some people might call what we do at this base an appreciation of “natural law.” We can know a lot about what God is trying to say by sitting on the beach looking at the ocean. One can read deep things about God by sitting with a leaf for a while.
Note: People or institutions that never get off home plate aren’t in the game much; they tend to think being a creature, interpreting “reality” from their own vantage point is all there is!
The Bible — The revelation recorded in the Bible is like first base, our elementary, basic teaching about what God says and how to do the word. It is the basis of our tribe’s “lore” — our understanding about life, our tradition, history and ritual. It is the tried and true compendium from the spiritual ancestors validated by the present-day confirmation of the Spirit. Our practical, historical, and accountable understanding of God starts here. The Bible is mother’s milk to spiritual babes; and everyone comes to God as a child.
Note: People or institutions that live on first base might be a bit infantile.
The Body– The Church is like second base; it includes first base and started at home. In the church we have an ongoing dialogue that continues to process the word we have received and to incorporate further revelation. By speaking the truth in love our critical thinking is engaged. We discern-things-through with one another. In this way the body of Christ allows us to grow into more “teenage” thinking. We need a place where we can dare to be someone while still in a secure environment.
Note: People or institutions that stay on second base can end up designed for endless argument, just like teens seem to be.
The Spirit – A deepening person-to-person relationship with God is like getting to third base. We have to consider how God is directly speaking to us. We need to develop confidence that our thoughts and feelings coincide with God’s character and actions. We need to relate to God. We have experiences like Paul meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus, or Matthew hearing Jesus call him to follow, or the woman at the well hearing her deepest secrets and needs touched. We long for a daily sense of discernment and direction– a sense that we know and appreciate God for who God is.
Note: People or institutions who camp on third base can be so subjective that their conclusions can ultimately be more about themselves than God.
After “running” we get back to home with a deeper understanding of our place in creation and our mission in the re-creation. Chances are, we will be running the bases again to sort out some new thought or circumstance. We hunger to keep moving with God and keep receiving from God all the gifts of knowledge, wisdom and vision we are given through every “base.”
Obviously, what I’ve said so far is a somewhat superficial idea about the complexity of thinking. It is mainly on a rational level. Lately I have thought I should be considering how to run the bases like an organism that is more than a brain. We listen and learn with our emotions and our new spiritual instincts as well as our minds. So “running the bases” should reflect how we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.
The creation – I need to consider how I work as the creature I am. I am a peculiar creation with a way about me that is natural for me. I should honor that and live out of my new self with confidence.
The Bible– Reading the Bible is not just about understanding concepts. The Bible leads us to the basic disciplines of meditation and prayer. I need a collection of disciplines that help my inner being conform to the revelation I read or am taught, so I am saturated with the truth and love that is revealed. I am doing the word, not just hearing it. I am responding to God’s word to me, obeying, developing not just collecting thoughts.
The Body– My place in the body is elemental to my knowledge of God. Here I receive spiritual direction from caring people who know me. Here I test out my gifts and prove my value. From here I launch into mission. In the process of building, I am built. There is no ultimate knowledge outside God’s family.
The Spirit– I have an entire, spiritual side to me that is being discovered. God may lead me through new impulses, through visions. My dreams may come to have deeper meaning. I may receive words of prophecy, even the ability to heal. My daily experience of life has changed, so that everything has meaning. I can learn from every moment, every person, every discourse.
I put out this very basic thinking to encourage anyone who is listening to run the bases a few times today at various levels. Almost any subject can benefit from some Spirit-to-spirit mentalizing: What should I do about my marriage? How should I enter into the meeting at work today? How is God responding to the fear I am feeling? What should I do next?
God bless you as you do some spiritual huffing and puffing around the diamond.
[For a nice treatment of a lot of this, pick up Wilkie and Noreen Au’s The Discerning Heart]
I have been pondering these two scriptures this morning. They seem to go together.
“Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:28-9)
“Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”
When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” (Exodus 3:1-4)
Our God is like fire.
He burns for goodness and beauty.
He burns against the corruption of his creation.
He burns without consuming the bush, and burns in us to fire our imagination and unshakeable hope.
He burns to consume his enemies and cleanse the situation for new creation.
So I think there is a good way to be “consumed” and a reason to avoid it.
Wary of being consumed
The Christians I hang with are wary of being consumed. I think they have a large-context reason to be wary and a smaller-context one, both of which are well-taken.
The big reason they have become afraid they will be consumed is because they live in consumer culture where it has become one’s civic duty to figure out how to buy a Chrysler. This morning, for instance, I decided to actually look at my copious spam email, sent to get some little bit of my buying power and hopefully get my name on a list for future endless attacks. “Sasha” was offering me pictures of herself. “Mohammed Townsand” was offering Viagra. “Mrs. Mariam Coleman” was offering a donation of $2.8 million dollars from her Kuwaiti Christian husband’s estate. “Evelina Inge” offered me access to the #1 internet drugstore. Those were the highlights, likely to be repeated tomorrow. We are invaded with so many predatory demands to consume, it is no wonder we have developed some thick armor.
The second, more localized, reason to be wary of being consumed is that church structures are often big ideas promoted by aggressive leaders that need troops of drones to perform the duties associated with them. The “mega-church” model for church is modeled on the shopping small, in which everyone can find a place for their self-interest to be satisfied. Producing a Christian mall takes an army of dedicated “needs”-meeters. So one can have a demanding job for 60 hours a week and then be asked to have another one in your spare time and call it being the church. The church is so adapted to consumer capitalism in our country that everyone in it is required to produce some product for further consumers to consume. So everyone just keeps getting consumed.
We burn but are not consumed
There are good reasons to avoid being consumed. When a person enters the church with a shopping list of demands and looks at you like you are the sales clerk, a deeper conversation might be required before you automatically launch into trying to satisfy their desires. They do not have a God-given right to consume you. You are not a product. You are not a donation to their cause. People often have a general wrong idea about the world. If they apply it to you and you go with it, that doesn’t necessarily mean you are being nice.
On the other hand, the bush was on fire, but it was not consumed. We can be so aware of “having boundaries” that we also become unavailable for being on fire! We can get so we are wary of God consuming us. But when the Consuming Fire lights us up, we are not consumed. Much the contrary, the Fire behind creation shines through; we have more substance than what we previously thought of as substance. So when that same person comes at us thinking we are the Christian salesclerk who is supposed to have whatever product they need, we can call their name, by God’s grace (“Sasha, Sasha”), and be a connection with the One they really need.
If one is a burning bush because the Consuming Fire lives in her, please do not leave someone wandering in the foothills of Horeb. You will not be consumed if you offer someone the Lord. Even if they shake your tree or pick at the branches of your bush looking for what they don’t need, you’ll be OK. If we rely on the Lord, and not just our ability to produce the fruit someone thinks they’d like to eat while ignoring the fire calling their name, we’ll be OK. The Lord burns with His own goodness and it has become inexhaustibly available to us in Jesus.
I have been pondering the de-evangelization of a few of my friends, lately. So it struck me when a blog kept popping up on the WordPress “hits list” about “Losing My Religion.” I have one friend whose new buddy is a Moslem. I have another who has “these Buddhist friends.” And I know all sorts of ex-evangelicals who are struggling to overcome years of trying and failing to “get it right.” They are losing their faith, too — or, at least, it is being undermined. There are a lot of attacks on faith in Jesus being waged, some with good targets in bogus Christianity and others attacking the truth. It is not an easy day to be a follower of Jesus.
So this person’s top-twenty reasons for losing faith kind of stung me. He seems to be losing what I call “crap Christianity” not any real faith. I think most people should lose what he is losing in order to form an actual relationship with God! So I feel compelled to try brief answers to his brief statements, just to get my two-cents worth in – and maybe to dissuade someone from thinking they are losing their faith when they are just asking the right questions.
His thoughts are in italics, my replies are not. I hope you’ll add to my thoughts, as well.
[This post is so long, you may as well take more time and go here, too, before we get started]
“I began to question why the god of the Bible is more believable than all other gods worshiped on earth. With the mountain of evidence staring me in the face, my faith began to die.”
Trading faith in God for an assessment of evidence is a definite change of world view. My faith is evidence of things unseen. Jesus is revelation, not another fact among many with me at the center living a life of endless sorting.
I finally moved past guilt and admitted to myself that I no longer believe in Jesus or the god of the Bible. Surprisingly it was a relief. Not because I wanted to run wild and sin freely, but because I no longer felt the weight a Christian carries. The weight of guilt, unworthiness and fear of god’s judgment.
This seems like a true sign that a person has only met religion, not God. The whole point of the work of Jesus is to free us from the weight one feels, not induce it! We may sense a weight of glory, but hardly of judgment.
His top twenty reasons for losing his faith.
1. God is wrathful, jealous, hateful, and kills nations of people like it is a bodily function. He is certainly not just or “holy” in nature.
The formation of the chosen people of Israel is not the last thing God did. Postmodern people parse Bible data as if what one did when he was twelve is equal to what one did when he was fifty. Humankind has been growing and God has been very creative in working out how to redeem us. We relate to God, not assess his immutable character, as we see it.
2. The act of throwing people into infinite torture and punishment for not believing a Jewish guy from 2,000 years ago was God’s son, or unknowingly worshiping the wrong god, is extremely cruel and sadistic.
Which is why I don’t believe that. People who follow Jesus rise from the dead to everlasting life and those who don’t follow don’t have the life. There will be a painful recognition of this lack for those who don’t, but no eternal torture.
3. The statements, “God works in mysterious ways,” or “It will all make sense in heaven,” are little more than irrational cop outs. This God allows horrible atrocities to be committed against innocent men, women and children every day.
I mostly agree; those are cop-outs. I don’t throw God out for inept or wrong-headed followers.
4. Bloody animal and human sacrifices are illogical demands by a divine god as payment for petty wrong doings. These actions are no different than the rituals of archaic pagan religions. Not to mention the bizarre ritual of symbolically drinking human blood and eating human flesh.
Archaic pagan religions may be smarter than sanitized, atomized, OCD, postmodern religions of no religion. Regardless, a bloody, bodily, connective God who connects with us in Jesus is beautiful.
5. If God loves us and wants us to know and believe in him, why be so completely invisible? What is the purpose of being so illusive to those who believe and worship him?
For one thing, God is not us, so it takes some multi-dimensional capacities to have a relationship. More to the point, turning our backs makes him invisible. Nevertheless, Jesus is visible. The body of Christ is visible. The works of God’s Spirit are visible. The creator is visible in the creation.
6. God never manifests himself or performs miracles as he regularly did for the Israelites in Old Testament stories.
I’m not so sure about that. The OT is the condensed version of hundreds of years of history. If one condensed the last 2000 years into the same amount of written material, the miracles would be incredibly dense.
7. Prayers are never answered. Certainly not in the way Jesus described. Prayer has absolutely no affect on the world around us.
Nonsense. Even I have my own anecdotal evidence to refute that. God responded to my prayer last night.
8. Jesus did not fulfill major Old Testament prophesies or even fulfill his own promises and predictions.
So? Chances are he will. But I am not sure he was obligated to do anything but what he was sent to do, anyway. People do, however, make a big deal about how Jesus “proves” his validity as Savior by being the fulfillment of prophecies, so it is a worthy criticism. If Jesus were Nostradamus, maybe he would be untrustworthy.
9. The authors of much of the Bible are unknown. And of these unknown authors, the men who wrote the gospels likely never even met Jesus considering they were written 40-70 years after his death. A far cry from reliable testimony.
The man who wrote these questions does not even use his real name on his blog, so he is unknown as well – he has an ironic complaint. Regardless, hundreds of people validated the testimony of the gospel-writers. The whole community of believers has been assessing the testimony and validating it for centuries. It is hard to imagine a more reliable and tested revelation. But everyone writing the Bible thinks God will verify the testimony himself, anyway.
10. The Bible is repeatedly contradictory with itself, reality, and the laws of morality. Couldn’t God inspire a less poorly written book?
Of course the Bible contradicts itself if all one thinks it is is a moral lesson or systematic theology. The whole Bible is not meant to be morally exemplary. When King David has Uriah set up, that is hardly a suggestion to “have someone killed effectively.”
11. The Bible is open to interpretation. Everyone interprets it in the way that suits them best or serves their purposes.
Of course we interpret. We are humans, not robots. Hopefully, we discern, not just compare notes.
12. Throughout history, Christians have justified horrific actions by the Bible and its teaching.
So? They were wrong. They have also caused amazing transformation.
13. The Bible promotes hate and persecution against women, homosexuals and those who worship other gods or no god at all.
No, it actually promotes their wholeness. What’s more, the western world’s promotion of human rights is a direct expression of the Christian respect for human dignity and individual value. Democracy is basically Christianity without God, which is what makes it so attractive and dangerous.
14. According to the Bible, nearly 70% percent of the people in the world will burn in hell because they don’t believe Jesus was the son of God.
Another ironic complaint. If you don’t care about God, why would you care about being with God? Just go ahead and die. Again, I don’t think the scripture fully teaches that people burn in hell forever. They may go to ash; but all dead bodies, do.
15. The only reason I was a Christian was because I was indoctrinated into the religion as a child as a result of the culture and region of the world in which I was born.
That is too bad. A lot of people never gain faith because of that.
16. Christianity has no more rational or factual foundation than any other religion on earth that I openly reject.
These points are all just personal reactions, so it is hard to understand what is behind them. Maybe the writer has done some great thinking, but it does not appear so. Having done an awful lot of research, myself, I think religions are much more different than people have been lead to believe by postmodern, dumbed-down, pluralism promoters. The similarities are great; people come up with great stuff and long for love and life, but Jesus is a deeper foundation. Faith in Jesus is rich and very satisfying rationally, too.
17. The Christian church is disjointed and can’t even agree with one another.
That’s for sure. This is the best reason so far, that I can see, for not being a Christian. I’m often surprised that God keeps drawing people to himself by means of the church. But it happened last night after our 7pm meeting.
18. Christians are not at all ethically or morally different from non-Christians.
I think that is a good reason to become a Christian. We need to be saved. My morality does not prove Jesus, but my immorality proves my need for Him.
19. Today, powerful church leaders steal, lie and molest young children. The church repeatedly attempts to cover up these atrocities, only to reluctantly apologize as a last resort.
I think the author is mostly talking about the Roman Catholic church, which should either reform or disperse. The number one reform that needs to happen is ending the requirement that priests are celibate.
20. It is absolutely irrational to continue to believe archaic teaching with the amount of knowledge we’ve gained through science and technology. The Bible reads like a book of primitive folklore, not divinely inspired insight into our true reason for existence.
The Bible is hardly the only source of inspiration for Christians, as the Bible teaches. I agree that everything about God is not summed up in the Bible. But it seems crazy to think that knowledge is summed up in “science and technology,” which is what plenty of scientists say.
What do you think? Any faith out there? Having any stories about speaking back to the de-evangelizers?
The other day when we were reading Psalm 109 during noon prayer, we understood it completely wrong. We heard verses 6-19 like they were the psalmist pronouncing a long curse on someone. It was hard to take thirteen verses of curse! Sometimes the Psalms get a little rough for us, since we’ve all been taught to keep our emotions subject to our theories and politics. We’ve had to get used to all that angry talk and wild reactions in the Psalms jarring our sensibilities a little – this one, however, just seemed over the top:
“May his children become orphans
and his wife a widow.” (v.9)
Who would say such a thing!! We were uncomfortable reading it.
The prayer starts off in a way we could relate to more easily:
“In return for my love they accuse me,
though my prayer is for them.
And they offer me evil in return for good
and hatred in return for my love: (Psalm 109:4-5)
That we could pray. We’ve all been abused and misunderstood. I’m not very good at seeing it — but I am sometimes hated. I’m usually shocked when I find out about what someone feels about me or says about me, but sometimes I do find out that I have an opponent who doesn’t mind taking me out behind my back. In return for my love, they hate me.
We thought what came next was the Psalmist pronouncing a long curse on the people who returned hate for love:
“Appoint a wicked man over him,
let an accuser stand at his right…
Let his days be few,
may another man take his post….
May his offspring be cut off,
in the next generation his name wiped out”
It was going on and on. One of us finally said, “Whew!” Because we usually think – “If it is in the Bible, then it is an example for us.” If the Psalms are a prayer book, this is a wild prayer! We were a little hesitant to say the prayer.
We didn’t understand that vv. 6-19 is a quote of what someone else is saying about the psalmist, not what he is saying about them. The prayer is about being taken out, being hated, being attacked by an evil person. He ends up crying out for mercy:
“And You, O Lord, Master,
act on my behalf for the sake of Your name,
for Your kindness is good. O save me!
For poor and needy am I,
and my heart is pierced within me.”
My realization from a few days of using this Psalm and studying it is that I get surprisingly out of touch with the forces that are coming against me! Evil and its allies want me destroyed. You may have the opposite problem and think I am kind of nutty, since you’re effectively paranoid all day — so have some mercy. I had such a resistance to pronouncing a curse that I didn’t see the curse coming at me — even in the safety of my own prayer book!
In Celtic Daily Prayer today, it says
“Our society teaches us to be suspicious of what is good, and to listen passively to whatever is evil.”
We may not even be aware that evil is coming at us! When it does, we may invite it in for a drink because we are committed to being nice, or at least committed to appearing nice. I want to love and trust first, but I don’t want to be nice to evil. Even worse, I don’t want to impassively stew in what’s wrong until it cooks me.
So I recommend some appropriate drama today. Let’s pray it together: “I am surrounded! I am needy! Save me!” Let’s be appropriately concerned that we might be mean to someone. But for those of you like me, let’s be appropriately aware that we have opponents. We’re doing good things and they will be opposed. We are made good in Jesus and we, because of that good at work within us, are dangerous, as far as the Lord’s opponents are concerned. They will try to take us out.
When Gwen and I were on the Dingle Peninsula last summer, we did not expect a new grandson to end up with the name Brendan! It is a good name. On May 16, when we remember St. Brendan the Navigator (484-577) I would love to help launch the next generation of daring souls looking for the fullness of their life in Christ. Maybe our own family’s Brendan will be among them.
Each generation has a boatload of people who will set off into the “deep,” looking for God in all the places the Lord can be found. I don’t think it is such a coincidence that Jesus looked for fishermen to be his first disciples. The Lord found another good disciples when he met Brendan near Tralee in Ireland. St. Brendan’s voyage was an inspiration for hundreds of years for seafaring and church planting daredevils. When Brendan got back from his journey of discovering himself in Jesus (and discovering America!) he founded several communities that added to the missionary fervor of the Celtic Church.
I want to be like him, so I ended up on pilgrimage to the place where his daring journey began…
Brendan’s Creek, Dingle Peninsula, Ireland
…and where it ended.
Clonfert Cathedral, where Brendan is buried
In the devotional book, Celtic Daily Prayer I have been using, there is a nice prayer in honor of Brendan. The Northumbria Community suggests we use it on this day. I offer it to you.
