So I generally have nothing to do with politics. And this is not a polemical post for or against any political views on any side of the map. I try to be as anti-Republican as I am anti-Democrat, and that doesn't mean I'm an Independent! I just happen to be of the opinion that politics, as a fully human institution, are frail. And each politician and political party takes its own stab at what it sees as the "right" way, or the appropriate platform(s); to assume that any politician or political party could "get it right" in every way, or to assume that one could find a party that expresses perfectly all of one's own convictions, is ludicrous.
As I said, that's my opinion. I speak the above paragraph in humility, knowing I don't have it figured out. In fact, I know next to NOTHING about politics, specifically because I tend to stay out of it and see the whole endeavor as fairly pointless. If you are passionate about a particular political party, my goal in this post is not to bash your party, and it certainly isn't to upset you. Instead, I hope you will pause to consider whether there should even be a "your" party. Said differently, when you fully support the "party line" of any political party, should there not be areas of dissonance, where you find yourself disagreeing with some of the platforms of "your" party? What are parties, after all, or party platforms? Aren't they just conglomerations of ideas and stances held by a majority of a group that holds to similar patterns of thinking? For example: put me in a room with 10 people who think in a similar way to me (perhaps all Bible students with similar family backgrounds from similar parts of the country), and we could probably come up with a list of beliefs that a majority of us hold to. That would be our party line. But certainly there would be beliefs that I didn't quite agree with, where I was in the minority. Just because that's my "party," shouldn't I still think critically as an individual about what I believe?
Here's what stoked all of this thinking and stimulated this post. There was an article on Drudge Report about the Tea Party, and this article was quoting from German political theorists who were commenting on the political situation in America. I found all of their quotes very interesting. (I am just learning about the Tea Party, and I found the article informative and helpful. You can see the full article here). In this article, the German business newspaper Handelsblatt was quoted as saying this of the situation in American politics (and specifically of the Tea Party), from an outside (perhaps fairly objective) viewpoint:
Tiptoeing into a Political Discussion
Serving Others From a Position of Weakness
I ran across a great quote from Karl Barth in my reading today. In case you don't know, he is a very well-known German theologian, probably the greatest theologian of the 20th century in many minds. He wrote a HUGE work called Church Dogmatics that I believe is supposed to be a systematic theology (expounding on all the basics of the Christian faith), and he also wrote many other works. This quote comes from his commentary on Romans, and he is commenting on Romans 2:1, which says, "You, therefore, are without excuse whenever you pass judgment on someone else, for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things."
Barth says, "Whenever thou dost erect thyself upon a pedastal, thou doest wrong; whensoever thou sayest 'I' or 'we' or 'it is so', thou dost exchange the glory of the incorruptible for the image of the corruptible (Romans 1.23)... The removal of thyself from the burden of the world by some pretended insight or vision does but press the burden of the world more heavily upon thee than upon any other. By striding ahead of others, even though it be for their assistance, as though the secret of God were known to thee, thou dost manifest thyself ignorant of God's secret; for by thy removal from thy fellows thou dost render thyself incapable of assisting even the most helpless among them. By beholding folly as the folly of others, thine own folly cries out to heaven" (Romans 56).
Though I disagree with Barth when he states that this is what Paul means in 2:1, I love his thoughts. I especially resonated with the statement that when we remove ourselves from the burdens of the world by some pretended insight, striding ahead of others even to help them, we show ignorance. To help and serve and love others, we cannot claim positions or power or wisdom or knowledge or prerogative. We simply must offer our help to them as one sinner serving another. When we act like we are in some sense an expert, like we have something to offer, it is then that we are furthest from being able to make any impact on the needs of others... It is then that our "own folly cries out to heaven"!
The Finish...
I heard a commentary on ESPN Radio today, where the speaker was talking about a recent vacation he and his family took. He talked about how the vacation was excellent, the kids had a great time, no one got hurt, it was a great bonding experience, etc. They had nothing but positive emotions related to the vacation. Then they got on the plane to come home with their 1 year old, and everything changed. The way the vacation ended, he said, totally colored the vacation as a whole. How quickly those fun times were forgotten as they stumbled into the house exhausted from the trip home!
He went on to relate this to the US Open golf tournament which was played this past week, where a golfer was absolutely dominating through the first three rounds of the tournament. He looked calm, made all the right decisions, and just generally was the best golfer on the course. Yet in his final round he completely bombed, shooting an 11-over par.
These things made me consider the finish in our relationship with God, and how really this is all that matters. The start is crucial to getting us on the journey, but it is only the start. And anyone can start. Very few can say with Paul, "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith" (2 Timothy 4:7).
So you were really close to God a few years back? Great. You used to study the Bible all the time, so much so that you still remember TONS about the Bible? Cool. You have always been known as a very devoted follower of Christ by all your friends? Fantastic. But are you still running the race? Are you still seeking God? Are you still in relationship with him, communing with him on a regular basis? I know these questions have been very humbling and challenging for me to consider, for it is so easy to sort of "ride the wave" of your spiritual past, forgetting that God is not dead. On the contrary, he is very much alive, as alive as your spouse or your child. And he is not interested in the past of our relationship with him, good or bad, nor is he even too interested in our future relationship; he is interested in the present, the here-and-now, daily walk with him he longs for us to have.
May you not merely begin the marathon of faith, and may you not fizzle out at mile 18. Keep going. Fight the good fight of the faith. Keep the faith. And finish. It is all about how you finish, and none of us know where the finish line is...
The Rich Man and Lazarus: a new reading
This morning in my time with God I flipped to Luke 16 and began reading the parable Jesus told there about the rich man and Lazarus. I memorized these verses when I was in high school, and have read them or heard them preached many times. But today I read them in an entirely new way, and I think I may have finally understood what Jesus was actually intending to say through the parable.
The Greatest of these is Love
I have a thought I wanted to share from Scripture, simply because it is beautiful to me and thought someone else might appreciate it. This is a thought pointed out by a Greek professor I had a couple years ago, so it's something I've been thinking about for a while. .
It is regarding 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. My professor asked us what we thought Paul was getting at when he said, "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love." I had never really given much thought to what Paul meant when he said this, or to what God is saying to us as Christians today through these words. If asked, I probably would have said that Paul was simply saying that faith, hope, and love were all extremely important, but that love was the greatest. In other words, it was just a poetic way to emphasize love's exceeding importance.
However, my professor challenged us to think about why love is the greatest of these three. In his view (and after a couple years of thought I agree with him), of these three virtues love is the greatest because it is the only one that will last. It is the only one that, in the end, will ALWAYS remain. There will come a day when faith is no longer necessary. If faith is being certain of what we do not see (Hebrews 11), there will come a day when faith will be obsolete, because we will see clearly. We will see Jesus face to face. We will know him, and he will be with us, and he will be our God. And there will come a day when hope will no longer be necessary, for who hopes for what he already has? On that day Revelation 21 tells us there will no more death or mourning or crying or pain. Everything will be restored. Shalom has returned. Hope is no longer needed, because things are right. But love... Love is the greatest, because it will last. The love we experience now is but a taste of the deep and full love we will experience for eternity, as we are loved by God with the deepest love, loved by the essence and creator of love... And as we love him back, and love each other. The greatest of these is love...
Spiritual Formation
My own personal spiritual formation is an issue that I have struggled with and continue to struggle with: in the midst of life and all its demands, and in light of my own self-centeredness, how do I establish a rhythm or routine that enables me to encounter Christ and be formed spiritually? I have been working through this for quite some time, and this semester was reintroduced to the work of Ruth Haley Barton called Sacred Rhythms. Actually working through this book has been so refreshing for me, has introduced or re-introduced several spiritual disciplines that I think will be so helpful for me, and has laid the groundwork for me to incorporate a rhythm into my life that will enable me to grow.
I won't bore you with the details of my own journey, but I wanted to share that in case this book could help prod and encourage anyone else in their spiritual journey. I'll post a link to it on Amazon below...
Is Hunting Off-limits??
So I have never hunted before. Let me preface this post with that admission, or claim to the moral high ground, however you see the issue personally. :) I have never given much thought to the ethical dimensions of hunting, probably because I have never been that interested in environmentalism. I am starting to wake up to the importance of this issue, although I still am not as cooperative as I should be in the recycling my wife tries to do. I see how important it is to value and treasure the earth, since it is the only earth God has given us and we are the stewards of that gift (in a similar fashion to how we have been given one physical body and must be good stewards of that). But I have been slow to act on my realization of the importance of this truth.
I have been even slower to recognize how important it is to treasure animals and all of God's creatures. Part of this stems from my strong negative feelings toward the "pet idol" movement I have observed in America: pets are like people, and we value them to such a great extent that they become an idol for us, something we value more than human relationships. Despite that unhealthy tendency, though, it is true that God's creatures are valuable in his sight--all creatures, both human and animal--and we must value them and treat them with respect.
I just read a quote that got me thinking of all this, and here it is:
"The Noachic covenant [God's covenant with Noah found in Genesis 9] emphasizes reverence for the mystery of life, symbolized by the blood. Permission is given to human beings to slaughter meat for food, but with appropriate reserve and reverence (Gen. 9:4-5). Their God-given freedom does not entitle them to kill for sport or to destroy species. The nonhuman creation is not there simply for humans to use or exploit. Animals too are precious in God's sight, and this valuation may extend to trees, flowers, and other parts of 'nature.' In short, human beings are caretakers of God's creation... This is what is involved in being made in the image of God: to rule the earth in wisdom, justice, and compassion so that the rule of God may be manifest in human actions" (Bernard Anderson, Contours of Old Testament Theology, 95).
Wow. That's a great quote in my opinion. The comment near the end about being made in the image of God goes back to his earlier discussion of what this phrase means. To be made in the image of God, in Anderson's view, means to have a function or role, to represent God on earth, "just as a child represents the parent on a family estate" (90). In this view, man "is not an autonomous being, at liberty to rule the earth arbitrarily or violently. On the contrary, human dominion is to be exercised wisely and benevolently so that God's dominion over the earth may be manifest in care for the earth and in the exercise of justice" (91).
This is what all goes back to hunting! If we are not free to treat the earth how we want, whether through treating animals violently or through raping the earth's natural resources in whatever fashion we want, then that certainly has implications for how we live. We must do what we can to treasure the earth and its creatures, both in our own lives and through the laws we support. And maybe we should take another look at hunting and the underlying assumptions behind it. I have always felt a little uncomfortable with the idea of killing an animal for fun, but Genesis 9 seems to instruct us to treat the blood of animals with great respect, for the life given to it by God is in its blood. It is one thing to kill an animal to nourish our bodies. I believe this is absolutely okay, mainly because Scripture says it is okay and because I do believe that animals are subject to humans, since God set it up that way. However, does our "dominion" over animals give us the right to kill them for fun? Isn't there something about this that fails to treasure God's creation? Isn't there something about this that fails to rule the earth in wisdom and compassion? I'm just asking the question...
Purpose of the Church: Michael Frost
I just posted a mini-review of the first section of The Shaping of Things to Come, and this post is about a youtube video I just watched with one of its authors, Michael Frost. Michael talks about the purpose of the Church in compelling ways, ways that challenged me, and I wanted to share some of his thoughts. If you'd like to watch the video for yourself (it's only 3 1/2 minutes), you can go here.
The Missional Church
So I read a book called The Shaping of Things to Come by Frost and Hirsch a while back, and I am going through it with some friends right now. I wrote out a few thoughts pertaining to the first section of the book, and I thought I would share those thoughts here as well. The book certainly has some ideas that I don't wholeheartedly agree with, but on the whole it hits the nail on the head and makes some very important challenges to the way the church in the West is currently operating. I invite and encourage you to get this book and work through it. There is a link to buy it at the bottom of this article...
What are gospels?
I have noticed in my own life and the lives of others that a fundamental misunderstanding of what the gospels are has caused major problems. Because much of the Christian faith is based on the historical man Jesus, and because so much of that faith is based on the four gospels, which claim to offer firsthand information regarding him, it is really important that we understand what they are. I have often been guilty of asking too much or too little of these books, or reading them as one document instead of four. Here, according to Mark Allan Powell, is how we ought to understand the gospel genre as seen in the New Testament:
- They are compilations—include other genres within their pages, like genealogies, hymns, parables, miracle stories, speeches, pronouncement stories, etc.
- They are influenced by Jewish literature—written in Greek but by people well versed in the Hebrew Scriptures, which include semibiographical narratives of people like Abraham and Moses.
- They are ancient biographies, not modern ones—make no pretense of offering objective or balanced perspectives on Jesus’ life, nor do they report their sources or offer any way for readers to check the reliability of what they wrote. Further, their treatment is not comprehensive: reveal little about Jesus’ personality or motivation, provide almost no information about his early life, do not describe his physical appearance, etc. Audiences at this time did not expect such questions to be addressed in biographies—point was to relate accounts that portrayed the essential character of the person so as to invite emulation of him. Chronology was also typically not of concern, so that events were not reported in the order they occurred but in a sequence likely to have a particular rhetorical effect on its readers.
- They employ a fictive (“fictionlike”) style of narrative—literary style is closer to that of modern fiction than to modern historical reporting. This doesn’t speak to the accuracy of what was reported, but the STYLE of writing is similar to today’s historical fiction. They knew the art of storytelling, employing literary devices such as irony, symbolism, and foreshadowing—so we can talk about the “plot” of a particular gospel, or about how its rhetorical features bring the story to a climax. Authors in this time treated history as a story and told it with a flair that modern readers associate with fiction.
- They are overtly evangelistic—most biographies in the ancient world were in one way or another, not simply passing on information but reporting on extraordinary people with the hope that readers would be inspired and motivated to change their values or behaviors accordingly. The gospel writers clearly tell the story in a way that may inspire people to accept his teaching or practice his way of life. More than this, the writers make it clear that they believe Jesus’ story has ultimate significance and will affect the lives of all people, whether they believe in him or not.
Real Baby Fake Baby...
The article below appeared today on CNN. Needless to say, I was disgusted. And the question that came to mind was: What causes this? What on earth is going on inside people that they act in such a way? Consider those questions as you read...
Lent: focus on Christ or ourselves?
Thoughts on the Documentary Food Inc.
I posted some thoughts (here) a while back on what we eat and how it is related to the Kingdom, to being Shalomers (see what I mean by "Shalomer" here). I just watched a very interesting documentary called Food Inc., and it had a lot to say about this very issue. The basic premise of the movie is that we as Americans have become very separated from our food. Agriculture used to be part of our lives, whether we worked the land ourselves or knew those who did. We used to know where our food came from, but today is a different story. Most of the food on the shelves of our grocery stores is processed beyond recognition, making it terribly unhealthy. So this movie will make you think about what you eat, and making some changes in the foods you buy.
What it did not convince me of was the need to buy only "organic" foods, which seemed to be one of the goals of the movie. For a long time I have questioned: what exactly IS "organic," and who defines it, and how do I know someone hasn't just slapped organic on the label to make me think it's healthier so they can charge me more? These are all still valid questions in my mind after watching the movie, but I would say while I do not feel obliged to buy organic now, I do have serious questions about the quality of the food I'm buying. Is the chicken or beef I am buying terribly unhealthy because of the terrible practices of the few huge, multinational food companies who control the meat markets? Some of the images regarding how these companies raise chickens or cows in order to pump out the meat were absolutely disgusting, but so important to see. Those images, and understanding such practices, will certainly make you think about the foods you buy.
This was the most helpful and challenging part of the movie to me: I am much more aware of my ignorance about where my food comes from, my utter separation from the production of my food. And I don't think our current model is the way it is supposed to work.
Beyond this, there was a quote in the movie that I really appreciated, and I started nodding my head and saying, "Now you're talking like a Christian!" They were interviewing a remarkable farmer, a guy named Joel Salatin. He has refused to sell out to the multi-national corporations, and is passionate about farming and raising chickens and pigs (even slaughtering them) in humane ways. He said, "A culture that just views a pig as a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure to be manipulated by whatever creative design the human can foist upon that critter will probably view individuals within its community and other cultures in the community of nations with the same type of disdain and disrespect and controlling type mentality." You have to watch the movie to understand what it is that these corporations have been doing to animals (and us, by extension) in order to increase profits, but it was disturbing to watch.
And I think Joel is onto something here. Now anyone who knows me knows that I am the farthest thing from a PETA advocate. Don't have pets, don't want pets, etc. But when it is acceptable in a culture to treat animals the way they have been treating them, it is not too big of a leap to assume that such a selfish way of thinking will bleed over into the ways we view and treat other humans. In fact, the movie did show that it was not a leap at all for these corporations, who have made a business of recruiting Mexican nationals to come and work in their meat-packing plants. Then when the government began cracking down on illegal immigrants, they helped the government round up and arrest their own employees, taking no responsibility for what they had done. Further, they made a deal with the government that they would hand over 15 illegal immigrants a day, so that things at the plant could keep running smoothly and profits would not be affected. Wow! It sounds to me as if they had indeed made the leap, viewing HUMAN BEINGS working for them as nothing but "a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure," in Joel's words. (I don't think he has a medical degree in his future, by the way). :)
Here's the point: each action we take says something about the condition of our hearts, about how we view and value life. What we eat and what we are okay with in the production of our food also makes a statement. I encourage you to watch this movie, if only to educate yourself. But more, I encourage you to not let the ends, whatever they are in your life, justify unwholesome, unhealthy means.
Powell's Introducing the New Testament
So I just read the opening chapter of this work for my New Testament class. It is a text book, but it is such a wonderful text book. Great layout, great charts, and most importantly great information. I have had several New Testament classes before, in undergrad, so much of the information was not new to me. But lots of it was, or I had forgotten. And the way he lays out the information is so helpful.
The Olympics, God's Call, and Shalom
As I was watching some of the Olympics last night, some thoughts occurred to me about the goals we give ourselves to, the calling or vocation we dedicate our lives to. I have been thinking a lot about calling lately, about how each of us has one life and a limited supply of days and months and years with which to "pursue our calling." To back up and talk about what calling is briefly (you can see the previous posting on primary/secondary calling for more), I believe calling to be all about the Caller. My calling is what God has specifically designed me to be and to do for him, and I discover that calling in the midst of my relationship with him. Though we all have the same primary calling, to love and follow Christ, to be Shalomers in essence, our secondary callings are our specific calling from God. And I believe he knows each of us, and has a plan for each of us, and is calling each of us to something special.
In other words, I don't think we go to seminars and read books on our personality types, fill out surveys on what jobs might work for us, and then choose from an arbitrary list of possible job fits. These methods may actually help us in discerning what God is calling us to, but we can never discover our true calling outside of our relationship with him, because "calling" assumes a Caller.
Anyway, what does all of this have to do with the Olympics? Well I was watching the female mogul skiers last night, and each time one of them would get a little too much air in one of her jumps and would fall down, the thought hit me: Oh my goodness--this girl has been training for the past four years, and probably for much longer than that, in order to be at these Olympics and compete. And she just fell down. Her dream is over. All her work has come to naught, at least insofar as she was training with the purpose of winning a medal for herself and her country. It's over. Better luck in four years.
How sad is that! And then the thought hit me that perhaps she has been in training this whole time for something she was never called to do. Now this is not for me or anyone else to judge: whether someone else is properly pursuing his or her calling. We each have enough trouble trying to figure out what OUR OWN calling is to worry about others. But if we want to be about partnering with God in this world to bring his Kingdom, his Shalom, and if we want to be about helping to right the wrongs of this world for God's glory, I think we can say that some things are probably not worth pursuing.
We only get one life, after all. I was trying to explain to my oldest daughter about age, and about how her sister is not actually 0, but is 5 months old. She, I explained, is 41 months old, and her daddy is something like 300 months old. (She was staring at me blankly throughout this conversation, and I realized this was all a little abstract for her 3 year-old mind). But the point is that we only get a certain number of months, don't we? And then they are all used up. Further, we may get many fewer months than we envisioned or planned on.
What does all of this mean? Well I believe God is calling you and I to something special, something big. I believe he has important plans for each of our lives, and if we will open our minds and hearts and seek that out, he will lead us to a place we never imagined, but to a place that is so much greater than where we could or would have taken ourselves. If we will earnestly ask God to make his vision for our lives our vision, I believe he'll reveal a call for our lives that is more dangerous than we are comfortable with, but more exciting and meaningful than we could have imagined!
Let us not seek out a "good job", or a comfortable lifestyle, or a nice salary, or whatever. Let us seek out Christ, and let us be passionate about using our only life to partner with God to bring his Shalom to this world. Let us follow after Jesus in giving away our lives for the sake of something bigger than ourselves, so that we will not have bought into the great American lie and lived our lives for ourselves, for something less than eternal, for nothing...