The first chapter of Luke contains two of the four appearances of the angel Gabriel (the other two being in the book of Daniel). The first is the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist, where Gabriel appears to John's soon-to-be father Zachariah the priest in the Holy Place of the temple in Jerusalem. The second is the announcement of the birth of Christ to Mary, which takes place in the town of Nazareth in the backwater region of Galilee. There is a lesson to be learned, I think, even in that--the two different settings. God sends the same angel (who is, if you read the accounts of him in Daniel, a very important and powerful angel: not the angel of birthday greetings) to one of the most sacred places in the Jewish faith (the Temple in Jerusalem) and one of the most common, everyday places in Jewish life (a town in Galilee). He is sent to a respected elder among the ordained priests who is, at the time, performing his religious duties. He is also sent to a young woman of negligible social standing (who's only distinction in society was to be her upcoming marriage to a middle-class carpenter from nowheresville, Luke 1:27) apparently minding her own business. God does not make any distinction here between the sacred and the common. If anything, He seems to favor the common more, sending Mary a greater message than was sent to Zachariah the priest.
But for now, I wanted to focus on the reactions both people had to the message. It has always struck me that both people questioned Gabriel (and, implicitly, God, since Gabriel was simply His messenger). Both of them ask Gabriel "How?" Yet they receive very different replies. Gabriel answers Mary's question kindly, but reacts to Zachariah's similar question with anger and strikes the priest mute as punishment. I always wondered why the reactions were so different. Was God cutting Mary some extra slack because she was to bear Christ? Was Zachariah held to a higher standard as a priest of God?
Now, though, I think the difference isn't in Gabriel's reaction, but in the questions themselves. Mary asks, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" (Luke 1:34). Zachariah asks, "How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years." (Luke 1:18). At first, the questions seem almost identical. Both Mary and Zachariah are questioning the angel's announcement of birth on the basis of known biological facts which would prevent such a birth from occurring. Zachariah's wife, Elizabeth, is an old woman, past menopause and considered barren even before that. Her husband's no spring chicken himself. How could such a pair have children? Mary's situation is even more strange: she's a virgin, and unmarried. While her fertility would later be established by the children she bore Joseph (Matthew 13:55-56), at the moment--and for the foreseeable future--she was...well, lacking an important prerequisite to conception. Both of these births were biologically impossible and both Mary and Zachariah point this out as the basis of their questions.
But from there, the questions are different. Mary asks, "How will this be?" Zachariah asks, "How shall I know this?" In other words, the questions are: "How is this going to happen?" and "How do I know you're telling the truth?" One question assumes that the message is true and asks how it will come about. The other questions the integrity of the message itself. When I realized this, the difference in Gabriel's answer was clear to me. Zachariah has called into question his integrity as a messenger and, implicitly, the integrity of God who sent him. No wonder he winds up getting...err, giving the silent treatment. Mary on the other hand isn't questioning that what God has said is true: she's just questioning how it can come about in light of known biological facts. She isn't questioning the truthfulness of the message or of God, but is asking for more information about His methods. That is a question God may not always answer (Gabriel's answer to Mary isn't terribly specific on how the mechanics of a virgin conception will come about), but it is one that He respects and allows.
I think of this in my own life, reflecting on how I trust God in day to day things, big or small (such as, right now, my job search). Of course, my faith isn't always perfect. As I fill out application after application and wait day after day by my discouragingly silent phone it seems like God's direction in the area of employment is violating some economic "facts" about the scarcity of jobs and the desirability of a recent college graduate (which does not seem to be half as great as it was hyped up to be in college). I begin to question. But what sort of questions am I asking? Am I asking the sort of questions which relate to how God will bring something about, or the sort of questions that cast doubt upon whether or not He will? There is nothing wrong with asking questions of Him, but do I question Him in faith like Mary, or in disbelief like Zachariah? To be honest, I do way more of the latter than the former, and that's not something I want to be comfortable with.
I'll pray for faith, and questions, like Mary's.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Friday, April 5, 2013
Pew Potato Faith
If you were to ask people out there what one of the key conflicts of our day is, many would say "Science vs Religion" or "Faith vs Reason." In fact, some people believe this is one of the fundamental conflicts of human history, stretching back at least as far as the Catholic Church's trial of Galileo. Some see it as one of the fundamental conflicts within human nature: whether to investigate and seek to understand some new phenomenon or else to conjure some unreasonable myth with which to explain it away. In this view, faith is defined as an irrational inherently unprovable belief that is contrary to the evidence (that is, contrary to science, for science is held to be the conclusions and procedures that derive from pursuing the evidence).
Many atheists and all "New Atheists" seem to accept and promote this definition of faith. A lot of church-goers do to, leading them to avoid looking into evidence concerning their own faith and allowing their Christianity to remain something that's detached from reality and from their daily lives: a cherished dusty old tradition that they put on every Sunday morning.
The problem with this kind of faith is that it isn't Biblical. Nowhere in the Bible does God ask us to suspend or disavow rationality so that we can have faith in Him. There are no rebukes in the Bible for seeking to examine the evidence in the world to understand it, and Christ's chiefest enemies were not the Greek philosophers of His day who made the earliest advances in modern science, but rather the Jewish religious authorities.
On the contrary, in the Bible faith, evidence, and reason are all seen as things that are intrinsically linked. In the Old Testament, especially in Isaiah, God repeatedly calls for reasonable rational arguments, critical thinking about beliefs, and a faith in Him that springs from an understanding of the world rather than arising as a substitute for it. The Bible especially contrasts this with the belief in idolatry which it portrays as inherently and (at times) hilariously irrational. But this focus on evidence-based faith didn't disappear with the coming of the New Testament. If anything, it intensified. Luke summarizes the purpose of his gospel as this: "that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught." He intends to impart that certainty not through rote repetition of myths and calls to disavow rational thought but by his efforts to "compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us" based upon the testimony of those "who from the beginning were eyewitnesses" (Luke 1:1-4). In his first letter to the Corinthian church, Paul exhorts the church to believe in the miraculous resurrection of Christ based first and foremost on the testimony of nearly five hundred living eyewitnesses. He later encouraged the belief by stating the logical consequences of rejecting it--implicitly expecting that Christians would be logically consistent in their beliefs. Christ often challenged His disciples' lack of faith, calling them "oh you of little faith" but in the places where He does so He attempts to correct their "little faith" by confronting them with some sort of evidence. The fact that God makes flowers beautiful even though they are short-lived is used as evidence to bolster faith in God's ability to provide for people as well (Matthew 6:30 and Luke 12:28). The fact that a word from Jesus calms a storm is used to provide faith to counter fear in the face of nature's fury (Matthew 8:26). The fact that Jesus was observed to be walking on the water without any trouble at all is used to counter Peter's fear of drowning while attempting to join Him (Matthew 14:25-33). In Matthew 16:8-11 Jesus launches into a diatribe reminding the disciples of the specifics of all of the miracles they've witnessed so far to bolster their faith in God's ability to provide despite them forgetting to pack a lunch.
So Biblical faith is based on evidence and springs from it. Biblically, we are not to believe in God just because it feels good or because someone told us to, but because He is the most rational explanation for the evidence we see in the world. We are to believe the claims of Christianity not contrary to the evidence but because of it. Day to day we are to put our faith in God and trust Him for everything in our lives because we have seen Him come through and reward that faith before and have reason to believe He will continue to do so.
This leads to a faith that is not logically disconnected from the world, but a faith that is an intrinsic part of how we understand the world around us and interact with it. As a consequence, it's a faith that demands to be more than something we only apply on Sunday mornings. It's a faith which (because it is based on evidence and real life experience) we can and must apply to our everyday lives.
To be sure, faith does involve an element of the unknown. It's a matter of taking an informed risk based on the evidence for one's belief. The Corinthian Christians could not go back in time and witness Christ's resurrection for themselves and neither can we, but they could place their faith on the word of a large body of eyewitnesses and take the risk of preaching and hoping in the resurrection as a consequence. The disciples couldn't peer forward in time and see that Christ was going to make sure they didn't starve when they forgot to pack bread, but they could place their faith in His ability to provide and accept the risk of not worrying where their next meal would come from based on the evidence that Jesus had previously had no problem providing gratuitous amounts of food seemingly from nowhere. So also we, when faced with life decisions may have no way of knowing that following God will lead to a good end, but our past experience with Him and the evidence of His faithfulness compels us to accept that risk and put our faith in Him yet again--and through taking such risks and having our experience prove our faith true, we grow stronger in our faith. Only in taking that risk can we gather more evidence with which to strengthen it. As a book I'm reading (A Dangerous Faith by James Lund and Peb Jackson) puts it,
Many atheists and all "New Atheists" seem to accept and promote this definition of faith. A lot of church-goers do to, leading them to avoid looking into evidence concerning their own faith and allowing their Christianity to remain something that's detached from reality and from their daily lives: a cherished dusty old tradition that they put on every Sunday morning.
The problem with this kind of faith is that it isn't Biblical. Nowhere in the Bible does God ask us to suspend or disavow rationality so that we can have faith in Him. There are no rebukes in the Bible for seeking to examine the evidence in the world to understand it, and Christ's chiefest enemies were not the Greek philosophers of His day who made the earliest advances in modern science, but rather the Jewish religious authorities.
On the contrary, in the Bible faith, evidence, and reason are all seen as things that are intrinsically linked. In the Old Testament, especially in Isaiah, God repeatedly calls for reasonable rational arguments, critical thinking about beliefs, and a faith in Him that springs from an understanding of the world rather than arising as a substitute for it. The Bible especially contrasts this with the belief in idolatry which it portrays as inherently and (at times) hilariously irrational. But this focus on evidence-based faith didn't disappear with the coming of the New Testament. If anything, it intensified. Luke summarizes the purpose of his gospel as this: "that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught." He intends to impart that certainty not through rote repetition of myths and calls to disavow rational thought but by his efforts to "compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us" based upon the testimony of those "who from the beginning were eyewitnesses" (Luke 1:1-4). In his first letter to the Corinthian church, Paul exhorts the church to believe in the miraculous resurrection of Christ based first and foremost on the testimony of nearly five hundred living eyewitnesses. He later encouraged the belief by stating the logical consequences of rejecting it--implicitly expecting that Christians would be logically consistent in their beliefs. Christ often challenged His disciples' lack of faith, calling them "oh you of little faith" but in the places where He does so He attempts to correct their "little faith" by confronting them with some sort of evidence. The fact that God makes flowers beautiful even though they are short-lived is used as evidence to bolster faith in God's ability to provide for people as well (Matthew 6:30 and Luke 12:28). The fact that a word from Jesus calms a storm is used to provide faith to counter fear in the face of nature's fury (Matthew 8:26). The fact that Jesus was observed to be walking on the water without any trouble at all is used to counter Peter's fear of drowning while attempting to join Him (Matthew 14:25-33). In Matthew 16:8-11 Jesus launches into a diatribe reminding the disciples of the specifics of all of the miracles they've witnessed so far to bolster their faith in God's ability to provide despite them forgetting to pack a lunch.
So Biblical faith is based on evidence and springs from it. Biblically, we are not to believe in God just because it feels good or because someone told us to, but because He is the most rational explanation for the evidence we see in the world. We are to believe the claims of Christianity not contrary to the evidence but because of it. Day to day we are to put our faith in God and trust Him for everything in our lives because we have seen Him come through and reward that faith before and have reason to believe He will continue to do so.
This leads to a faith that is not logically disconnected from the world, but a faith that is an intrinsic part of how we understand the world around us and interact with it. As a consequence, it's a faith that demands to be more than something we only apply on Sunday mornings. It's a faith which (because it is based on evidence and real life experience) we can and must apply to our everyday lives.
To be sure, faith does involve an element of the unknown. It's a matter of taking an informed risk based on the evidence for one's belief. The Corinthian Christians could not go back in time and witness Christ's resurrection for themselves and neither can we, but they could place their faith on the word of a large body of eyewitnesses and take the risk of preaching and hoping in the resurrection as a consequence. The disciples couldn't peer forward in time and see that Christ was going to make sure they didn't starve when they forgot to pack bread, but they could place their faith in His ability to provide and accept the risk of not worrying where their next meal would come from based on the evidence that Jesus had previously had no problem providing gratuitous amounts of food seemingly from nowhere. So also we, when faced with life decisions may have no way of knowing that following God will lead to a good end, but our past experience with Him and the evidence of His faithfulness compels us to accept that risk and put our faith in Him yet again--and through taking such risks and having our experience prove our faith true, we grow stronger in our faith. Only in taking that risk can we gather more evidence with which to strengthen it. As a book I'm reading (A Dangerous Faith by James Lund and Peb Jackson) puts it,
Faith in God is much more than sitting through a church service each Sunday. We are more than "pew potatoes." Our faith must be active: "Seek me and live" (Amos 5:4). We're not watching at TV show or attending a concert; we're participating in a great hunt. We are called to pursue a dangerous faith, living every thought, every activity, and every moment at risk for the Lord. ...It is an intentional stretching of long-held beliefs. Only here, on the precipice between the comfortable and the unknown, will faith truly thrive. Only here will you discover the ironic truth: the more you risk and trust God, the closer you move to His heart--and the safer you become.We do not take such risks blindly, but the very fact that they are not blind compels us to take them.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Regrets and Relationships
Lately, I've been receiving quite a few apologies from a couple of different people I haven't heard from in a while. Those of you who know my life know who I'm talking about. Those of you who don't...well, you don't really need to know who I'm talking about. All you need to know is that these are two people I care about, whom I've known for a while, and whom I haven't heard from in a long time mostly due to a relationship meltdown that occurred a year ago between the three of us, particularly between myself and one of my friends.
There's plenty of blame to go around for what happened a year ago, and some of it isn't even localized to the three of us (and that, of course, doesn't even consider that there might be a spiritual dimension to what caused the conflict to fall apart). Nobody walked away from that disaster with his, her, or their halo intact. However, at the time, I was led to believe that all of that blame was mine to bear and that the other parties were innocent victims of my heinous acts. That turned out to be totally false and one particular party that would have gotten away scot-free is probably the majority at fault, it turns out, since it has produced a pattern of disasters just like the one I and my two friends experienced--a documented pattern stretching back for decades (though, at this time, said party seems to be trying to escape responsibility in this case by shifting inordinate amounts of blame to my two friends--in my opinion). However, these two people did do wrong and, in all fairness, they did owe me an apology. It's been over a year and in one case I've had no contact at all from my friend, so I'd given up hope on getting that apology. This weekend, I received it and I have to say that overall that's a relief.
However, that wasn't my initial reaction to seeing my friend's name pop up in my inbox for the first time in over a year with the subject line "Apology" next to it. My first reaction was just sorrow and fear. My first words were, "I don't need your apology." It's true. I don't, not for my own sake. I forgave this person a long time ago: I had to in order to move on with my own life. You don't need someone to apologize in order to forgive them: Jesus proved that when He prayed from the cross, "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34). Neither the Romans nor the Jews who crucified Him ever apologized, and certainly no one apologized to Him at the time of His crucifixion--yet He forgave.
Like I said, I did not need an apology from this person, but I wanted it. I did not need to hear them say they'd done something wrong (I figured that part out all by myself, thank you kindly), but I did want them to say that. Why then was I so upset to see an apology email from them? Wasn't this what I'd been fighting for through hierarchies of red tape literally for months? At first I thought my reaction was pure irrationality and tried to shove it aside. Next I thought it was just fear--this person had hurt me deeply in the past and it's only natural I would fear they would hurt me again. But something about these rang hallow and I could not shove past my reluctance to open that email, my distaste for even having it.
I prayed about it and asked for prayer, and that was when it occurred to me. I wasn't upset because this person was apologizing to me or upset by the fact that they finally regretted some of their actions--I was upset because that's all I thought the email represented, and that wasn't what I wanted from them at all. At bottom, I didn't really care about the apology, or their regret--having them admit to themselves and God that what they'd done was wrong was a secondary objective at best. I hadn't fought through all this because I wanted them to feel guilty. I'd wanted to be reunited with them. I'd wanted a chance to pick up the pieces of a broken relationship with them. I'd wanted to be reconciled with them once more. My interest didn't lie in their apologies or regrets, it lay in a relationship with them, in fellowship, peace, love, and unity. Why the email upset me so was because I at first thought it would offer only an apology, only regrets, and then withhold what I was really after: a way to move on and pick back up a lost bit of sweet Christian fellowship.
As good as it was to discover that my own intentions in pursuing this issue were pure and loving rather than simply an attempt to goad a couple good people into a guilt-trip, I found something far, far better. As I prayed about that email, God reminded me of all the times I would apologize to Him over and over about a particular sin, thought, or action--about how I would brood for hours or sometimes days over regretting what I'd done. I'm not interested in your regrets either, He said. I'm interested in a relationship. The Bible says it's true. He pleads with His people in Isaiah 1:18, yearning for them to come to Him and have fellowship with Him, offering to cleanse them so that their scarlet sins are white as wool. He separates our sin from us as far as the East is from the West (Psalm 103:12). He remembers them no more (Jeremiah 31:34). In my own life, He has repeatedly rebuked me for dwelling on past sin. He does not do this for some mysterious capricious reason: He does it because He loves us. Our sin has separated us from Him, and all He wants is for us to put it away and return to Him so that we may know Him. He does not want to leave this process half-done, but on the other hand He does not let it take one second longer than necessary--for He longs to be with us! How great is our Savior! How great is His love!
There's plenty of blame to go around for what happened a year ago, and some of it isn't even localized to the three of us (and that, of course, doesn't even consider that there might be a spiritual dimension to what caused the conflict to fall apart). Nobody walked away from that disaster with his, her, or their halo intact. However, at the time, I was led to believe that all of that blame was mine to bear and that the other parties were innocent victims of my heinous acts. That turned out to be totally false and one particular party that would have gotten away scot-free is probably the majority at fault, it turns out, since it has produced a pattern of disasters just like the one I and my two friends experienced--a documented pattern stretching back for decades (though, at this time, said party seems to be trying to escape responsibility in this case by shifting inordinate amounts of blame to my two friends--in my opinion). However, these two people did do wrong and, in all fairness, they did owe me an apology. It's been over a year and in one case I've had no contact at all from my friend, so I'd given up hope on getting that apology. This weekend, I received it and I have to say that overall that's a relief.
However, that wasn't my initial reaction to seeing my friend's name pop up in my inbox for the first time in over a year with the subject line "Apology" next to it. My first reaction was just sorrow and fear. My first words were, "I don't need your apology." It's true. I don't, not for my own sake. I forgave this person a long time ago: I had to in order to move on with my own life. You don't need someone to apologize in order to forgive them: Jesus proved that when He prayed from the cross, "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34). Neither the Romans nor the Jews who crucified Him ever apologized, and certainly no one apologized to Him at the time of His crucifixion--yet He forgave.
Like I said, I did not need an apology from this person, but I wanted it. I did not need to hear them say they'd done something wrong (I figured that part out all by myself, thank you kindly), but I did want them to say that. Why then was I so upset to see an apology email from them? Wasn't this what I'd been fighting for through hierarchies of red tape literally for months? At first I thought my reaction was pure irrationality and tried to shove it aside. Next I thought it was just fear--this person had hurt me deeply in the past and it's only natural I would fear they would hurt me again. But something about these rang hallow and I could not shove past my reluctance to open that email, my distaste for even having it.
I prayed about it and asked for prayer, and that was when it occurred to me. I wasn't upset because this person was apologizing to me or upset by the fact that they finally regretted some of their actions--I was upset because that's all I thought the email represented, and that wasn't what I wanted from them at all. At bottom, I didn't really care about the apology, or their regret--having them admit to themselves and God that what they'd done was wrong was a secondary objective at best. I hadn't fought through all this because I wanted them to feel guilty. I'd wanted to be reunited with them. I'd wanted a chance to pick up the pieces of a broken relationship with them. I'd wanted to be reconciled with them once more. My interest didn't lie in their apologies or regrets, it lay in a relationship with them, in fellowship, peace, love, and unity. Why the email upset me so was because I at first thought it would offer only an apology, only regrets, and then withhold what I was really after: a way to move on and pick back up a lost bit of sweet Christian fellowship.
As good as it was to discover that my own intentions in pursuing this issue were pure and loving rather than simply an attempt to goad a couple good people into a guilt-trip, I found something far, far better. As I prayed about that email, God reminded me of all the times I would apologize to Him over and over about a particular sin, thought, or action--about how I would brood for hours or sometimes days over regretting what I'd done. I'm not interested in your regrets either, He said. I'm interested in a relationship. The Bible says it's true. He pleads with His people in Isaiah 1:18, yearning for them to come to Him and have fellowship with Him, offering to cleanse them so that their scarlet sins are white as wool. He separates our sin from us as far as the East is from the West (Psalm 103:12). He remembers them no more (Jeremiah 31:34). In my own life, He has repeatedly rebuked me for dwelling on past sin. He does not do this for some mysterious capricious reason: He does it because He loves us. Our sin has separated us from Him, and all He wants is for us to put it away and return to Him so that we may know Him. He does not want to leave this process half-done, but on the other hand He does not let it take one second longer than necessary--for He longs to be with us! How great is our Savior! How great is His love!
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Sacred Silence
In monastic orders, there's something called a sacred silence, a practice of not talking between certain hours of the day, using the silence to meditate on God. I think sometimes this is a good thing. We can get awfully caught up in our words, in our relationships, in our thoughts and feelings and expressing them to each other and God. Sometimes, it's good to stop talking and just listen.
In some modern churches, there's a sort of a sacred silence as well, but it is different. The silence isn't an agreed upon thing, temporary, so that all might focus their attention on the God Who speaks into silence. It's an interminable thing enforced between some believers and not others, designed not so that both can concentrate on God but so that one Christian need not be contaminated by the company of the other. It is a sacred silent treatment, a punishment resurrected from the juvenile antics of middle school and given the veneer of godliness. The theory is that since some sin is involved or anticipated on the part of one or both of these Christians, it's okay to separate them.
One of the most common examples is in gender relationships. Many churches have bought into the idea of emotional purity. The believe that the sexual purity the Bible admonishes us toward is only part of the equation. Sure, the Bible says we're not to commit adultery, nor to have sexual relations before marriage, that much is clear. The Jesus also said that to lust after a woman in your heart was to commit adultery with her, but the emotional purity doctrine says that Jesus didn't quite go far enough. Isn't it wrong to love someone other than your spouse? Assuming that your married already, certainly yes. The emotional purity doctrine goes even further, though, and applies this idea to the unmarried. It brings it to bear on the often-tumultuous world of dating relationships and condemns the whole idea of giving one's heart away to someone you aren't going to marry. Many of its proponents say that, in order to avoid this man-proclaimed sin, it's best to give your heart to no one until your certain they'll be your future spouse (methods of assuring this vary, but most rely on either the father or a church leader to basically play matchmaker). And how does one go about making sure they don't give their heart to someone of the opposite sex unintentionally--or worse yet, cause someone of the opposite sex to "stumble" and have feelings for them? Enter the sacred silent treatment. If the genders don't talk to each other, if they don't interact, they won't fall into the egregious sin of emotional attachment. Sometimes this is applied wholesale, sometimes on an as-needed basis between people who begin warming up to each other without a leader's go-ahead. In all cases it boils down to the same idea that lies at the heart of all sacred silent treatments (gender based and otherwise): because God wants me to preserve myself from this sinful contamination, it is okay to avoid my brother or sister in Christ as if they have the plague. God approves because keeping my purity intact is more important to Him than love and unity among believers.
Several problems arise. The first, with this particular application of the sacred silent treatment, is that the Bible is totally silent on the issue of emotional purity in singles. It says nothing about the horrible sin of having an emotional attachment or romantic interest in a member of the opposite sex, as an unmarried person. In fact, Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:36 has his golden opportunity (as a life-long celibate) to condemn the sin inherent in the process of two singles falling for each other and considering marriage--and he passes it up. More than that, he explicitly says that "it is no sin." People who teach purity of heart have to essentially make up a sin from scraps of verses taken out of context (such as Proverbs 4:23, which says, "guard your heart" but from the context the writer clearly had no intention of speaking to emotional attachments, but to holding onto wisdom and instruction and shunning wicked ways) and from a number of extra-biblical arguments (note for example, how this author of an emotional purity book makes her case: notice that she neither has nor mentions a single verse to support her case but simply relies on drawing a pseudo-logical connection between sexual immorality and the emotional connections she thinks make it more likely to occur). The lack of proof is just the beginning, though. Emotional purity comes dangerously close to the heresies of denying that Jesus came in the flesh (1 John 4:2) and was tempted just as we are--yet without sin--(Hebrews 4:15), since Jesus did many things that some proponents of the doctrine would consider inadvisable or even sinful (remember His conversation, alone, with the woman at the well, whom He knew perfectly well was a loose woman?). It also seems to deny the Christian doctrines of redemption and renewal, by implying that the romantic longings of the single are irredeemably sinful. It causes a number of other ill effects by providing a formulaic approach to an aspect of the Christian's life, rather than an approach that is receptive to the Spirit and not led by man-made laws and codes. It devalues the heart, by teaching that the more you love the less worthy you are to be loved (you've given away "pieces of your heart," thereby cheapening it). Most of all, though, emotional purity butts heads with the Christian commands to love one another. Avoiding someone and giving them the silent treatment is simply not loving to them, there's no two ways about it. This failure of love is supposedly okay because avoiding the impurity is even more important to God...but is it really so?
The Bible, as it turns out, may be totally silent on the implicit sinfulness of emotional entanglements, but it says plenty about the importance of love between believers. Christ, on the night He was crucified, took the time to give His disciples some final instructions, comfort, and one command so important that He introduced it simply as "a new commandment" and "the command I give you" and stated it three times in that address. Later, John reiterated it over and over and over again in his first epistle. The command was this: "love one another as I have loved you" (John 13:34 and 15:12). Notice that He did not take this opportunity to mention how important it was that His disciples kept themselves pure from emotional entanglements or bad company or even heresy. The most important thing to Christ's mind was that they love each other with the same all-consuming love that He had for them. Christ even brought it up again in His final prayer in John 17.
But how does this command for love stack up when matched with all God's other desires for good works, sound doctrine, personal holiness and the like? It turns out, that time and time again in the Bible, His desire for His people to love one another trumps His desire for any of these things. In Isaiah 1:11-17 even contains a pre-church example. God had Himself proclaimed all of Israel's sacrifices, feasts, assemblies, and religious observances...but here He expresses absolute hatred for them because of the way His people abuse one another.
What, then, is so sacred about the sacred silent treatment? Seeing that love and unity between Christians (male and female included: Galatians 3:28) is so vitally important in the eyes of God, what gives us the right to, in His name, drive wedges between Christians and stamp out our love for one another? Does emotional purity: a "sin" whose existence cannot even be Biblically maintained? What about complete agreement on obscure doctrinal issues? Does the Bible say it's okay to hate Christians you disagree with? Last time I checked, it doesn't. The Bible, to be fair, does state one circumstance when shunning a person is the best solution, as a last resort: excommunication for gross and unrepentant sin...and that only after the sinner has refused to repent after being confronted by the entire church (Matthew 18:15-17). Since it's easier to shun someone privately than to convince an entire church that they deserve it (or go to the effort of restoring them), it's not surprising that many excommunication practices violate the procedures of Matthew 18. In almost every case where this juvenile discipline of silence is observed and deified, it is done in violation of God's word. It is not sacred, it is a sin. It is not acceptable to God, who loves unity above purity, such that He left His own holy glory behind to live among us in our filth, in hope of redeeming and being unified with us and uniting us with each other. By creating silence and separation between believers where it ought not to be, were are not doing God's work, but destroying it. It is a shameful thing, and it is no wonder Paul rebuked the apostle for this sin. Would he were here to rebuke us!
In some modern churches, there's a sort of a sacred silence as well, but it is different. The silence isn't an agreed upon thing, temporary, so that all might focus their attention on the God Who speaks into silence. It's an interminable thing enforced between some believers and not others, designed not so that both can concentrate on God but so that one Christian need not be contaminated by the company of the other. It is a sacred silent treatment, a punishment resurrected from the juvenile antics of middle school and given the veneer of godliness. The theory is that since some sin is involved or anticipated on the part of one or both of these Christians, it's okay to separate them.
One of the most common examples is in gender relationships. Many churches have bought into the idea of emotional purity. The believe that the sexual purity the Bible admonishes us toward is only part of the equation. Sure, the Bible says we're not to commit adultery, nor to have sexual relations before marriage, that much is clear. The Jesus also said that to lust after a woman in your heart was to commit adultery with her, but the emotional purity doctrine says that Jesus didn't quite go far enough. Isn't it wrong to love someone other than your spouse? Assuming that your married already, certainly yes. The emotional purity doctrine goes even further, though, and applies this idea to the unmarried. It brings it to bear on the often-tumultuous world of dating relationships and condemns the whole idea of giving one's heart away to someone you aren't going to marry. Many of its proponents say that, in order to avoid this man-proclaimed sin, it's best to give your heart to no one until your certain they'll be your future spouse (methods of assuring this vary, but most rely on either the father or a church leader to basically play matchmaker). And how does one go about making sure they don't give their heart to someone of the opposite sex unintentionally--or worse yet, cause someone of the opposite sex to "stumble" and have feelings for them? Enter the sacred silent treatment. If the genders don't talk to each other, if they don't interact, they won't fall into the egregious sin of emotional attachment. Sometimes this is applied wholesale, sometimes on an as-needed basis between people who begin warming up to each other without a leader's go-ahead. In all cases it boils down to the same idea that lies at the heart of all sacred silent treatments (gender based and otherwise): because God wants me to preserve myself from this sinful contamination, it is okay to avoid my brother or sister in Christ as if they have the plague. God approves because keeping my purity intact is more important to Him than love and unity among believers.
Several problems arise. The first, with this particular application of the sacred silent treatment, is that the Bible is totally silent on the issue of emotional purity in singles. It says nothing about the horrible sin of having an emotional attachment or romantic interest in a member of the opposite sex, as an unmarried person. In fact, Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:36 has his golden opportunity (as a life-long celibate) to condemn the sin inherent in the process of two singles falling for each other and considering marriage--and he passes it up. More than that, he explicitly says that "it is no sin." People who teach purity of heart have to essentially make up a sin from scraps of verses taken out of context (such as Proverbs 4:23, which says, "guard your heart" but from the context the writer clearly had no intention of speaking to emotional attachments, but to holding onto wisdom and instruction and shunning wicked ways) and from a number of extra-biblical arguments (note for example, how this author of an emotional purity book makes her case: notice that she neither has nor mentions a single verse to support her case but simply relies on drawing a pseudo-logical connection between sexual immorality and the emotional connections she thinks make it more likely to occur). The lack of proof is just the beginning, though. Emotional purity comes dangerously close to the heresies of denying that Jesus came in the flesh (1 John 4:2) and was tempted just as we are--yet without sin--(Hebrews 4:15), since Jesus did many things that some proponents of the doctrine would consider inadvisable or even sinful (remember His conversation, alone, with the woman at the well, whom He knew perfectly well was a loose woman?). It also seems to deny the Christian doctrines of redemption and renewal, by implying that the romantic longings of the single are irredeemably sinful. It causes a number of other ill effects by providing a formulaic approach to an aspect of the Christian's life, rather than an approach that is receptive to the Spirit and not led by man-made laws and codes. It devalues the heart, by teaching that the more you love the less worthy you are to be loved (you've given away "pieces of your heart," thereby cheapening it). Most of all, though, emotional purity butts heads with the Christian commands to love one another. Avoiding someone and giving them the silent treatment is simply not loving to them, there's no two ways about it. This failure of love is supposedly okay because avoiding the impurity is even more important to God...but is it really so?
The Bible, as it turns out, may be totally silent on the implicit sinfulness of emotional entanglements, but it says plenty about the importance of love between believers. Christ, on the night He was crucified, took the time to give His disciples some final instructions, comfort, and one command so important that He introduced it simply as "a new commandment" and "the command I give you" and stated it three times in that address. Later, John reiterated it over and over and over again in his first epistle. The command was this: "love one another as I have loved you" (John 13:34 and 15:12). Notice that He did not take this opportunity to mention how important it was that His disciples kept themselves pure from emotional entanglements or bad company or even heresy. The most important thing to Christ's mind was that they love each other with the same all-consuming love that He had for them. Christ even brought it up again in His final prayer in John 17.
But how does this command for love stack up when matched with all God's other desires for good works, sound doctrine, personal holiness and the like? It turns out, that time and time again in the Bible, His desire for His people to love one another trumps His desire for any of these things. In Isaiah 1:11-17 even contains a pre-church example. God had Himself proclaimed all of Israel's sacrifices, feasts, assemblies, and religious observances...but here He expresses absolute hatred for them because of the way His people abuse one another.
"When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations-- I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause."In Jesus' time, there were the Pharisees, who were so observant of laws of religious holiness that they not only tithed of their income (as the Bible commands), but also from their spice rack...and yet Jesus' condemnation of their loveless conduct is famous. When it came to the church, things were evidently the same. Paul publicly called out Peter "because he stood condemned" for giving Gentiles the sacred silent treatment over supper (Galatians 2:11-14)--which is notably the only recorded time in Scripture where one apostle said anything negative about another. In Revelation 2:1-7, Christ Himself appears in a vision to condemn the church of Ephesus, not because of heresy or impurity (He admits that the church is passionate in combating heresy and maintaining its own purity) but because of lack of love (which the church at Ephesus had originally being famous for: Ephesians 1:15), for the which He threatens to remove their status as a church of God. Finally, Paul writes famously in 1 Corinthians 13 about the one thing that is most essential to the Christian life--and it isn't purity or religious observance! It's love, without which he says that even the best Christian practices are reduced to meaninglessness.
What, then, is so sacred about the sacred silent treatment? Seeing that love and unity between Christians (male and female included: Galatians 3:28) is so vitally important in the eyes of God, what gives us the right to, in His name, drive wedges between Christians and stamp out our love for one another? Does emotional purity: a "sin" whose existence cannot even be Biblically maintained? What about complete agreement on obscure doctrinal issues? Does the Bible say it's okay to hate Christians you disagree with? Last time I checked, it doesn't. The Bible, to be fair, does state one circumstance when shunning a person is the best solution, as a last resort: excommunication for gross and unrepentant sin...and that only after the sinner has refused to repent after being confronted by the entire church (Matthew 18:15-17). Since it's easier to shun someone privately than to convince an entire church that they deserve it (or go to the effort of restoring them), it's not surprising that many excommunication practices violate the procedures of Matthew 18. In almost every case where this juvenile discipline of silence is observed and deified, it is done in violation of God's word. It is not sacred, it is a sin. It is not acceptable to God, who loves unity above purity, such that He left His own holy glory behind to live among us in our filth, in hope of redeeming and being unified with us and uniting us with each other. By creating silence and separation between believers where it ought not to be, were are not doing God's work, but destroying it. It is a shameful thing, and it is no wonder Paul rebuked the apostle for this sin. Would he were here to rebuke us!
Monday, January 28, 2013
Hope of the Hopeless
For a couple people out there, that I know of, it's midnight no matter what the hour may be: it is a midnight of the soul. These people have set their hope on something, some goal, some love, some reconciliation, some coming-together. But looking from the outside, from the world's perspective, these people hope in something impossible: the goal cannot be achieved, the love is irretrievably lost, the parties cannot be reconciled, the things that must be brought together are like repelling magnets that can never be made to touch. In other words, these people are idiots.
To me, though, they are the noblest of idiots, who in their unshakably stupid refusal to realize when it's time to let go show that they know something more than the greatest philosophers and geniuses of our age. They know that some things are worth holding on to. They are the wisest, then, of all, for they know the true value of what we discard and give up as lost.
These noble, wisest idiots are not alone. They come from a long and proud line. All of mankind's greatest stories feature at least one of such person.
Further, there is a name for this brand of terrifically wise lunacy. It is called faith. "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen," says the Bible in Hebrews 11:1. Thereafter, it lists off the people who had this kind of faith, this hopless hope. There was Abel who hoped to please the God who made all things when all he had to offer was a lamb. There was Enoch who hoped to be in the presense of the God whose face no one can see and live without facing the death that comes to all mankind. There was Noah who prepared for a truly apocalyptic rainstorm on a world where rain had never before fallen. There was Abraham who wandered as a stranger in a land God had promised to give to him and his descendents, and never possessed any more (nor did his descendents, for several hundred years after him) of it than a small plot on which to bury his dead. There was his wife, Sarah: a woman who was barren even in her younger days and yet hoped for a son well past the onset of menopause. When she finally did have this son, Abraham, in obedience to the voice of God, prepared to kill his son in ritual sacrifice, hoping that somehow God would still provide heirs through the son he was about to slay. There was that same son, Isaac, as an old man with no lands or noteworthy possessions who hoped his two sons would inherit great kingdoms and blessed them accordingly. Then there was one of those sons, Jacob, who hoped the same of his offspring, even though they lived as strangers in a foreign land that would later enslave them. And one of his sons, not to be beaten, hoped to be buried in a land neither he nor several generations of his descendants would ever be able to visit, much less possess. Then there was another family, who gave birth to Moses and hoped to give their child a good life, though the government hunted him to kill him from the moment he was born. Then Moses himself hoped doubly for two impossible things: to have a life better than that of a prince of Egypt by forsaking the title and living as one among many slaves, and to find a way to free an oppressed people from the most powerful dictatorship of the time by wandering around in the desert tending goats. When he led these people, they all had such impossible hopes: they hoped that some unseen power would decimate the populace of the most advanced civilization of their time--and yet somehow spare them because of a little blood on their doorways--, and also hoped that they could cross an impassible body of water on foot in order to escape a pursuing army. Their leader Joshua hoped to demolish the walls of one of the most heavily fortified cities in ancient Palestine by parading silently around them for a week. One of the inhabitants of that same city, Rahab, hoped that somehow this plan would succeed and that she would somehow survive the ensuing ethnic clensing--and not get killed by her own people as a traitor in the meantime. There is a truly great crowd of people who have come before us and held on to hopeless hopes.
If we are Christians, we stand among them, for the Bible says that this hopeless hope is the very same faith that saves all who profess the name of Christ: "For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience" (Romans 8:24-25). Jesus Christ Himself had this hope. He hoped to save condemned sinners from their just punishment at the hands of an omnipotent Judge. He hoped to love and be loved forever by the enemies who hated and killed Him. I confess that I myself am one of these people: I hope to be reconciled with one who has disdained to speak to me, I hope for the love of a woman who literally has not spoken to me in a year, and I hope to see fulfilled promises made to both her and me through a situation that looks tailor-made for breaking both the promises and those of us foolish enough hold on to them--and these are the temporal things I hope for, the eternal things I hope for are so wild I dare not confess them here...but I hope for them.
The great thing about our God is that He is a God of those who step out or stand strong in faith--of all those who hold to hopeless hope in His name. He never leads them astray, He never lets them down, and He is proud of them. He rewards their hopeless hope with impossible solutions. He gave Abel His pleasure. He took up Enoch without death. He saved Noah and his family by the flood. He gave the land to Abraham and his descendants, and they possess it to this day. He gave Sarah a son, so that he might have descendants at all. He sent an angel to stay Abraham's knife at the last possible moment. He fulfilled the blessings Isaac gave Esau and Jacob, and made great nations of both of them. He fulfilled the blessings of Jacob to his sons by making them the twelve tribes of Israel. He saw to it that Joseph was buried in the Promised Land. He gave Moses a name and a reward greater than that of any prince of Egypt. He also gave him direction and purpose from a miraculous meeting in the trackless wilderness. He killed all the firstborn of Egypt, but spared every household that had kept the Passover. He parted the Red Sea, and drowned the army in it when they tried to follow. He brought down the walls of Jericho. He preserved Rahab and immortalized her in the genealogy of the kings of Israel, and of Christ Himself (Matthew 1:5). He made salvation available in Jesus Christ. He drew men and women from all races and all walks of life to give their hearts to Christ forever. He raised Christ from the dead and in the future shall conquer death itself forever. Our God is the hope of the hopeless, and I am proud to be one of His.
To me, though, they are the noblest of idiots, who in their unshakably stupid refusal to realize when it's time to let go show that they know something more than the greatest philosophers and geniuses of our age. They know that some things are worth holding on to. They are the wisest, then, of all, for they know the true value of what we discard and give up as lost.
These noble, wisest idiots are not alone. They come from a long and proud line. All of mankind's greatest stories feature at least one of such person.
Further, there is a name for this brand of terrifically wise lunacy. It is called faith. "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen," says the Bible in Hebrews 11:1. Thereafter, it lists off the people who had this kind of faith, this hopless hope. There was Abel who hoped to please the God who made all things when all he had to offer was a lamb. There was Enoch who hoped to be in the presense of the God whose face no one can see and live without facing the death that comes to all mankind. There was Noah who prepared for a truly apocalyptic rainstorm on a world where rain had never before fallen. There was Abraham who wandered as a stranger in a land God had promised to give to him and his descendents, and never possessed any more (nor did his descendents, for several hundred years after him) of it than a small plot on which to bury his dead. There was his wife, Sarah: a woman who was barren even in her younger days and yet hoped for a son well past the onset of menopause. When she finally did have this son, Abraham, in obedience to the voice of God, prepared to kill his son in ritual sacrifice, hoping that somehow God would still provide heirs through the son he was about to slay. There was that same son, Isaac, as an old man with no lands or noteworthy possessions who hoped his two sons would inherit great kingdoms and blessed them accordingly. Then there was one of those sons, Jacob, who hoped the same of his offspring, even though they lived as strangers in a foreign land that would later enslave them. And one of his sons, not to be beaten, hoped to be buried in a land neither he nor several generations of his descendants would ever be able to visit, much less possess. Then there was another family, who gave birth to Moses and hoped to give their child a good life, though the government hunted him to kill him from the moment he was born. Then Moses himself hoped doubly for two impossible things: to have a life better than that of a prince of Egypt by forsaking the title and living as one among many slaves, and to find a way to free an oppressed people from the most powerful dictatorship of the time by wandering around in the desert tending goats. When he led these people, they all had such impossible hopes: they hoped that some unseen power would decimate the populace of the most advanced civilization of their time--and yet somehow spare them because of a little blood on their doorways--, and also hoped that they could cross an impassible body of water on foot in order to escape a pursuing army. Their leader Joshua hoped to demolish the walls of one of the most heavily fortified cities in ancient Palestine by parading silently around them for a week. One of the inhabitants of that same city, Rahab, hoped that somehow this plan would succeed and that she would somehow survive the ensuing ethnic clensing--and not get killed by her own people as a traitor in the meantime. There is a truly great crowd of people who have come before us and held on to hopeless hopes.
If we are Christians, we stand among them, for the Bible says that this hopeless hope is the very same faith that saves all who profess the name of Christ: "For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience" (Romans 8:24-25). Jesus Christ Himself had this hope. He hoped to save condemned sinners from their just punishment at the hands of an omnipotent Judge. He hoped to love and be loved forever by the enemies who hated and killed Him. I confess that I myself am one of these people: I hope to be reconciled with one who has disdained to speak to me, I hope for the love of a woman who literally has not spoken to me in a year, and I hope to see fulfilled promises made to both her and me through a situation that looks tailor-made for breaking both the promises and those of us foolish enough hold on to them--and these are the temporal things I hope for, the eternal things I hope for are so wild I dare not confess them here...but I hope for them.
The great thing about our God is that He is a God of those who step out or stand strong in faith--of all those who hold to hopeless hope in His name. He never leads them astray, He never lets them down, and He is proud of them. He rewards their hopeless hope with impossible solutions. He gave Abel His pleasure. He took up Enoch without death. He saved Noah and his family by the flood. He gave the land to Abraham and his descendants, and they possess it to this day. He gave Sarah a son, so that he might have descendants at all. He sent an angel to stay Abraham's knife at the last possible moment. He fulfilled the blessings Isaac gave Esau and Jacob, and made great nations of both of them. He fulfilled the blessings of Jacob to his sons by making them the twelve tribes of Israel. He saw to it that Joseph was buried in the Promised Land. He gave Moses a name and a reward greater than that of any prince of Egypt. He also gave him direction and purpose from a miraculous meeting in the trackless wilderness. He killed all the firstborn of Egypt, but spared every household that had kept the Passover. He parted the Red Sea, and drowned the army in it when they tried to follow. He brought down the walls of Jericho. He preserved Rahab and immortalized her in the genealogy of the kings of Israel, and of Christ Himself (Matthew 1:5). He made salvation available in Jesus Christ. He drew men and women from all races and all walks of life to give their hearts to Christ forever. He raised Christ from the dead and in the future shall conquer death itself forever. Our God is the hope of the hopeless, and I am proud to be one of His.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
The Codependent God
Two men showed up at my door the other day. They greeted me cheerfully and read a passage from one of the Psalms to me "as encouragement." It was encouraging, despite being read from an English translation that obviously butchered the poetry of the original Hebrew text. Then, they handed me a colorfully-printed pamphlet with the title: Does God Really Care About Us? I excused myself, and they left.
The men were "Jehovah's Witnesses" of course. It's not the first time they've come to my door. They belong to a cult group which uses its own "translation" of scripture (hence, the butchered poetry) and wholesale distortion and manipulation of text in order to establish their own weird doctrines: among them the idea that all government is of Satan, that Jesus was an angel, that the Holy Spirit is a force (not a person), that God's only proper name is Jehovah, and that only through hard work and devotion to their cult can one escape annihilation in the coming apocalypse...after which, you may work even harder and more devotedly for the cult with the hope of rebuilding the devastated Earth into a parklike paradise which (if you are a good little JW) you may some day get to enjoy. Here is a more complete listing of their beliefs, if you'd like to check up more on them. There's also an index page that has links to lots of useful articles.
The so-called "Jehovah's Witnesses" are nothing new to me. I was approached by a couple of them up at college. I felt led to try to witness to them, yet I was at first afraid of what might happen if I tried. Would I be sucked in by their false teaching? Did their colorful pamphlets, grotesquely mistranslated scriptures, and fifth-grade level reading material really conceal an airtight case against everything I believed? I needn't have worried. All the colorful pamphlets and fifth-grade level text conceal is faulty logic and painfully-obvious cherry-picking of verses and parts of verses that say only what the writer's want them to say. For example, they will frequently quote John 5:28-29 to prove their belief in physical resurrection for everyone, saying, "all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out". They will deliberately leave off the last part of the sentence: "those who did good things to a resurrection of life, those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment." Jehovah's Witnesses never quote that part, because they don't believe in any punishment from God except complete, instant, painless non-existence--thus a "resurrection of judgment" is an oxymoron to them, especially when paired up with eternal life. Small wonder that the Watchtower Society (the name of the JW organization) teaches its members that they will fall into apostasy if they study the Bible without Watchtower "guidance" as to its meaning. On a personal level, their logic is so twisted that two of them were able to look at Matthew 10:28 ("do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.") and, with it staring them in the face in black-and-white, claim that the soul was a breath or life-force which could under no circumstances survive the killing of the body by anyone or anything...and that this was what the Bible really taught.
Needless to say, I got nowhere with them. But in excusing myself from these fellows, I had agreed to read their pamphlet. Since I had nothing else to do that day during my breaks, I did so. I was rewarded with the knowledge that their god had two very serious flaws. First of all, their god has no grasp of logic. His plan for the world for the past six thousand years boils down to a non sequitor fallacy. According to the pamphlet, when Adam and Eve rebelled against god in the Garden of Eden, they raised a question: "Could humans do better if not ruled by God?" In answer, god "has allowed man a free rein clear down to our day to show beyond any doubt whether human rule independent of him can succeed." The goal was to show that only direct rule by god could be successful and to that end he wanted "every conceivable type of government" tried out. He wanted to prove that A (human independence) leads to B (ruin). He then allowed Satan to come in and take total control over all human governments and enslave mankind. Ruin resulted: as the pamphlet says, "life today reflects the ugly rulership of 'the god of this world,' Satan." Then god patted himself on the back for proving his point, even though what he'd actually shown was that C (spiritual dictatorship under Satan) leads to B (ruin) instead. Since god is apparently incapable of recognizing the basic error of stating, "C leads to B, therefore A leads to B too," he will regard the matter as closed now and proceed with the apocalypse...at least, so the Watchtower Society wants us to think. The true God of the universe would never be duped into such a basic logical error, nor baited into proving His own right to sovereign rule: he doesn't need to prove anything to anyone.
The second thing I noticed about the Watchtower god was that he was totally obsessed with the happiness of humans. I mean totally. It was like there was no other purpose to his existence, let alone any other reason for his creation of the universe and everything in it. According to the pamphlet, god's "purpose was to establish an earthly paradise free from suffering". Everything was created for human enjoyment: flowers, food, forests, mountains, lakes, sunsets, and animals. Human design was also optimized for human happiness. As the pamphlet says, god gave us free will because: "he knew the way our minds and emotions would work, he knew that we would be happiest with free will." Of course, there are god's laws, but you see those aren't really limiting because the only reason god made those laws regulate free will "for the common good" like "traffic laws." Also, god made sure "that we were designed to be happiest when in subjection to God's laws." Yes, god has allowed horrific suffering and sorrow to befall mankind during his (completely illogical) six-millennia test, but he has a long-term plan which will "benefit all creatures" and in the paradise-like new world god "will compensate us for the suffering we may have endured in this world" by "showering down blessings that will far more than make up for any hurts that we receive in our past."
There is not one mention of god having a bit of self-interest. Apparently, he has none. Nor is there mention of a sense of justice: no, in fact "good" seems to have been redefined as "what makes man happy" and "evil" is merely "what makes man unhappy." The only driving force in this god's character is to make humankind happy: it is the chief end of all his plans, all his creations, all his commands, and everything he does. Since codependency is defined as being obsessively concerned with fulfilling the needs and desires of others, to the point of ignoring one's own needs and desires completely (or worse, not realizing you have any), this god is by definition codependent.
The appeal of the codependent god is easy to recognize. A god whose only concern is your own personal happiness is not so much a god as a cosmic vending machine: a genie with an infinite number of wishes. He would never really hurt you, even if you had it coming, because his sole reason for existence is to please you. He is not really, at bottom, a god that you worship, but a god who worships you. But in the end, the codependent god breaks down. The codependent god has no definition of evil and good except your own fickle desires, so he cannot guide you. Worse, the codependent god needs you to need him. If your own good turned out to be something other than him, he would do everything in his power to keep you from realizing this and keep you dependent upon him. But the worst of it is that the codependent god has no reason for existence apart from you. As humans, we instinctively look to God for deeper meaning in ourselves and the universe around us. We look to Him to answer the questions of why we exist, why we are the way we are, and why things happen to us as they do. The codependent god has no answers for these questions. His own existence and nature are factors contingent on us and whatever our happiness should require. He bounces the questions back to us, unanswered. Because the codependent god exists only for our benefit, it is up to us to decide why both we and he exist, why we (and he) are as we are, and why things happen as they do (for all things are ultimately a product of our own actions or of god's acting on behalf of our own desires).
The true God of the Bible is not codependent, though. He loves us, certainly. He is capable of great acts of self-sacrifice in that love, but He never loses sight of His own desires, purposes, and plans. Truly, "God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8), but Jesus endured the cross "for the joy set before Him." Even there, He had not lost sight of His own interests. He occasionally reminds us that He is ultimately acting in His own interests. "For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it," He says in Isaiah 48:11, speaking of His mercy on Israel. He further did not create the world for solely our enjoyment, but rather all things were created "for Him" (Colossians 1:16).
Since God loves us, His interests are bound up with ours, but they are not lost and absorbed. God still creates solely for His own pleasure. God still upholds moral absolutes of right or wrong (derived from His own character) and guides us in them, even when we think discarding morality would be more convenient. God does not look to us as a source of meaning, He is His own reason for existence: "I am that I am" (Exodus 3:14). Since all other things came into being by His creative power and He in His sovereignty does whatever He pleases, He gives implicit meaning to all Creation and all of history--whether we understand it or not, it pleased the Lord that it should be so. It pleased the Lord that we should be so. This, I think, is one of the most important points. God doesn't need us, not at all. If He had never created us or the world or anything His life would yet be complete.
At first, this may seem cruel and cold, to say that God has no need at all for us. But if you think about it, it's much better than the codependent god. The codependent god needs us to give himself a reason to exist, to fulfill himself. When the codependent god creates humanity and associates himself with it, there is no deeper meaning to it, nor does it give us any deeper meaning. It is not a choice, it is the working out of the codependent god's own nature. He can no more refuse to create humanity than the sun can refuse to shine. He has no more power to stop seeking humanity's happiness than water has the power to cease being wet. But the God of the Bible is not so compelled. He has no compulsion to create humanity, to love them, or to save them. These things are not necessary parts of His character and nature: they are choices. God didn't need to create us, but He chose to. God was not compelled to love us, but He decided to. God was not forced to save us, but He wanted to. This gives meaning. This allows God's love for us to be real. After all, a love that is given under compulsion is not really love at all. But God's love is given freely, as He is Himself free either to give or to withhold it. The codependent god can never give true love, for he is never truly free.
I feel sorry for the Jehovah's Witnesses. Like in a previous post, their god is a god they must carry. Their god is a god who is never personally involved or intimate (how can he be? There's nothing to him but a bottomless hunger to please humans). Their god is a god for whom they must do everything, bearing the burden not only for their own lives and happiness, but also for his. They must work to determine not only their own identity and worth, but also must realize that their work determines his own identity and worth (not that they miscommunicate who he is, but because he is so codependent that his worth and identity are dependent upon them--in other words, they make god by their own needs and desires, worth and identity...and better be sure not to make him wrong). But the God of the Bible does all things for Himself, and in His grace provides for us as well. He chooses to love us and to give us every good thing, including an identity and worth that are derived from His own immutable, perfect nature and identity. The Jehovah's Witnesses will no doubt claim that they know a lot about God. Their distortion of John 17:3 reads, "This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ", while in truth the scriptures say that everlasting life is to know God, not know about Him. I wish they knew the true God, Who could lift the burden of the codependent god from their shoulders.
The men were "Jehovah's Witnesses" of course. It's not the first time they've come to my door. They belong to a cult group which uses its own "translation" of scripture (hence, the butchered poetry) and wholesale distortion and manipulation of text in order to establish their own weird doctrines: among them the idea that all government is of Satan, that Jesus was an angel, that the Holy Spirit is a force (not a person), that God's only proper name is Jehovah, and that only through hard work and devotion to their cult can one escape annihilation in the coming apocalypse...after which, you may work even harder and more devotedly for the cult with the hope of rebuilding the devastated Earth into a parklike paradise which (if you are a good little JW) you may some day get to enjoy. Here is a more complete listing of their beliefs, if you'd like to check up more on them. There's also an index page that has links to lots of useful articles.
The so-called "Jehovah's Witnesses" are nothing new to me. I was approached by a couple of them up at college. I felt led to try to witness to them, yet I was at first afraid of what might happen if I tried. Would I be sucked in by their false teaching? Did their colorful pamphlets, grotesquely mistranslated scriptures, and fifth-grade level reading material really conceal an airtight case against everything I believed? I needn't have worried. All the colorful pamphlets and fifth-grade level text conceal is faulty logic and painfully-obvious cherry-picking of verses and parts of verses that say only what the writer's want them to say. For example, they will frequently quote John 5:28-29 to prove their belief in physical resurrection for everyone, saying, "all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out". They will deliberately leave off the last part of the sentence: "those who did good things to a resurrection of life, those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment." Jehovah's Witnesses never quote that part, because they don't believe in any punishment from God except complete, instant, painless non-existence--thus a "resurrection of judgment" is an oxymoron to them, especially when paired up with eternal life. Small wonder that the Watchtower Society (the name of the JW organization) teaches its members that they will fall into apostasy if they study the Bible without Watchtower "guidance" as to its meaning. On a personal level, their logic is so twisted that two of them were able to look at Matthew 10:28 ("do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.") and, with it staring them in the face in black-and-white, claim that the soul was a breath or life-force which could under no circumstances survive the killing of the body by anyone or anything...and that this was what the Bible really taught.
Needless to say, I got nowhere with them. But in excusing myself from these fellows, I had agreed to read their pamphlet. Since I had nothing else to do that day during my breaks, I did so. I was rewarded with the knowledge that their god had two very serious flaws. First of all, their god has no grasp of logic. His plan for the world for the past six thousand years boils down to a non sequitor fallacy. According to the pamphlet, when Adam and Eve rebelled against god in the Garden of Eden, they raised a question: "Could humans do better if not ruled by God?" In answer, god "has allowed man a free rein clear down to our day to show beyond any doubt whether human rule independent of him can succeed." The goal was to show that only direct rule by god could be successful and to that end he wanted "every conceivable type of government" tried out. He wanted to prove that A (human independence) leads to B (ruin). He then allowed Satan to come in and take total control over all human governments and enslave mankind. Ruin resulted: as the pamphlet says, "life today reflects the ugly rulership of 'the god of this world,' Satan." Then god patted himself on the back for proving his point, even though what he'd actually shown was that C (spiritual dictatorship under Satan) leads to B (ruin) instead. Since god is apparently incapable of recognizing the basic error of stating, "C leads to B, therefore A leads to B too," he will regard the matter as closed now and proceed with the apocalypse...at least, so the Watchtower Society wants us to think. The true God of the universe would never be duped into such a basic logical error, nor baited into proving His own right to sovereign rule: he doesn't need to prove anything to anyone.
The second thing I noticed about the Watchtower god was that he was totally obsessed with the happiness of humans. I mean totally. It was like there was no other purpose to his existence, let alone any other reason for his creation of the universe and everything in it. According to the pamphlet, god's "purpose was to establish an earthly paradise free from suffering". Everything was created for human enjoyment: flowers, food, forests, mountains, lakes, sunsets, and animals. Human design was also optimized for human happiness. As the pamphlet says, god gave us free will because: "he knew the way our minds and emotions would work, he knew that we would be happiest with free will." Of course, there are god's laws, but you see those aren't really limiting because the only reason god made those laws regulate free will "for the common good" like "traffic laws." Also, god made sure "that we were designed to be happiest when in subjection to God's laws." Yes, god has allowed horrific suffering and sorrow to befall mankind during his (completely illogical) six-millennia test, but he has a long-term plan which will "benefit all creatures" and in the paradise-like new world god "will compensate us for the suffering we may have endured in this world" by "showering down blessings that will far more than make up for any hurts that we receive in our past."
There is not one mention of god having a bit of self-interest. Apparently, he has none. Nor is there mention of a sense of justice: no, in fact "good" seems to have been redefined as "what makes man happy" and "evil" is merely "what makes man unhappy." The only driving force in this god's character is to make humankind happy: it is the chief end of all his plans, all his creations, all his commands, and everything he does. Since codependency is defined as being obsessively concerned with fulfilling the needs and desires of others, to the point of ignoring one's own needs and desires completely (or worse, not realizing you have any), this god is by definition codependent.
The appeal of the codependent god is easy to recognize. A god whose only concern is your own personal happiness is not so much a god as a cosmic vending machine: a genie with an infinite number of wishes. He would never really hurt you, even if you had it coming, because his sole reason for existence is to please you. He is not really, at bottom, a god that you worship, but a god who worships you. But in the end, the codependent god breaks down. The codependent god has no definition of evil and good except your own fickle desires, so he cannot guide you. Worse, the codependent god needs you to need him. If your own good turned out to be something other than him, he would do everything in his power to keep you from realizing this and keep you dependent upon him. But the worst of it is that the codependent god has no reason for existence apart from you. As humans, we instinctively look to God for deeper meaning in ourselves and the universe around us. We look to Him to answer the questions of why we exist, why we are the way we are, and why things happen to us as they do. The codependent god has no answers for these questions. His own existence and nature are factors contingent on us and whatever our happiness should require. He bounces the questions back to us, unanswered. Because the codependent god exists only for our benefit, it is up to us to decide why both we and he exist, why we (and he) are as we are, and why things happen as they do (for all things are ultimately a product of our own actions or of god's acting on behalf of our own desires).
The true God of the Bible is not codependent, though. He loves us, certainly. He is capable of great acts of self-sacrifice in that love, but He never loses sight of His own desires, purposes, and plans. Truly, "God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8), but Jesus endured the cross "for the joy set before Him." Even there, He had not lost sight of His own interests. He occasionally reminds us that He is ultimately acting in His own interests. "For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it," He says in Isaiah 48:11, speaking of His mercy on Israel. He further did not create the world for solely our enjoyment, but rather all things were created "for Him" (Colossians 1:16).
Since God loves us, His interests are bound up with ours, but they are not lost and absorbed. God still creates solely for His own pleasure. God still upholds moral absolutes of right or wrong (derived from His own character) and guides us in them, even when we think discarding morality would be more convenient. God does not look to us as a source of meaning, He is His own reason for existence: "I am that I am" (Exodus 3:14). Since all other things came into being by His creative power and He in His sovereignty does whatever He pleases, He gives implicit meaning to all Creation and all of history--whether we understand it or not, it pleased the Lord that it should be so. It pleased the Lord that we should be so. This, I think, is one of the most important points. God doesn't need us, not at all. If He had never created us or the world or anything His life would yet be complete.
At first, this may seem cruel and cold, to say that God has no need at all for us. But if you think about it, it's much better than the codependent god. The codependent god needs us to give himself a reason to exist, to fulfill himself. When the codependent god creates humanity and associates himself with it, there is no deeper meaning to it, nor does it give us any deeper meaning. It is not a choice, it is the working out of the codependent god's own nature. He can no more refuse to create humanity than the sun can refuse to shine. He has no more power to stop seeking humanity's happiness than water has the power to cease being wet. But the God of the Bible is not so compelled. He has no compulsion to create humanity, to love them, or to save them. These things are not necessary parts of His character and nature: they are choices. God didn't need to create us, but He chose to. God was not compelled to love us, but He decided to. God was not forced to save us, but He wanted to. This gives meaning. This allows God's love for us to be real. After all, a love that is given under compulsion is not really love at all. But God's love is given freely, as He is Himself free either to give or to withhold it. The codependent god can never give true love, for he is never truly free.
I feel sorry for the Jehovah's Witnesses. Like in a previous post, their god is a god they must carry. Their god is a god who is never personally involved or intimate (how can he be? There's nothing to him but a bottomless hunger to please humans). Their god is a god for whom they must do everything, bearing the burden not only for their own lives and happiness, but also for his. They must work to determine not only their own identity and worth, but also must realize that their work determines his own identity and worth (not that they miscommunicate who he is, but because he is so codependent that his worth and identity are dependent upon them--in other words, they make god by their own needs and desires, worth and identity...and better be sure not to make him wrong). But the God of the Bible does all things for Himself, and in His grace provides for us as well. He chooses to love us and to give us every good thing, including an identity and worth that are derived from His own immutable, perfect nature and identity. The Jehovah's Witnesses will no doubt claim that they know a lot about God. Their distortion of John 17:3 reads, "This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ", while in truth the scriptures say that everlasting life is to know God, not know about Him. I wish they knew the true God, Who could lift the burden of the codependent god from their shoulders.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
What Jesus Asked for Us
Toward the end of John chapter 17 there's a section that's very special to me. John 17 is one of Christ's last prayers before His death. It's called the high-priestly prayer because unlike His other prayers in Gethsemane, this one is intercessory. He is not praying mostly for Himself, but mostly for His followers. Much of the prayer focuses on His disciples, the Twelve (well, eleven at this point, Judas having left and Christ knowing why). But at the end of this prayer, in verses 20-26, He includes a prayer for us today.
It's also worth noting what Christ doesn't ask for us here. He does not ask for a unity based on conformity or complete agreement on all issues. The early church did not have such a unity, nor did it aspire to it. Paul records in Romans 14 how Christian practices and beliefs differed from individual to individual (One believes he may eat anything, another is vegetarian; one observes holidays, another does not), and how Christians were to respect one another's beliefs out of love rather than trying to enforce universal agreement on non-essential doctrines and practices. He also doesn't ask for unity based on blind obedience to a leader. No leader is named in the passage, and even if there were the unity of the church is to mirror the unity of the Trinity. Christ certainly felt free to question the Father's plans for Him in Gethsemane--asking the Father three times to call off the crucifixion: the whole purpose for Christ coming to Earth--, though He ultimately obeyed them.
There's also other things Christ doesn't ask for. Christ doesn't ask for the Father's blessing on a moralizing crusade and culture war. He does not call upon the Father's aid in social activism campaigns. Christ doesn't even ask anything regarding evangelism. Though it's tempting as an evangelical (which I am) to consider soul-winning the ultimate goal and high calling of all Christians, it is not so. Neither is winning the culture war (or fighting it) or engaging in social activism. If these were Christ's highest aspirations for us, He would have made mention of it here, but He doesn't. Instead, He focuses His prayer on relationships within the church, rather than without...and this is a place where some churches are sadly lacking.
"I do not ask for these only [the disciples], but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."This is the only time in scripture I can think of where Christ speaks directly about us today. I think it is very significant what He says here and what He asks for us. His prayer is first and foremost for us to have unity. This unity is to be His sign: a sign to the world that the Father has sent Him and that the Father loves us as He loves Christ Himself. To give us this unity, He has given us His own glory, the very glory that the Father gave to Him. He also makes known to us God's name and character, so that we may be unified with Him and filled with His love. Christ's desire here for us is that we all be unified with each other in a unity based on experiencing the love of God and unity with God as individuals, and receiving His glory individually as well as collectively.
It's also worth noting what Christ doesn't ask for us here. He does not ask for a unity based on conformity or complete agreement on all issues. The early church did not have such a unity, nor did it aspire to it. Paul records in Romans 14 how Christian practices and beliefs differed from individual to individual (One believes he may eat anything, another is vegetarian; one observes holidays, another does not), and how Christians were to respect one another's beliefs out of love rather than trying to enforce universal agreement on non-essential doctrines and practices. He also doesn't ask for unity based on blind obedience to a leader. No leader is named in the passage, and even if there were the unity of the church is to mirror the unity of the Trinity. Christ certainly felt free to question the Father's plans for Him in Gethsemane--asking the Father three times to call off the crucifixion: the whole purpose for Christ coming to Earth--, though He ultimately obeyed them.
There's also other things Christ doesn't ask for. Christ doesn't ask for the Father's blessing on a moralizing crusade and culture war. He does not call upon the Father's aid in social activism campaigns. Christ doesn't even ask anything regarding evangelism. Though it's tempting as an evangelical (which I am) to consider soul-winning the ultimate goal and high calling of all Christians, it is not so. Neither is winning the culture war (or fighting it) or engaging in social activism. If these were Christ's highest aspirations for us, He would have made mention of it here, but He doesn't. Instead, He focuses His prayer on relationships within the church, rather than without...and this is a place where some churches are sadly lacking.
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