Ben Koerssen Blog

M.K. and LGBT Controversies Part 2

2012-02-21T19:48:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the second instalment of my interviews with M.K. I would like to share my gratitude once again to M.K. who has graciously been willing to partake in these interviews, especially given his very busy schedule these days. While I can't say I speak for all of them, I believe it's fair to say that most of the readers of this blog share opinions that are much different than M.K. As such I ask that you once again extend to him the respect M.K. deserves, especially given the nature of the conversation. However, I'm sure he would love your questions and feedback and on his behalf I'm inviting you to submit your own questions in the comments section. Part 1 can be found here.

You recommend the book "The End of Sexual Identity." What is the main thrust of the book?

The main thrust of Paris’ book is that we as Christians have simply given in to accepting the social constructions made by society, this happens in a multitude of ways.

How does the author aim to frame the debate?

She specifically focuses on how we as Christians have simply accepted the current system of sexuality as something that has always existed. In her mind, it is improper to think of heterosexual and homosexual as fixed eternal categories. Ultimately all our desire should be pointed toward God, and our identity is to be found in Christ, not in who we are sexually attracted to.

How has this changed your view?

Having studied a lot of gender theory related works; I was finding myself in agreement with her on basic concepts. Our current system for understanding sexuality and identity is just that, our current concept that fits our worldviews.

This is of course not to say that LGBT individuals have an invalid identity, as it is impossible to completely separate ourselves from our social and cultural contexts and worldviews. And LGBT persons have a rich history of existing in many cultures and places throughout history, but they most likely did not understand themselves in the same way we may know.

If I had to say that her book changed my view in one specific way though, I would say that it really did convince me that there are other ways to discuss these debates than the current framework we seem to be using of all or nothing.

How have we used sexual identity in ways that are unhelpful? What are some better alternatives?

I think that most people are missing out on seeing just how much variety there is in personal identity. We should not be forced to pick either straight or gay, and more people should be encouraged to find their identity outside of relationships-whether straight or gay.

I would like to note, that from personal conversation with Paris, that both she and I would believe that the Transgender discussion in the Church needs to happen separately and independently from discussion of gay and lesbian issues.

If the transgender discussion ought to be separate from the Gay and Lesbian issues, perhaps it would helpful to clarify what Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender all mean, and how one may be distinct from another.

In a basic distinction, lesbian gay and bisexual all relate to sexuality, where as the transgender umbrella of terms relates to issues of gender identity and personal gender expression.

A lesbian is a woman attracted to women, someone who is gay is a male attracted to men, a bisexual person may find themselves attracted to either sex. A term which is gaining steam in the LGBT community is pansexual, which means you are more attracted to individuals and their personalities than their gender or sex. I like to jokingly say that it means that it all pans out when you find the right person.

Transgender is an umbrella term. Before getting into type of transgender individuals, you must understand four terms. Sex is the biological pieces that you are born with. This would be the physical categories of male and female, as well as intersex. Gender and gender expression are the social rules and concepts which relate to how we express ourselves and also relate to gender identity, which is how we identify ourselves as male or female (or something else entirely)

So, someone who is transgender could be an individual who express themselves as a cross dresser, but does not have any disconnect between their gender identity and sex. Or individuals whose gender identity does not match their biological sex, and choose to either express this in some way, or if the disconnect is bad enough, some will desire to physically transition sexes.

I hope that is a helpful start to understanding a wide world of terms.

Can we still use terms heterosexual and homosexual as merely descriptive?

I think even in light of Paris' thoughts, we still can use the social terms that are at our convenience. We are social creatures, and we cannot completely detach ourselves from our modern world views.

Every culture has set its own norms, taboos, and expectations for Gender roles. But are gender roles arbitrarily dictated by the culture?

This would relate to the term gender expression that I mentioned earlier. Gender and sex are intimately related. Personally I think that there is an innate nature of some level of gender identity, whether as male or female, or something androgynous. We in turn may find out whether this relates to our biological sex, and based on our societies and personal feelings we will choose how we express it. So in my opinion, gender is both innate and built by society.

Do you see certain Biblical expectations toward being a man or a woman?

Personally I would say not. I do think the bible can speak into cultural expectations, and can speak to us as people enmeshed in our societies gender roles. However, in my mind much of the gendered discussion in scripture is more related to cultural concepts of the time and pointed towards a wider biblical vision of equality between all people. To me a key verse is Paul saying in Galatians that in Christ there is no male or female, and that distinction was as trivial to our christian identity as Jew and gentile.

I recently wrote a paper for an independent study where I attempted to examine redemptive history from a transgender standpoint, and to understand how we read a lot of gender assumptions into scripture. It was a very rewarding paper.

Paul speaks to the Galatians about our true identity being found in Christ rather than our ethnicity, our status in society, or our gender. By doing so he demonstrates that our identity is given by grace alone through faith alone rather than some inherited, achieved, or innate status. In your opinion, what are some ways that gender has negatively effected the way we read about redemption?

The first thing that comes to mind is Mark Driscoll. He is a man who is surely passionate about what he believes, but I believe his ideas on gender are completely out of line with what the proclamation of the gospel of freedom is actually about. Many conservative Christians place the idea of the 1950s house wife as some sort of biblical ideal. The biblical ideal is that we are one in Christ, and that should never be used as a way to claim authority over another human being.

I don't know if I would say that it has caused us to understand redemption itself improperly, but our gender ideals often get in the way of the church and community functioning in a more biblical and healthy way.

I know you to be someone who supports gay marriage. Why have you chosen this position? Would you consider it a "right?" Why or why not?

It is true that I support the right of marriage equality. In doing so, I am speaking from the perspective of a citizen of the USA, and in the context of our politics, my answers may not speak into other political contexts. I believe that in the case of the way that the United States system is set up, long term monogamous gay couples should be given the same rights to having their relationship recognized by the state via marriage as heterosexual couples.

I do not believe this infringes upon Churches either. Churches are allowed to set up their own standards to "discriminate" on who they marry. For example, when I was married in a Catholic church, I had to go through a certain amount of counseling and such before being allowed to be married. Churches can marry whom they want, and deny others, as long as it is not just a random standard.

In fact, I think it is a triumph of the concept of marriage to see that gay couples desire the life long commitment that marriage means.

The historical Christian consensus is that homosexuality (as a behavioural pattern) is a sin. In other words, it's a question of whether it's intrinsically right or wrong. Agree or disagree, and why?

I will admit at this point that I have put far more effort into studying biblical issues relating to transgenderism than I have researching into the biblical issues surrounding homosexuality. However, I have a lot of people who I know have put serious time into researching it, and come away believing that one can be gay, in a relationship, and Christian, and I would agree.

M.K. and LGBT Controversies Part 1

2012-02-01T21:45:00.000-05:00

I'd like to introduce you to someone, who for now, will be named MK. Those readers who may already know who I'm referring to likely know him personally. But in the interest of maintaining privacy over sensitive personal information, we will leave it at that unless he decides at a later time to fully disclose his identity. What is about to follow is the beginning of a series of interviews with MK and his perspective on the controversies of LGBT. MK is someone I've known for a few years now. I am very grateful for his willingness to take time to participate in these interviews, especially given the sensitive nature of the content. As such, I ask that you give him the respect he deserves for doing so. He is my friend. Although I've learned much from him already, and have much more to learn, we maintain different perspectives on these issues. This is not an endorsement. The aim is to have a respectful, comfortable platform with which to dialogue so that, ultimately, we can all benefit in one way or another. At the very least it will help us examine our own beliefs so that we will better know what we believe, and why we believe it.
*Note* This is MK's first submission. It has been reformatted from an original document in order to fit the desired format. The original letter will be posted later.

Ben: First of all, for those who don't know, what does LGBT stand for, and who are these people?
MK: For those that are not as familiar with that acronym as I am, LGBT stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender. It is used as a quick and easy way to summarize all of those who fall outside the norms of understanding and expressing their sexuality and gender identity. These are those who find that their sexual attraction does not fall neatly into the heterosexual norm, or those who find that their gender identity does not match the biological sex which they were born into. And this is a community of people who have been hurt and ostracized. By friends, family, and their church homes.

Ben: How would you describe yourself among those terms?
MK: I have experienced the pain and the hurt first hand, as I identify under the broad transgender terminology. I felt the pain of spending the first 20 years of my life hiding a part of my identity, but I have also felt the pain of losing friends who want nothing to do with me after they find out. I knew from a young age that the boy box did not seem to fit me properly, but did not find out that my feelings fit a broader concept of being transgender till about middle school. I tried to pray it away, I tried to hide it, I tried to be someone else, but I just could not escape that it was a part of my identity. I am a Christian, who happens to also be transgender

Ben: In your opinion, what do you find are some common misperceptions regarding the LGBT community and where do you stand as someone trying to change those misperceptions?
MK: One author whose dialogue on this issue that I particularly enjoyed, is Jenell Williams Paris, who is a professor at Messiah College, and wrote The End of Sexual Identity, which is a high caliber unbiased look at how we have taken this debate in a completely wrong direction. I would recommend it to everyone.

While primarily advocating for Transgender faith issues, which are a concept many denominations or individuals have not even begun to grasp with, I am involved in wider LGBT faith advocacy, particularly through GIFT, a group that exists to advocate and support LGBT Christians. And in my own organization, the Transgender Education Collaboration. In my experiences I have encountered a multitude of opinions on these topics, and I am sure that many of you readers may find yourself of differing opinions than myself.

But I hope that with this dialogue we can all come away with an understanding that these are deeply personal issues, and should perhaps not be the focus of such public debate and vitriol. I also hope that we as Christians can move away from using language, regardless of where we stand on the issues, which can lead some individuals to depression and self harm or suicide.

I look forward to the conversation to Ben, and hope you all find it to be a blessing.

2012

2012-01-10T21:57:00.000-05:00

In 2003, Dan Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code" was released to the public and by 2009 it had already sold over 80 million copies worldwide and been adapted to a major motion picture. It's the story of Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor who studying symbols, and a cryptographer named Sophie Nevue of the Paris police department. Robert is supposed to be in Paris on business and ends up getting roped into helping a murder investigation which ends up spiralling them into all sorts of fanciful adventures involving an alternative history of the Christian Church. Dan Brown's ideas were partially inspired by real historical events and partially by conspiracy theories such as Jesus' marriage to Mary Magdalene, and so-called secret societies like Opus Dei and the Priory of Sion.

Aside from the enjoyment of a mystery-detective novel, what the popularity of the book revealed is that many people have a fascination with the possibility of conspiracies in church history, and that not many people know anything about church history in the first place. The main problem, of course, is the use of factual events with a predominantly fabricated history. If you didn't already know better, there was no way to distinguish what was real and what wasn't. Seeking to fill that void in understanding there are many historians who wrote up detailed rejoinders for the book's numerous inaccuracies.

In just this past year, 2011, Rob Bell's book "Love Wins" quickly rose to the top of the best-seller list, clearly striking a chord with a culture that wants to know about Heaven, Hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived. The blogosphere furiously erupted, giving the book far more publicity than Harper Collins could've hoped for. The book drew vast criticisms against Bell, charging him with the label of a bona-fide universalist. More than that, however, it revealed that many people, believing Christians included, often knew little about the historic doctrines of Heaven and Hell.

Many Christians have denounced these books as heretical, but by virtue of the controversies surrounding them it helped bring a renewed interest in important issues that many people had little or no previous understanding. In fact, many of the questions that were brought up by these books may not have been asked or been taken seriously before by our contemporaries.

Obviously each generation has its particular controversies, and faithful Christian leaders have done well to help answer those questions biblically. In our day we see our countries go to war with questionable justification, we see radical changes in definition of marriage, the prevalence of abortions and even doctor-assisted suicides. We see the growing challenges of maintaining liberty among diverse cultures, an ever-increasing gap between the richest and the poorest, and a world which seems to be moving faster every day. But as the writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us, "What has been will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1:9). History can teach us many lessons, but we cannot begin to come to grips with these issues without first engaging them.

And that brings us to the theme of my blog for 2012. My aim is not to bring up controversy for the sake of seeking attention, but to provoke serious thought about important issues. To do that this year I will be introducing to you to some personal friends and family members with discussions about some interesting and possibly very personal topics. Some of them hold views that are contrary to my own, but by engaging in dialogue I hope that we will ask the sort of questions that will garner a deeper, richer understanding of God's grace and wisdom in all things.

Join in the conversation, and check back soon for the first dialogues.

A Bone to Pick

2011-11-15T22:29:00.000-05:00

Just so we're clear, I don't like the show Bones. That will probably become abundantly clear as you read this. I find it difficult getting past the predictable plot lines, the shameless plugs from sponsors, and the silly 3D holographic computer an art student brilliantly designed that can re-enact entire sequences of events with nary a mouse click. This computer, with its obligatory pointless beeps, is able to do in 5 seconds what would take weeks to accomplish in real life. It just seems far too convenient for making a 1 hour program. It's all so hokey.

But it's the main character, Bones, with whom I really have a ...uh... bone to pick. If you've seen the show, you probably already know what I'm on about. If not, here goes. Every episode of Bones, at least from what I've seen, follows the same basic pattern. They find a dead body, and a bunch of nerdy people in a lab examine the bones and other microscopic nonsense and are magically able to figure out exactly how, where, and when the victim was killed. Meanwhile, Mr. FBI uses this information to pin down the villain in some clever and entertaining fashion. And there you have a simple recipe for a run-of-the-mill American crime drama.

The main character, Bones, is the brain behind most of the operation. That is, its her expertise as a forensic anthropologist (I'm not making that up) that helps them figure everything out. Her character is very socially awkward, and as a result, very annoying, and one of the reasons for that is her irrational insistence on her own superior rationality.

Now, obviously, that's her schtick. But I wouldn't find it so unbearable if her colleagues could at least give her a good smack upside the head with some good old common sense. But that's not important right now. You see, Bones takes on the persona of a person completely convinced by what we'll call the "scientific worldview." The scientific worldview really isn't scientific at all, it's actually quite philosophical. It basically assumes that all that exists is entirely material, and all can be explained rationally and logically. Like science. I could go on about the inherent inconsistencies within her worldview, but worldviews aren't necessarily consistent to begin with, so I'm not concerned about that.

For Bones anything to do with God is absurd, the stories in the Bible are "myths", and morals, while useful, are merely shaped by cultural contexts. Interestingly, the writers have been able to develop her pattern of thinking quite a lot. They're clever enough to think things through enough to suggest that, perhaps, some of them are convinced by it themselves. And, from what I can tell, there hasn't been much in the way of quality intellectual retorts either. A shame really.

If you found my posts on secularism too boring to read through, watch a few episodes of Bones. She represents that worldview pretty well. And if you did read them you may recall that we shouldn't be surprised by the logic of the ardent secularist. That's because it's the presuppositions that are the problem. I think Bones and the secularists are just too naive to realize that.

The thing about Bones, despite her social ineptitude, is that she is very brilliant and has an incredibly high IQ. She has no problem telling others about it either, which tends to make people feel a little insecure. I think the same is true with secularism against Christianity. It gloats about its own superior rationality. It attempts to relegate Christianity to the fringes, dismissing it as unscientific, irrational nonsense. As a result, many Christians have felt the insecurity of sounding stupid.

But if there is a God, and the word is his revealed Truth, then Christianity cannot be the unscientific, irrational nonsense the secularist makes it out to be. In fact, it's they very height of rationality. The denial of God, of a higher moral order, the original created order of things, and our need of repentance, is the height of irrationality. It's a blatant denial of the Truth.

The Bible talks about the cross being foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18) to those who are perishing. It should be no surprise that we sound silly. In fact, even as believers we often have a difficult time accepting the cross. But the real folly is to buy into the idea that Christianity is as much nonsense as the secularist would have us believe.

Justice and the Christian - Part 2

2011-10-23T14:34:00.000-04:00

This is part 2 of a series of justice and Christianity.

In the last article I talked about a protest movement called "the 99 percent" that's finds its ground zero in the geographical epicentre of a corrupt, greedy, capitalist system: Wall Street. The name refers to the 99% of people who share a proportionately smaller amount of wealth than the top 1%. So, being the vast majority of the human populace, there are obviously quite a large number of Christians among them.

And what exactly are they doing about it? Well, it could be anything really.

The ideas of ethics, inalienable rights, fairness, justice and responsibilities owe so much to the foundations of Christian thought. It's difficult to argue for human rights without grounding them in something outside ourselves. So it's no surprise then that Christians are often amongst the forefront of social justice.

In fact, Christians have been involved in social justice in at least two significant movements within the past century. One of those saw the rise of liberation theology in Latin America through the middle of the 20th century. It arose mainly as a response to the growing injustices against the poor in that region, arguably similar to the movement we're seeing today.

Liberation theology, although frowned upon by the Vatican, was mainly a Roman Catholic response. The 99%, on the other hand, seeks to involve anyone earning less than the top 1% of the world's earners. But if the occupy Toronto movement is indicative of the movement at large, it's far less monolithic than liberation theology. The protests were not simply against the growing economic hardships of the middle and lower class, but against wars, the prohibition of drugs, gay marriage, and even bad grammar. One sign read, "Emancipation proclation." I think he meant "proclamation." With no clear message it's difficult to see whether there's really a message at all.

If I could see one thing, however, something that is both implicit and occasionally explicit, is the growing marxist interpretations of the societal problems, and that has definite similarities to the liberation theology movement in Latin America. For them, cooperation, not competition, is the only way to bridge the gap between the rich and poor, to promote justice and dignity for the individual, and opportunity and fairness for all.

To be perfectly fair, nowhere does Jesus, or anyone else in the Bible for that matter, give us a blueprint for political and economic systems. Neither marxism nor free-market capitalism bears God's proverbial stamp of approval. But that's not to say there haven't been forms of either one that have been influenced, at least in some part, by Christian thought. Christian socialist parties continue to exert influence throughout the world as well as more right-of-centre parties. Churches in America have congregations where both Republicans and Democrats in good conscience sit next to each other in the pew, sharing the same cup and loaf in the supper.

Marxism will not be the saviour to those whose misfortune has been blamed by greedy capitalism. Nor is capitalism the beacon of freedom for those under the tyrannical rule of a communist government. But whatever sort of society you find yourself, good theology forces you to think seriously about how you relate to your neighbour and how you can positively influence the world around you. People like Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr., William Wilberforce, and Abraham Kuyper probably all had differing ideas on political and economic systems. But each of them, driven by their theology, brought about significant change.

More on this later...

Justice and the 99 percent - Part 1 - Introduction

2011-10-11T23:23:00.002-04:00

I'm only an observer of the protest movement called "the 99 percent" that's now beginning to make headlines in mainstream news. In fact, I've only been introduced to it within the last couple weeks. Part of what I see is a people deeply concerned about the increasing difficulties of surviving in tough economic times. The other part is anger and resentment towards the privileged. So how ought Christians think about social justice, wealth, and government? Christians have experienced hard times like this before, so what wisdom have they to pass on? Part 1 - An Introduction...

Thanks to various media outlets covering the riots on Wall Street people have been introduced to a movement that has, apparently, been around for over a decade. They call themselves the 99 percent, a homage to 99% of people who share a proportionately smaller share of national (and indeed international) wealth than the top 1%.

During the economic boom through the late 90s and before 2007 a movement of people disenfranchised with with the rich/poor divide was barely noticeable. But as the recession hit those of us who used to live comfortably with secure jobs suddenly found it hard to pay bills. The United States in particular started witnessing unseen numbers of home foreclosures, and for many more going to the hospital was strictly for emergencies only. After nearly four years of hardly any recovery, the top 1% continue to earn in greater numbers.

It seems there were cracks in the system. Now it's left in a state of woeful disrepair. A movement like this shouldn't be surprising.

Economies rise and fall. There are times of growth, and times of recession. But this recession has shown something remarkably different, and not just in its size and scale. In the past, as recessions hit and demand for products and services diminish, a proportionate amount of the workforce would be laid off. As demand began to return, so would the workforce. In this case, however, increased demand hasn't been bringing back the workforce. Instead, the workload has increased for those who are still lucky enough to have a job. For a variety of reasons employers aren't bringing back the workforce.

And this is where movements like this begin to get angry. Because more work is being accomplished with less labour (typically through what's called company restructuring) this leads to much higher profit margins. Business are sitting on much more money than they have in the past and are either too fearful to spend it or they spread it amongst their own top earners. Hence the big bonuses and pay-raises of the 1%. Apparently "trickle-down" economics just isn't working like it's supposed to.

If the top 1% are taking more for themselves and not spreading it around this leaves a much smaller share of the overall monetary fund for the other 99%. Things are getting tight and now they're beginning to protest. The demands are simple and straightforward. Decent wages, accessible healthcare, and affordable food and shelter. Only they're taking straight aim at what they call the corporate takeover of American democracy.

So where do Christians stand in the crisis? And what does Christianity say about social justice in a suffering system? Check back for part 2...

A Defense of the Rational - Part 2 - Dealing with Doubt

2011-10-05T22:33:00.000-04:00

This is part 2 of a series of reflections on disciplines in the sciences and humanities in relation to Christian faith and doubt.

In the last post I argued that both special and general revelation must, by definition, be mutually true. So when we see an apparent contradiction between the two that brings up questions of whether or not our understanding of the Bible is true or our interpretation of the scientific findings are misinterpreted. Questioning our preconceived Biblical convictions can be a frightening thing. It's usually easier to just dismiss the findings, but the questions won't go away if you just ignore them. In other words, we begin to doubt.

Nobody comes to the faith for purely intellectual reasons. While arguments, logic, and evidence can certainly aid in bringing one closer to the faith, there are many other emotional and sociological influences that can make someone accept or refuse. At the end of the day, it is God who brings about the faith in someone. The point is that there are more than simply "logical" reasons for one to deny the faith, or at the very least, doubt.

But what is doubt? It's is one of those loaded words in the Christian faith that, I will start by saying, may not be what you might think. Essentially doubt is having an alternative set of beliefs. The question is whether what you believe or the alternative "doubting" is more credible.

One simple example is miracles. Chances are you've never seen them, and by definition, as an act of God, you just can't repeat them or study them. They're anomalies to the typical patterns of nature. So when the Bible records accounts of the miraculous a "rational" person would obviously doubt it.

It was once argued that because miracles don't happen, they therefore can't happen. One out of every one dead person has remained dead, therefore resurrection is impossible. Actually, this is circular logic, and one does not necessarily follow the other. But more importantly, the assumption that miracles can't happen stems not from empirical study but from philosophical presuppositions. Namely, that God does not exist. If God exists, it's perfectly plausible miracles could happen. It's well within reason that if God can create the entire world, there's nothing to stop Him from doing anything else miraculous.

So, as Christians we accept God as being the creator and sustainer of the universe and the Bible to be his True and inspired word. We know that our sins are forgiven on the basis of Jesus' substitutionary atonement on the cross, and that we are granted new life because He also defeated the curse of death through His resurrection. If we begin to doubt his resurrection, for whatever reason, then we are presented with two sets of propositions.

One is that Jesus really did die and rise again. The other is that he did not. Both of them carry the weight of enormous implications, and the question is which one is more credible. Just as doubts don't all necessarily stem from intellectual obstacles, they won't simply go away through rational argument. But they do need to be examined for what they are. It may be short and simple, it may be a very long process, and you may find that your doubts ended up being more truthful than your original beliefs. By the time you come out at the end you're more than likely going to find your faith has been strengthened.

Doubts will never disappear. As one goes away, another will come. But doubt, it must be said, is not the same as unbelief. Our faith may falter greatly at times. Indeed, it is never perfect. But it is not our fervour that saves, it is the object of our faith. We are not saved because of faith but through faith. Though we continue to doubt, it is Christ who accomplishes his good work until the end.

A Defense of the Rational - Part 1

2011-10-04T22:39:00.000-04:00

This is part 1 of a series of reflections on disciplines in the sciences and humanities in relation to Christian faith and doubt.

If you know me well you know that I love reading about theology, philosophy, science, and apologetics. Aside from the mere fascination I have with reading and learning it's helped to solidify and strengthen my faith in many things which I've already believed. So I was struck when I heard a comment last month to be wary of such things.

I'm not entirely certain what precipitated the concern in this particular situation, but it did lead me to ponder the possible pitfalls of reading such "rational" material. In my own defence, having an inquisitive and often skeptical mind drives me into the study of matters that I find deeply important, as it would for anybody. I don't read for the sake of gaining knowledge as an end in itself. Nor do I read without discernment in both the Christian and non-Christian writings. And as much as I enjoy the intellectual aspect of Christian belief, it's impossible to separate Christianity into its so-called rational and existential sides. They're both equally important and it would be a false dichotomy to try to drive a wedge between the two. They coexist as part of the whole of reality. Christianity, as it was once said, is both intellectually credible and existentially satisfying. I would add that one cannot be true without the other.

As Christians we believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God. That is, we believe it to be Truth, or what the reformers called "special revelation." In the different disciplines in the sciences and humanities, you find the study of creation, or what the reformers called "general revelation." Through study we come to know about the truth of the world around us. In the Christian understanding of reality it would make absolutely no sense to pit one against the other. General revelation and special revelation, if properly understood, must be in mutual agreement with each other.

Therefore if you find something in the Bible that seems to contradict scientific findings you find yourself in a dilemma. Is the Bible false? Or is your interpretation of the Bible mistaken? Is the scientific findings false? Or is your interpretation of the scientific findings mistaken? If we believe both special and general revelation to be mutually true we are inevitably going to have to wrestle with these questions at some point. I imagine this is where the concern may have come from.

Questions like these aren't limited to the natural sciences but apply equally to questions of ethics and morality. For example, Christians believe in marriage as being between a man and a woman. We believe it to be part of God's original order of creation and therefore it serves a specific purpose both in relation to God and in relation to each other in society. To allow that to fall apart is not only detrimental in our relationship to God (i.e. disobedience) but to society as a whole (i.e. causing instability).

Now suppose a sociological study is undertaken that looks at the effects of stability on societies where there are essentially no marriages as Christians understand it. It might be measured in terms of crime statistics, economy, etc. If the study were to conclude that there is essentially no difference whatsoever compared to societies with strong marriages what are we to say? Even though Christians feel morally obligated to keep to a Biblical view of marriage, we would rightfully say that it's important for the rest of society at large regardless of competing religious views. It's fairly likely we would either doubt the findings or simply dismiss it altogether.

But what if the study was done in honesty? What if there were no underlying agendas in mind and those were simply "the facts." The truth of Christianity does not depend on the effectiveness of strong marriages on the welfare of society, but it would beg the question about the purpose of marriage outside of Christian circles.

It's merely hypothetical of course. No such study has ever existed that has made that conclusion. But it demonstrates how we might come to question our Biblical interpretations or our understanding of marriage. I, for one, am one of those people who say, if it's in the Bible, it must be true. But to simply be dismissive of studies that appear to contradict my understanding of Biblical truth would be, in itself, logically inconsistent.

This goes back to the relation between special and general revelation. General revelation isn't going to be able to tell us about who God is, but it can certainly give us enough to know He's there, He's personal, and that there is some kind of moral code to be followed. It's implicit both in nature and our inescapable experiences. Special revelation, on the other hand, reveals to us what General revelation cannot. It speaks of who God is, his relationship to us, and what he has done. In either case, what is revealed in one is only going to confirm what is revealed in the other. They cannot contradict one another.

Indeed, both special and general revelation are uniquely intertwined. Every other religion has its own moral codes and its own dogmas. But those moral codes and dogmas (in varying degrees) are distinct from science and history. That is, they don't depend on any kind of historical or physical realities. They cannot be proven. This is why you see the prevalence of the privatization of religion (the belief that they are merely personal preferences and have little bearing on anyone or anything else). In Christianity its truth depends on historical and physical realities.

That is to say Christianity cannot be reduced to a set of moral standards and customs to adhere to. It is not some wisdom passed on through the pens of certain men in the past but is about God being directly involved in our realities. Creation demonstrates the handiwork of God, and the truth of Christianity depends on the veracity of real historical events. Special revelation is the unfolding drama of what God has done in what we call general revelation.

Therefore, if the Bible truly is the word of God, everything that we find in the world around us, rightly understood, will necessarily bear witness to it. So then, what does the evidence suggest? That God is real, and that Christ has risen! The more I discover, the more my faith is strengthened.

Coming next time
Part 2 - What about doubts?

...

Back from break...

2011-10-03T20:07:00.000-04:00

Look! No posts for an entire month. That's ok, this blog is still alive. This past September I enjoyed my first week long vacation since my honeymoon four years ago. It was a well timed and much needed break. In the past month I was able to do a lot of interesting reading, although not as much as I had hoped. But also, beginning yesterday, the church I attend began a new Sunday evening DVD series based on Tim Keller's book "The Reason for God." There's a great many things to reflect on which I hope to distill in this blog for your reading pleasure. In the mean time, I'm back, and keep an eye out for some posts coming in the new future. Have a nice day, God bless.

What is Ben Reading? Self-Esteem, Postmodernism

2011-08-23T23:00:00.000-04:00

Another big-name newspaper editorial on self-esteem. As I've said before, I'm glad this is catching on.

And, for a quick preview on a future blog post, check out this article on the Death of Postmodernism. It's one of those rare moments when I can look around and say, "I told you so!" More on that later.

And it would only be fair to thank the editors over at The Gospel Coalition website for directing me to these pages. If you haven't seen what this group is about I highly recommend you check them out. They've had a few conferences now and all the media is available online.

On Under-programming Your Church

2011-08-15T22:31:00.000-04:00

Here's a blog post I came across that I heartily agree with -- 10 reasons to under-program your church. Or rather, de-program your church. In other words, 10 reasons why maybe you should start removing some programs from your church even if you think they're good ideas.

Better than just removing programs to allow breathing space is to understand their inherent limitations. All good church programs are well meaning, and many of them can be very important and uplifting for those involved. The best programs are those that are organically grown from within the church as a worshipful response to the message of the Gospel from the pulpit. God certainly has, and continues to bless those efforts. But they are not his ordinary, prescribed means of grace.

The means of Grace refers to that which God has prescribed as a means of creating faith in the hearts of believers. It includes Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and of course, the written Word and proclamation of the Gospel. John Calvin wrote that there are three marks of a true church; the Gospel is preached, the sacraments are administered, and discipline is exercised.

If a church didn't have any special programs I'd be suspicious of whether it even cared for its congregation or its surrounding community. But many programs are nothing more than bells and whistles, pernicious ceremonies, and amusing but meaningless activities. When the ordinary seems boring our reaction is often to craft our own experiences under the guise of worship. We busy ourselves with the experiential and the practical. More is better, we tell ourselves. But at the heart of these is a lack of faith in God's power to save through the ordinary.

Churches are often known for this program or that, its dynamic worship, its energetic leadership. These can often impress us and might help to attract a crowd. But there is an enormous multi-billion dollar entertainment industry that does a far better job of amusement than any church could do. But this should not be our worry. The more critical question is whether a church remain steadfast to the calling God has ordained for it.

Programs are designed to meet particular needs within a church and its community, (sometimes just felt needs) but they are only supplemental. It is Christ who made the supper, we only serve what he made. God knows what he's doing.

On Machen and our view of God and Man

2011-08-09T21:10:00.000-04:00

J. Gresham Machen is probably more important to modern Christianity than people realize. Apart from the fact that he's not a well-known name like Calvin, or Luther, or more contemporaries like Tim Keller or John Piper, his book "Christianity and Liberalism" is one of those prophetic books that seems to become more relevant as time progresses. Despite its relatively small size, it represents a "tour de force" against the ongoing influence of the mainline liberal churches.

The fundamental fault of the modern Church is that she is busily engaged in an absolutely impossible task--she is busily engaged in calling the righteous to repentance. Modern preachers are trying to bring men into the Church without requiring them to relinquish their pride; they are trying to help men avoid the conviction of sin. The preacher gets up into the pulpit, opens the Bible, and addresses the congregation somewhat as follows: "You people are very good," he says; "you respond to every appeal that looks toward the welfare of the community. Now we have in the Bible--especially in the life of Jesus--something so good that we believe it is good enough even for you good people." Such is modern preaching. It is heard every Sunday in thousands of pulpits. But it is entirely futile. Even our Lord did not call the righteous to repentance, and probably we shall be no more successful than He.
J. Gresham Machen - Chapter 2

In Chapter 2 Machen points out that the modern liberal preacher has a very different conception of God and man than that which is found in Scripture. What Machen has effectively done here is set you up for a proper understanding of the Law and Gospel. God reveals himself most specifically through the written word, and while our conception of God may be in part experiential, our experience isn't what has the last word on who we know God to be. In other words, experience is enough to grasp that there is a God, and that he is even a good and personal God. But experience alone cannot dictate our understanding of who God is. He has revealed himself to us through Scripture as well.

And we cannot have a proper understanding of ourselves apart from an understanding of God. One has to follow the other. Therefore, if our conception of God is contrary to that which is found in Scripture, so our view of man be inaccurate. We will inevitably make ourselves look better than we are.

Our understanding of who God is and who we are are summed up in Doctrinal terms. In other words, we need good Doctrine.

The word doctrine these days often conjures up feelings of old, boring, dry, "dead orthodoxy." The phrase "dead orthodoxy" is, in my opinion, a contradiction in terms and more of a perception than anything possibly true. But where "doctrine" is dismissed it is invariably replaced with a heap of exhortations which are powerless to save and burdensome to those who try to obey.

Hence the conclusion of Machen. A wrong view of God (ignorance of Biblical doctrine) leads to a view of man that presupposed the inherent goodness of man, which then reduces the task of the preacher to calling his congregation to mere good deeds. It does not create a repentant heart, and certainly doesn't lead to holiness.

Most importantly, it removes the Gospel, which has the power to save...

What is Ben Watching? - A Writer's Responsibility to Truth

2011-08-02T22:21:00.000-04:00

By no means am I a professional writer. Writing isn't exactly something that comes naturally to me. It often feels about as cumbersome as reading, which I do slowly and laboriously. This is why I admire those prolific writers out there, and I'm thankful it's them and not myself who are able to write so many wonderful books. But even if I'm not gifted in writing, I really don't believe that just "blogging" gives me an excuse to write poorly.

Forgive me for possibly sounding elitist but I think writing is something we should take seriously. There's a certain degree of credibility that comes from writing well, but more importantly, I believe, is that we should write truthfully. In other words, instead of miring the literary world (and that includes the internet) with clumsy, opinionated, and feckless musings I would hope that what we read is actually worth our time. For goodness sake, I think your own dignity is at stake.

How refreshing, then, to come upon this video. I've never heard of either of these two gentlemen, but I couldn't help but respect what the author being interviewed has to say.

John Wilson Interviews Larry Woiwode from Crossway on Vimeo.

Clumsy, opinionated, and feckless musing:

For the record, 10 years ago I would probably never have said anything like this. But 10 years ago I was still taking grammar and English lessons, which, to be honest, I'm still not terribly interested in. Although some of my American friends may criticize me for being a "grammar nazi." Even that's only because American vernacular has terrible grammar by nature. Seriously, you should know better. I digress.

The point is, Truth is something we should all take seriously. If you take Truth seriously it will invariably show up in your writings, even if you do have poor grammar and spelling. I find those that take Truth seriously end up writing less about themselves, and more about what is. They understand that Truth is something outside of themselves, so they're less inclined to write personal opinion. Yet Truth relates to us in such deep and profound ways it's nevertheless personal anyway.

Notable Quote - J. Gresham Machen

2011-07-21T22:00:00.000-04:00

Here's the first, and it certainly won't be the last, of some notable quotes pulled from the book, "Christianity and Liberalism" by J. Gresham Machen as I read along.

The following is from the introduction, and it's one of those moments where I think the author veers a little off topic to add his own commentary on the context he finds himself. He's an American author, but having lived in the U.S. myself for 7 years I couldn't help but feel that his remarks still hold very true today. It's in regards to American politics, and while you may not be into that sort of thing I think it's still worth listening to.

...The whole development of modern society has tended mightily toward the limitation of the realm of freedom for the individual man. The tendency is most clearly seen in socialism; a socialistic state would mean the reduction to a minimum of the sphere of individual choice. Labor and recreation, under a socialistic government, would both be prescribed, and individual liberty would be gone. But the same tendency exhibits itself today even in those communities where the name of socialism is most abhorred. When once the majority has determined that a certain regime is beneficial, that regime without further hesitation is forced ruthlessly upon the individual man. It never seems to occur to modern legislatures that although "welfare" is good, forced welfare may be bad. In other words, utilitarianism is being carried out to its logical conclusions; in the interests of physical well-being the great principles of liberty are being thrown ruthlessly to the winds.

What Is Ben Reading - J. Gresham Machen

2011-07-20T22:42:00.002-04:00

This isn't a blog post or newspaper article, this is a book I'd like to share. I'm assuming for those of you with those fancy iThingy e-Reader devices would prefer to see this in digital book format. For all I know there's one available, but I'll leave it to you to search for yourselves. I can promise you it's definitely worth the read. In fact, I think I'm gonna sit down and read it again as it's been a number of years.

J. Gresham Machen's "Christianity and Liberalism" is available online.

The book was written in 1923, around the time the word "fundamentalism" was becoming more widely used. Although it should be noted that fundamentalism back then had a far different meaning than it does today. Fundamentalism once referred more to what we would now call a firm stand on historic Christian orthodoxy rather than blind dogmatism. The issues addressed in this book are surprisingly pertinent to todays issues.

The thrust of his argument is that the Liberal interpretations and ideas of Christianity are really not Christianity at all, but an entirely different religion. As he makes his case he demonstrates why orthodoxy is so important, because at some point crossing the boundaries into heresy means stepping into the realms of something that isn't recognizable Christianity anymore.

Anyway, it's a fairly straightforward read and definitely one to keep in your personal, uh, "e-library"...or something.

What is Ben Reading?

2011-07-17T14:14:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone. It's been far too long since I've posted and that's for a number of reasons. I've been very busy and writer's block likes to step in at random. It's difficult to keep a blog fresh when there are so many other things that demand your attention but given the positive response I've had since I've started this I would very much like to keep going.

In the meantime I can at least refer you to some interesting articles I've come across, including the following...

For years I've been going on about the silliness of the self-esteem movement. I find it particularly troubling among my own reformed-minded brethren. And now, it seems, that even the mainstream is beginning see it for what it really is. How to Land Your Kid in Therapy. It's a fairly lengthy article, and please excuse the expletive at the very beginning. This comes from The Atlantic, a fairly mainstream and secular newspaper.

Enjoy!

On Secularism - Part 3

2011-06-20T21:36:00.000-04:00

If secularism charges Christianity with dogmatism it's guilty of the same thing. The difference is what it's dogmatic about. What's ironic is that the rise of secularism owes many of its foundations to what Christianity helped to establish.

I'm not going to do an apologetic for the way in which Christianity helped give rise to the modern sciences. Even the most skeptical historians cannot help but notice its direct influence. But what the sciences offered turned it into an absolute rule, which helped shape the secularism of today. Ancient Greek rationality consisted only of pure speculative logic, but the rise of the sciences sought instead to probe the world. Essentially this shifted thinking towards observation and empiricism.

Gravity is gravity. 10 times out of 10, if you let go of a piece of chalk, it will fall to the ground. Basically this shows an obvious logical pattern. You can then study it and show that there's a certain rate at which it falls (Newton's law of gravity). The more you discover that the world works in an orderly fashion, like a well tuned mechanism, the more you begin to realize that what looked mysterious before can now be explained. So then this begs the question, can all things be explained entirely naturalistically?

And this becomes the crux of Secularist thinking. It believes that even if we can't explain things yet, it must have a perfectly plausible scientific explanation. There are no abnormalities as a result of some sort of spiritual, metaphysical other reality outside of the material. To be fair there's nothing irrational about this. If something strange happens it's always the logical thing to do to look for a plausible explanation other than, well, the boogeyman or something.

Part of it boils down to what makes good science. Generally speaking good science is about testable or falsify-able theories. Using gravity, as an example, you first have the law of gravity. Physical laws are derived from empirical observation which is precisely how Newton had established the law of gravity. (It's useful for practical purposes, but with the development of Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum mechanics it was rendered "moot".) But this is different from the "theory of gravity" which attempts to explain the "how" instead of the "what." If a model is put forth to theorize how gravity works it's good science if the theory can be falsified by further study.

But the miraculous, by definition, is not testable (i.e. falsifiable) and therefore does not represent good science. This isn't a problem normally, but if you insist on a "scientific worldview" which secularism already assumes, then there is no place for miracles. They are denied outright. This isn't the same as skepticism, but a dogmatic refusal to give it a chance even if the evidence clearly supports it. And this is just one place where the secularist worldview falls short.

A miracle is an event recorded in history and cannot be bound to the rigours of scientific study. It's simply impossible. It represents an entirely different discipline. You can use science to help understand historical events, but there's a certain point where the best evidence is the accounts of the witnesses. Science can help us understand the technology of World War II, but it can not explain the rise and fall of the Nazis. The same is true of the records of the Gospels. They can be cross-examined, studied, and at the end of the day, if the records show to the best explanation that Jesus did, in fact, rise from the dead, then that is what we are left with.

And this isn't to say that the sciences represent the discipline that, by nature, is antithetical to the Christian faith. Christianity uses history and science to bolster its case. You can even consider the testimonies of those Christian historians, philosophers, and scientists that have all deepened in their faith as a result of their study. In fact, some had even become Christians through their respective disciplines. Secularists will accuse Christians for being irrational for their faith, as though faith gives us blinders to logic. But this is simply not true. In fact, I would argue it's the exact opposite. Secularism's blatant refusal to see where the evidence leads and instead deny absolutely that some things cannot be explained in terms of pure materialist naturalism shows it has its own blinders. Secularism attempts to use science to discredit Christianity and explain it away, when it does precisely the opposite. Indeed, Secularism is not the real arbiter of truth that it wants to be.

On Secularism - Part 2

2011-06-19T22:26:00.002-04:00

I Serve A Risen Saviour / He Lives
Verse 1 -
I serve a risen Saviour, He's in the world today;
I know that He is living, Whatever men may say;
I see His hand of mercy, I hear His voice of cheer,
And just the time I need Him He's always near.
Chorus -
He Lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today!
He walks with me and talks with along life's narrow way.
He lives! He lives! Salvation to impart!
You ask me how I know he lives:
He lives within my heart.
Perhaps you've heard or sung this song in Church. It's seems to be one of the more popular songs of the old hymns, but I can't say I like it very much. It’s not because I don't like old hymns. On the contrary, I'm actually a bit partial to them. They have a beauty and depth that's underscored by having stood the test of time. But this is one song to which I must take exception.
The fellowship of believers may sing this song with kindred spirits, but when it comes to the line in the chorus that says, "you ask me how I know he lives" it gives what is possibly the worst answer to an absolutely crucial question for Christians. Granted, you can make the theological case that Jesus does, in fact, inhabit the heart. Strictly speaking God has given us a new nature and indeed the Spirit now resides within us and empowers us toward sanctification. But the reasons we give for the truth of the resurrection and new life of Jesus are not found in ourselves, through our subjective experiences, or what we feel in our hearts to be true. Like all truth, if it is true it is true outside of ourselves, completely independent of our own existence.
The truth of Christianity is bound to the historical realities of Jesus' death and resurrection, not the feelings of our hearts. And this is an important point not just in defending the truth of Christianity, but it separates itself in this way from all other religions.
You see, where religion tells you how to live, Christianity teaches about what has happened. In other words, religions teach good advice but Christianity teaches good news. This effectively separates the point of reference between Christianity and other religions. Take Islam, for example. The teachings are not bound to the prophet Muhammed himself. For the sake of argument, it could have been an entirely different person, in an entirely different place, at an entirely different time. Muhammed only passed on what he believed to be the revelations of God. At the end of the day Islam is not bound to the historicity of Muhammed himself, so his existence isn't their primary concern. So too is the teaching of Confucius, or Buddha. It’s not Confucius or Buddha that make Confucianism or Buddhism but their teachings. Even Mormonism isn’t terribly concerned with it’s own history as it is with the “burning of the bosom.”
All religions teach certain tenants and all promise something in the end if they’re properly adhered to. Many of them will be existentially satisfying, but that doesn’t make them true. It’s a bit like the placebo effect. A sugar pill will often be enough to convince somebody they’re getting better from an illness because they start to feel better. Sometimes they get better by themselves, and sometimes they weren’t really sick in the first place. Either way, the sugar pill had nothing to do with. But it becomes crucially important when you’re genuinely sick and you’re convinced the sugar pill is working. You can still succumb to the illness even if you believe “in your heart” the placebo is working.
Jesus, on the other hand, is the revelation himself, as a real bona-fide physical reality, regardless of how we feel about it. So, if we were to find out beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus did not, in fact, resurrect from the dead, then everything we believe is all in vain (1 Corinthians 15:12-19).
And this leaves us with an important distinction. Either Christ has been raised, and we must all believe and be saved, or he has not, and we can eat, drink, and be merry. If I may, we have here Christianity or Secularism. In the same way Christianity stands or falls (that is, through genuine, verify-able, observable data), secularism also stands or falls.
It should be noted that secularism doesn’t rise out of a denial of Jesus’ death and resurrection but a dogmatic worldview that says science can explain everything naturalistically. In other words, miracles don’t happen. If there is a so-called miracle, then there is a perfectly plausible scientific explanation for it. This means, of course, that even if Jesus existed he couldn’t do any miracles, and certainly couldn’t rise from the dead. And God, for that matter, well even that is just a figment of our imagination.
The point is that both Christianity and Secularism don’t point to the inward feelings of its worldview as a testament to its truthfulness but to observable datum outside the individual. If secularism can demonstrate that miracles can’t happen, that resurrection is impossible, that the world came about naturalistically, and that our idea of God is nothing more than a mind trick, then it arises as the victor. If, however, it can be demonstrated that miracles have happened, that Jesus’ resurrection did occur, that God had to have created the world, and that God truly reveals himself to us, then it is shown to be true, and Secularism to be based on a false premise.
It’s no wonder that debates between Christians and atheists far outnumber debates between Christianity and other religions. There’s just so much more riding on it.

It Works Small

2011-06-09T23:06:00.000-04:00

New Feature! You can read my blog on your i-thingy now thanks to mobile support. That is all.

On Secularism - Part 1

2011-06-06T22:29:00.004-04:00

"Secularism" is one of those words in Christian circles that has many different connotations to different people. For some it's like a dark crusading force against everything to do with Christianity. For others it's something that can basically work side-by-side with with it. Still others see it as a self-authenticated and merited worldview. Regardless of how you see it, many of its varying assumptions simply do not square with Christianity, and it's often difficult for Christians to know how to interact with it wisely.

Part of the issue isn't just "secularism" itself, but more generally the culture at large. Secularism is a bit of a nebulous term that represents only a single facet of the greater culture (or cultures) we find ourselves in. In other words, it's not a monolithic movement, so in some ways it's a bit like nailing Jello to a wall. Nevertheless, secularism is increasingly the dominant worldview even if it is competing with others. But what secularism does represent in its most simplest form is to be free from religious belief or influence. With such a wide variety of religious belief, secularism props itself up as the arbiter of truth, bringing enlightenment and progress to all society, with the tools of the sciences at its aid.

Secularism typically isn't explicitly anti-religious, but sees religion as a separate entity that's merely personal and private. So in a secularist government, for example, politicians need to leave any of their religious beliefs at the door and engage in policy making under secularist assumptions. One can easily see why people adopt this approach. In a liberal society desiring to maintain religious freedoms, you wouldn't want your own religious beliefs to encroach upon the beliefs of others through policy making. Therefore, if everyone keeps their religion to themselves you wouldn't have to worry about that.

But being asked to play by rules of secularism doesn't demonstrate its truthfulness or fairness but it's dominance. Studies in the sciences and humanities have taught us enormous amounts of information about ourselves and the world we live in, but the sum of their findings don't add up to secularism. In fact it's quite the opposite. If secularism attempts to be objective by not having faith-based religious assumptions, then it fails by its own standards. That's because rather than removing so-called "faith based" assumptions from its worldview, it's unwittingly replaced them with its own new set of presumptions. It's a bit like saying secularism become its own religion.

Secularism's greatest failing, then, is its own ignorance toward what it deems as mythical and supernatural nonsense. But that doesn't mean that a Christian doing science, by contrast, is going to come upon a mystery and just say "God did it." That "God-of-the-gaps" idea is pathetically unscientific and unfaithful to exploration. The Christian scientist, as much as any other scientist, is genuinely interested in how things work and function in the world. In other words, he is just as interested in truth as the next scientist. That's because the sciences and humanities are not the just tools of secularism, but the genuinely good gifts that God has bestowed upon us.

But besides enabling us to engage in scientific study what does God have to with science anyway? In science your dealing with the material, so what you find is what you find, whether you believe God or not. You certainly don't have to be a Christian to do science well, so it may seem like it makes little difference. As it is, in the sciences and humanities there is a great wealth of information to be gleaned that is not only helpful but truthful as well regardless of who's done it. John Calvin concedes the same thing. Consider this passage from his Institutes (Book 2, Chapter 2, Section 15).

Whenever we come upon these matters in secular writers, let that admirable light of truth shining in them teach us that the mind of man, though fallen and perverted from its wholeness, is nevertheless clothed and ornamented with God's excellent gifts. If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole foundation of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonour the Spirit of God. For by holding the gifts of the Spirit in slight esteem, we condemn and reproach the Spirit himself. What then? Shall we deny that the truth shone upon the ancient jurists who established civic order and discipline with such great equity? Shall we say that the philosophers were blind in their fine observation and artful description of nature? Shall we say that those men were devoid of understanding who conceived the art of disputation and taught us to speak reasonably? Shall we say that they are insane who developed medicine, devoting their labour to our benefit? What shall we say of all the mathematical sciences? Shall we consider them the ravings of madmen? No, we cannot read the writings of the ancients on these subjects without great admiration. We marvel at them because we are compelled to recognize how preeminant they are. But shall we count anything praiseworthy or noble without recognizing at the same time that it comes from God? Let us be ashamed of such ingratitude, into which no even the pagan poets fell, for they confessed that the gods had invented philosophy, laws, and all useful arts. Those men whom Scripture calls "natural men" [1 Corinthians 2:14] were, indeed, sharp and penetrating in their investigation of inferior things. Let us, accordingly, learn by their example how many gifts the Lord left to human nature even after it was despoiled of its true good.

When Calvin speaks here he makes a distinction between secular callings and those specific to the church. Obviously when it comes to heavenly things, non-Christians will be devoid of understanding, but secular callings are sacred and legitimate for Christians as well. That's because these secular callings were there from the beginning of creation but we have just become corrupted by the curse of the fall like everything else. Therefore you don't have to Christianize your business, your music, or the way you conduct your scientific surveys. As Martin Luther would put it, if you are a shoemake, then make a good shoe and sell it at a fair price.

What secularism does to the sciences is interpret the findings on the assumption that there is only the material. Again, this might seem to make little difference since you’re only dealing with material things anyway. The notoriously atheistic Richard Dawkins of Oxford University may display is ignorance when he writes books like “The God Delusion” but his work on biology can be a great asset to us all. But how does his atheism inform his work where a Christian, or a theist might differ?

Most simply because all of this work points to something far greater than itself. There’s beauty and order in it. Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” Francis Collins, the man who led the team that cracked Human Genome Project isn’t without reason when he states that human DNA has the “fingerprints” of the creator God. Even if these reflections seem somewhat subjective, it does no use to simply assume it all happened by itself based on infinitesimally impossible random chance. That only creates bigger problems for itself, and the burden of proof is on the secularist to show why its more reasonable to assume God’s not part of the picture.

For the studies in the humanities, on the other hand, since secularism has no time for acknowledging the existence of God, that we do indeed have a relationship with him (albeit broken), and that the world is fallen and corrupted by our own doings it completely removes an important part of the puzzle, which only the Bible has made clear to us. And this is important because the Bible teaches us not only "theological" things such as sin and redemption but it teaches ethics, morality, equality, justice. Secularism takes these things as well, but by denying the existence of a creator and ruler God, it removes any basis for them.

This is particularly dangerous in the area of human rights. If human rights are not grounded in the God-ordained dignity of human beings, they are only grounded in the whims of the dominant culture. Human rights become nothing more than the will to power, but secularism sees this as progress.

Take the work of Steven Pinker, for example. Steven Pinker, an avowed atheist, is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and a best-selling author. If you've never heard of him, in 2004 Time Magazine named him one of 100 most influential scientists and thinkers in the world. He posits that as human beings progress in science and technology that our morality also progresses as well. He cites that we no longer have slavery, we have more human rights such as women’s suffrage and equality, and so on. Rather ironic when you consider we've just witnessed the bloodiest century of all human history. And while Steven Pinker really is a smart guy, it's not difficult to see why he would come up with an idea like this.

Consider some of the things your grandparents believed. Today, many of those things are considered outdated and silly. It’s easy to think from our vantage point that we live in a more advanced society, not only in terms of technology, but in ethics and morality too. But don’t forget that in another two generations your grandchildren will consider many of your own beliefs silly too. The secularist might assume that in two generations they’ll have advanced even further than we have, but to what end? And on what basis are we to believe that the morals of today are better than yesterday or tomorrow? None! Without God morals are subject to the tides of the culture, or to the evolutionary process and we have no ability to discern good or evil except that which is useful for survival. Frederich Nietzche who was one of the few atheists to acknowledge this.

And this is the whole point: Secularism attempts to do something which it can only fail to achieve. It has no grounds for believing its foundation other than its own leap of faith. It not only fails by its own standards, but the grounds on which it's based mean that its own assumptions can't be trusted. Everything becomes a whim, an experiment, and it's all utterly, utterly meaningless.

Truth and Freedom

2011-05-24T21:12:00.001-04:00

I had written on this same topic briefly here. It's fairly truncated and I thought it would be helpful to write some further reflections. My hope is explain a little better how it is we find real freedom. I hope you find this helpful, and maybe even liberating.

Slavery...

If you've ever witnessed someone in your life spiral deep into an addiction you may have noticed there are certain stages along the way. The closer they get to the so-called "bottomless pit" the more they take on a different character. They become increasingly irritable, violent, irrational, seclusive, the list goes on. You may even say they become an entirely different person, which is what makes addictions so insidious and ugly. But these are not just the result of physiological effects from popular hallucinogenic drugs, it's an instinctive reaction of human behaviour to protect something that has become very important to them.

Throughout the course of an addiction, the typical patterns goes somewhat like this: First you may find the original attraction to the addiction and you quickly become attached to it. At first if it is taken away, you may be annoyed, but you could at least move on from it easily enough. But the more important it becomes, the more you will do anything to keep it, even when it becomes less satisfying. When things get in your way (lack of money, friends trying to intervene) you begin to feel victimized, and you quickly start to blame others for your dependancy. At this point your character begins to take on a different form. You become irritable if you don't have "it", whatever it may be. Eventually, however, there is nothing else in life than your all-consuming desire to have whatever it is you think you need. You have become, in effect, a slave.

This is exactly the effect of sin that C.S. Lewis uses to describe Hell in his book The Great Divorce. I quoted the following a couple months back during the Rob Bell controversy...

"Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others... but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine... "(The Great Divorce)

But there is a difference between sin and addictions. Addicts can reach a bottomless pit at which point they have either succumb to it and die, or have a moment of clarity in their despair and through grace are able to recover from it. Sin, on the other hand, in a truly eternal sense, has no bottomless pit. It will never end but continue on forever unless, as C.S. Lewis would say, it "is nipped in the bud."

Perhaps there's no greater modern illustration of this than the depictions of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. He was once Smeagol, a regular, happy, hobbit-like character who was overcome by the lure of the ring and even murdered his friend to acquire it. The ring consumed him, changed him, and became the master over him. Unlike the addicts of real life, however, Smeagol would physically transformed into the creature known as Gollum. The figurative Gollum clearly paints the ugliness of the all-consuming slavery of sin, but it also points to the inevitable dangers of misbelief and heresy.

But these addictions come in far greater form than what we're normally used to hearing such as drugs, alcohol, money, etc. They can be perfectly good things that are turned into ultimate things that, as Tim Keller would put it, become our functional Saviour. That is to say, raising good children, being successful at work, or having the perfect marriage, can all become our idols. We can all aspire to make sure to raise Christ-like and well disciplined children, and perform our work well, and be have good marriages through being good husbands and wives. There's nothing wrong with that. But when we turn these good things into the ultimate things, we displace the work of Christ as Saviour. In our drive to fulfill these goals we become overbearing to our children, we are far too driven in our work to the detriment of relationships, and when the inevitable rough patch occurs in our marriages our lives become completely disillusioned. We become slaves to these ideals, these idols of perfection, which will eventually fail in one way or another, and lead to destruction.

Truth, on the other hand, is freedom.

Freedom...

What the Bible describes as Truth, and what the general historical Christian consensus now labels as orthodoxy, is often viewed as being far too constraining and narrow-minded. But why should we expect it to be any different? Even if the Truth is constraining and narrow-minded that doesn't make it any less liberating. And it has certainly not been held captive by the hands of mere mortals who wish to box it up by their own whims. On the contrary, we can rejoice in the fact that God has been gracious enough to condescend to us that we may know the truth in the first place.

Our problem with Truth isn't so much that it's too constraining and narrow. It's just that, like Gollum, we've been far too consumed with the ring. Because of our stubborn belief in only half-truth we don't want the truth as revealed in Scripture, and because of our highly-esteemed but misguided intellect when the Truth does confront us it doesn't fit what we imagine it ought to be. We want something that affirms what we already believe, we don't want to be told different, even if what we believe invariably leads to destruction.

But the most difficult thing about Truth is to honestly accept it, because this goes against every ounce of our sinful beings. We would not, except by the grace of God, want anything to do with something that completely turns our life around. But when it happens, only then do we truly see the error of our ways and the glorious riches of God's abounding love and mercy.

I suspect for most of us who affirm and believe in Christ that the feeling of continual liberation through the knowledge and study of Scripture is a slow and often messy process. Such is the process of Sanctification. It's not very often that there is a complete turn around someone makes in repentance. But when it does happen it's always from God revealing himself in extraordinary ways. The example of Isaiah 6 comes to mind. Isaiah, having seen visions of God, cries out, "Woe to me!... I am ruined! For I am a man on unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." (Isaiah 6:5)

There are two important things that happen when we're confronted by the Truth. First, as Isaiah demonstrates, we finally see ourselves for who we really are. We realize, in the words of Isaiah, that "we are ruined." We are lost on our own, sold as slaves the the cravings of our sinful nature. And Second, that God is a just but merciful Father. As the story in Isaiah unfolds, his lips are touched by the hot coals, cauterizing them to cleanse them, and his sins are atoned for. Only then is he set free.

Or as Paul says in Romans 6:19ff
Just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
For when you were slaves to sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Of all the greatest theologians and pastors through the ages, one common thread remains in them all, and that can be summed up in the words of John Newton, who said, "I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am." Those who've had the most clear view of themselves had the most clear view of God himself, and therefore had the most urgency in imparting a strict and narrow but wonderful and liberating Truth.

When God created men and women he created us with a nature that worships. At any given moment we are always worshipping something. The object of our worship ultimately dictates our attitudes, behaviours, desires, etc. Before Adam and Eve sinned, they were free. They enjoyed everything in creation, each other, and enjoyed communion with God. When the fall happened, all of that was broken, and suddenly their desires turned away. The object of our worship necessarily dictates our actions, attitudes, and our beliefs. We are, by nature, slaves to the object of our worship. If the object of our worship isn't the eternal God, we are doomed to destruction. Therefore, in order to be redeemed, we need an act of God to rescue us from this slavery.

And this is exactly what only Christ can, and has, accomplished for us. Praise be to God.

The End of the World?

2011-05-18T21:47:00.001-04:00

For those of you who've seen the signs all over the place declaring the end of the world at the end of this week, here is a little background on how the whole fiasco started. This has been written up by a professor named W. Robert Godfrey at Westminster Seminary California. Here are the set of links to each writeup...

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

While doomsdayers like this aren't new, what astonishes me is the amount of influence he has with an entire radio network at his disposal. It's actually quite troubling and saddening. What's more is that many of his followers have bet everything on this, potentially devastating their entire life's savings and relationships on the world ending in just a couple days. And of course, when the world inevitably doesn't end and all their visions shatter before their eyes many, rather than seeing the error of their ways, will continue to blindly follow Harold Camping and say that the Bible must've been wrong.

Heresy vs. Freedom

2011-05-09T21:27:00.000-04:00

Heresy happens, and it's deadly serious. But heresy doesn't crop up out of an intentional vendetta against the church or orthodox theology. Rather, it's often the well meaning attempts of misguided individuals to make Christianity more palatable to the culture at large. That's why heresy usually isn't so much a denial of established doctrine (it can be) but a twisting and bending thereof. It's often cloaked in the same Biblical language of orthodoxy, so it's not always so obvious either. But the consequences of heresy cripple the unity of the church and ultimately subvert the good news of the Gospel, and that's why it's so important, whether we like it or not.

Heresy is one of those words that doesn't get tossed about lightly. It never has. The term itself is so loaded with baggage that people seldom use it, particularly now. With the heightened sensitivities of our culture against anything with connotations to "Truth" its use has become equated with being judgemental, intolerant, and authoritarian. For many the act of criticism, let alone the charge of heresy, is tantamount to intolerant bigotry, and an intrusion on one's freedom.

The problem, first of all, is that truth and doctrinal matters have become far less important than good values. It doesn't matter so much what you believe so long as you're a nice person and tolerant of others. A tolerant society, the argument goes, is a free society. Defending liberty is about defending one's right to create their own truth and identity, unhindered by anyone else who might impose their worldviews on them. The essence of freedom, then, is to be free of any restrictions.

But those values aren't neutral. They have their own pre-supposed worldview which end up imposing themselves on others who disagree with them. In other words, this form of tolerance is only tolerant of those who conform to its own set of "truths" and dogmas and is just as intolerant, if not more, toward those who choose not to.

Judging something as heretical doesn't just break the rules of these values, they use an entirely different set of presuppositions. For one it implies you have epistemologically achieved some level of absolute truth. For the postmodern, truth is highly subjective, so the idea of heresy is non-sequitur. In the end, no one is the wiser. But to claim absolute truth puts you in a position of authority, and to charge heresy is nothing more than the wielding of power, subverting one's freedom to live as they choose.

The Christian's concern for truth, however, isn't just the will to power, or about being right and pointing out why everyone else is wrong, (which is wrongheaded by itself) but about reasons of much deeper importance and urgency. Among those is a very different concept of freedom than the postmodernists claim to enjoy. For the Christian freedom does not exist from the absence of dogmatic restrictions, rather it is conforming to the right restrictions.

Scientia Potentia Est is a famous latin phrase that roughly translates "Knowledge is Power." The phrase is typically attributed to Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), but back then it viewed knowledge as being able empower individuals to greater levels of progress. Indeed, even Proverbs 24:5 similarly lauds knowledge when it says, "A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might." Gaining knowledge should never be an end in itself. Such ambitions typically result in the sort of authoritarian power plays the postmodernists are concerned with. But gaining knowledge is part of Christian discipleship. Submitting to the apostle's teaching, holding fast to the faith once and for all delivered, keeping a sober mind and not being blown about by every wind of doctrine, the emphasis on discipleship through learning and understanding is a steady stream throughout the entire Bible. One simply cannot avoid the conclusion that the Bible is incredibly serious about knowledge and wisdom.

And it's only through understanding of the knowledge of God that we can come to a better and more clear knowledge of ourselves. Both Proverbs 1:7 and Psalm 111:10 say, "The Fear of the Lord is the beginning wisdom" (or knowledge). We've all come to know narcissistic people in our lives. They praise themselves and demand the appreciation and respect of others. It's clear from observers they are very delusional people. But the same is true of us if we first don't understand God rightly. We are lost in our own self-deceit, out of our mind, and entirely delusional. We are like slaves.

Freedom, then, is not achieved through the absence of restricting dogmas. Nor is it found in a declaration of independence against the establishment of orthodox Christianity. Led to our own devices we are lost. Rather, true freedom comes through a clear knowledge and submission to the truth which God has given us in his word. As Os Guinness would say, "Knowledge is Power, but Truth is Freedom."

...So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31)

On Heresy and Alister McGrath

2011-05-04T21:55:00.000-04:00

I'm a big fan of the work of Alister McGrath. He's an author, speaker, debater, former-atheist-turned-Christian-theologian and now serves as the Chair of Theology, Ministry and Education in the Department of Education and Professional Studies at Kings College, London. He's one of those prolific writers whom I have no idea how they manage write so much. I'm happy he does because I've come to learn quite a bit from him. My most recent interest is a book he wrote, released in 2009 called "Heresy: A History of Defending the Faith." Unfortunately I haven't been able to read yet but I have come across a quote that echoes my own feelings in a way far better than I could possibly articulate myself, and I would very much like to share it...

Yet perhaps the ultimate appeal of heresy in our times lies in its challenge to authority. Religious orthodoxy is equated with claims to absolute authority, which are to be resisted and subverted in the name of freedom. Heresy is thus to be seen as the subversion of authoritarianism, offering liberation to its followers. It is virtually impossible to take this account seriously from a historical perspective, especially as some heresies were at least as authoritarian as their orthodox rivals. The belief that heresy is intellectually and morally liberating tells us far more about today's cultural climate in the West than about the realities of the first centuries of Christian existence. Yet, as any account of the cultural reception of ideas concedes, the present-day relevance of any ancient idea has at least as much to do with what contemporary human beings are looking for as with what ancient ideas have to offer. The significance of heresy is thus not inherent within the heresy itself, but is rather constructed within the relationship between the original heresy and its contemporary interpreter. Alister McGrath, "Heresy: A History of Defending the Faith"

I'll be posting on the same topic soon...

Where, Oh Death, Is Thy Victory?

2011-04-26T21:38:00.000-04:00

Oh Death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? (1 Corinthians 15:55, KJV)

I've often said that if I were to ever teach a philosophy class my very first lesson would be about the consequences of ideas. Take an idea, or a philosophy, doctrine, whatever, and follow it to its ultimate logical end. Where does it lead? Obviously, a practice such as this may require a great deal of speculation as certain things are difficult to foresee, but the point of it is to force you to think carefully and critically about ideas that you might adhere to.

When it comes to the Gospel, the implications are far greater than anything else we can possibly imagine. Many things can be inspiring. Great music can move us to tears, the emergence of great men and women through difficult trials inspire us to persevere, and simply falling in love with someone can cause us to do do a great many things that we would never have done before. But there is nothing more powerful than the Gospel itself, something that has moved more people to martyrdom than anything else in history.

That's because the Gospel does more than motivate to higher levels of living, it gives us a promise that prepares us for death. It may seem counter-intuitive, in a world about living "Your Best Life Now" or the "Promise Driven Life" that, perhaps more than anything else, Christianity prepares you for the life to come more than the life we're now in. In this way, Christianity is more about death than life.

That isn't to say Christians stand around waiting to die, or even volunteer for it. Instead it displaces our hope in the temporary things of this life to the eternal promises of the future. In this way, perhaps paradoxically, Christians are more motivated to carry on the work that God has called them to now than those who's focus is only on their current situation.

As C.S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity
Hope is one of the theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven...
...Aim at Heaven and you will get earth "Thrown In"; aim at Earth and you will get neither.

As ideas go, then, this brings up some serious implications of its own. Christians, whether they be scholars and pastors, or lay-people, regular parishioners, or new to the faith, often quarrel amongst each other about the differing doctrines. But it's these doctrines which are so crucial to the faith that point us to Christ glorified in Heaven and in turn move us to serve one another in love.

More than that, it is our eyes cast upon Christ in Heaven that ultimately gives us hope. In a world in shambles, where families are torn apart by untold amounts of horror, what good is it to pour on the exhortations of good deeds, of self help, and of trying to live victoriously for ourselves. This leads us only to self righteousness and ultimately despair. Rather, our victory has already been accomplished for us, and in the end, that answers the deepest longings of our hearts. Through Christ's victory we can eagerly await the day of His return, and are ready to face the trials and temptations the world throws our way, even to the point of death. True confidence, courage, and hope lies ultimately not in ourselves, or anything we have or do, but that which has already been accomplished for us.

I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:20-21)

What is the Gospel? Part 2

2011-04-17T21:24:00.000-04:00

This is part 2 of 2 of the question, What is the Gospel? This is a brief summary of an address given by D. A. Carson at the Gospel Coalition national conference in 2007. To listen to the message, you click here. Part 1 of this summary can be found here.

What is the Gospel?
...D.A. Carson went on to explain what the Gospel is in 8 summarizing words.

1) It is Christological. By this he means that the Gospel centres not only on the person of Christ, but more specifically his atoning death and his resurrection. Christianity, then, isn't some bland theism. In fact, everything is irreducibly centred on Jesus such that he becomes the one and only name by which anyone can be saved.

2) It is Theological. The gospel has a definitive purpose, and speaks about what God has done through it. First, that God raised Jesus from the dead, thereby defeating our enemy - death. God's purpose for Jesus in this was to die for our sins and rise again for our justification. In it God poured out his wrath on our sin, and this demonstrates the very punishment we deserve. Since it is God who is the offended party, it is he who must be repaid.

3) It is Biblical. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was raised again according to the Scriptures.

4) It is Apostolic. To this, D.A. Carson credits Rev. John Stott. Look at the sequence of nouns in 1 Corinthians 15:11.

Whether, then, it is I (An Apostle), or they (The Apostles), this is what we (The Apostles) preach, and this is what you believed.

I, They, We, You.

5) It is Historical. I already mentioned this in part 1. Jesus' death and resurrection are tied down in history. This means we can study it as a historical event just like we would any other historical event. In fact, the central claims of Christianity are irreducibly historical. Unlike other religions where God supposedly passes on his enlightenment and wisdom to an individual, who then carries that message to others. Jesus is God's revelation. You can't, therefore, separate Jesus's revelation from who his historical events. To do so wouldn't make any sense.

6) It is Personal. The above events are not just historical events or theological precepts, but they set forth a way of personal salvation. This is the Gospel we received and upon which we now stand (1 Cor. 15:1)

7) It is Universal. It is universal in the sense that it is for every person, gender, race, ethnic group, societal group, etc. Not to be confused with universalism.

8) It is Eschatological. Eschatology refers to the last things in history. The Gospel brings out certain things given on at the end of the world, namely justification. God has begun the work of sanctification as well, but we look forward to its completion at the end of times.

Five Clarifying Sentences
D.A. Carson goes on to summarize everything as follows. First, that Gospel is normally disseminated through proclamation, that is, through a sermon. The good news is an announcement that must be explained and it's typically done in the context of the church's sermons. Second, it is received in and through faith and thus continues to produce results. Third, that it is properly disclosed through self-humiliation. You need to be aware of your own insufficiency and helplessness to be able to grasp it. Fourth, the Gospel, rightly asserted, becomes the bedrock confession of the entire worldwide church. And finally, that it is advancing boldly despite great opposition, and will one day see its final fruition when all God's enemies are under his feet.

Final Summary
"The Gospel is not exclusively cognitive. It is also affective and active. The word of the cross is not only God's wisdom which the world considers folly, but it is God's power, which the word considers weakness. This gospel transforms us - not by attempting to abstract social principles from the gospel, not by imposing new levels of rules, still less by focus on the periphery in the vain attempt to sound prophetic, but precisely by preaching and teaching the blessed gospel of our glorious redeemer." D. A. Carson

What Is The Gospel? Part 1

2011-04-09T20:44:00.001-04:00

Every student, scholar, and disciple of the word who has, at the very least, aspirations for Word and Sacrament ministry has some sort of hero. Or, if not a hero, then at least someone whom they admire for their wisdom, intellect, passion, or integrity, or anything else. They can probably list off several reasons why that particular person has been so influential. For myself one of them is Dr. Don A Carson. Every pastor brings their gifts to the table, and every congregation they serve benefits in some way from those gifts. My pastor in Grand Rapids, MI who served not only as Pastor but mentor to me as an intern, was very gifted in teaching through narrative. The beloved John Piper exudes such an enormous passion over Scripture, but (at least to my estimation) doesn't interact very much with competing philosophies, choosing instead to preach exegetically. While I can appreciate gifts and methods such as these, I happen to find myself among the types who think more propositionally and philosophically. That's where I've come to enjoy D. A. Carson's work. He's able to interact with alternative and secular ideas versus historic Christianity in ways that help discern that which is good and true, and that which is patently false. All that aside, however, one of the great pieces I've enjoyed from him most happens to be something rather elementary. It's his explaining of the question, "What is the Gospel?"

I want to mention I'm on a bit of an ongoing theme at the moment in case you haven't read the previous introductory post. As usual my posts are reflections of things I've learned over the years, but these next several in particular are about the gift of Truth. I use the word gift purposefully because, despite the enormous amounts of sophisticated arguments that shake our confidence thereof, it is truly a wonder that God has made himself known to us in such a way that we can enjoy his goodness and grace through a meaningful relationship. Christianity, by virtue of its nature, is inseparably linked to a view of epistemology that believes that people logically must be able to adequately understand and know of an objective reality outside of themselves, namely, God.

To put it simply, faith has an object. Does the object of our faith have any bearing on reality? If not, it's not only irrational, but just plain stupid. Consider the words of the Apostle Paul...

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:12-19)

This passage neatly demonstrates why a high view of Truth is so important to Christianity. Here we have something concrete and empirical for us, a genuine historical event. It becomes the very lynch pin upon which nearly everything else in Christian belief rests upon. What's more, it practically invites you to examine its credibility and explore its enormous implications.

This is why the Gospel becomes a fantastic starting point for understanding why we care so much about truth. It's not that people like myself have this nostalgic love for "the good ol' days" of modernism. Certainly not. Truth, in modernism, was determined entirely by man's own supposed enlightenment. Descartes' famous "Cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am) became the bedrock foundation of knowledge in modernity. In this way, truth is discovered in the direction of man to God, not the other way around. Postmodernism, despite its criticism of modernity, does exactly the same thing. In fact, what many people think is postmodernism is often just re-hashed modernism all over again. Instead, it is God who comes to us, by revealing himself to us, giving sight to the blind, and restoring us to him.

Even if you don't care about modernism, postmodernism, epistemology, or anything of the sort (explicitly, that is) than you should at least care about what the Gospel is. The Dr. D. A. Carson did a plenary address at the Gospel Coalition conference back in 2007. In it he gave an excellent breakdown of what the Gospel is, beginning with what the gospel is not....

The Gospel is Not...
...a narrow set of teachings. It's not a list of instructions. It's not a list of "do's" and "don'ts" that are there to help tip people into Salvation, with a set of doctrines and other things to follow. It's not the first and second commandments, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbour as yourself. And they are not ethical teachings of Jesus devoid of anything doing with his death and resurrection. These things are all important. Hugely important. But they do not constitute the gospel.

We can all get excited about these issues. The danger is when the Gospel becomes the assumptions, and our passions are ignited over peripheral issues. Not to downplay the importance of them (e.i. good marriages, community, social justice, etc) but when the Gospel is ignored you risk reducing things to moralism--a works righteousness. But what makes the Gospel so important is its literal meaning, good news.

The Gospel by which you are saved is bound up in the fact that Christ died for our sins, was buried, raised on the third day and appeared to many people - the apostles and others. (D. A. Carson, paraphrased)

More on what the Gospel is to be continued...

On Knowing Truth - An Introduction

2011-04-04T22:27:00.001-04:00

"What is Truth?" Pilate asked (John 18:38).

No other group of people in the world should have a greater concern for Truth than Christians. Our calling is not to simply live an alternative lifestyle, on personal betterment, or to greater community, but to Truth. Truth that is ultimately only revealed to us by a God who sees fit to give it as he pleases. To answer Pilate's question then, is among our most daunting but important tasks as Christians. It's a challenge made greater by the many criticisms, and charges brought against it by a world that refuses to accept it. Having been continually pounded by skeptics, cynics, and our own existentialist situations, many have had serious doubts about whether we can even know it at all.

But, at the heart of Christianity is a God who interacts with our own human history. A God who has spoken generally of himself in what he has made, and specifically of himself in what he has done. A God, who, through His son Jesus Christ, shows that Truth that is not just an abstract notion, but a being who has brought us into an intelligible, coherent, and ultimately joyful relationship with Divine Reality. To know God is to know Truth...

to be continued....

On Forgiveness

2011-03-30T23:04:00.001-04:00

The heated debate sparked by Rob Bell's latest book is beginning to simmer down and it's allowing many of us to take pause over the controversy the last several weeks. There were a few general themes that flowed from the debates, and most of them surrounded the concept of Hell itself, and whether a loving God could possibly send anyone to a place of such torment. Not surprisingly accusations shot back and forth about who is and who isn't a heretic, about how one's views are ancient, primitive, and completely out-of touch with reality, and so on and so forth. It occurred to me that there wasn't a very thorough explanation of God's forgiveness in just about any of my recent readings. To be fair, it was mentioned now and then, but it's something so central to the resolution of the whole Hell debate.

The concept of God's forgiveness is, lets be serious, pretty easy to swallow. It feels like it fits perfectly well in our supposedly enlightened and progressive western society. Forgiveness is good. There's just very little argument to be had. Yet, ironically, it's far more radical than Hell. So why is it that we have such a hard time with Hell, and so little debate about forgiveness? Even though we intrinsically know that forgiveness is all of grace, it's not hard to imagine that we may have become used to the idea to the point where we not only expect it, we feel we deserve it. (Romans 6:1). If Rob Bell's book is an example of making a difficult doctrine more palatable to our itchy ears, could it be that we do the same thing with forgiveness without realizing it? And if so, how has that happened? May I offer just a handful of reasons...

A high sense of self
A few posts ago I briefly alluded to how pop-psychology changes our ideas about guilt. Self-esteem has become highly popularized in the last 50 years and psychologists are only now beginning to realize some of the disastrous consequences it's yielded. Respected psychologists Roy Baumeister and Albert Ellis have written extensively on how self-esteem theories are not only illogical (being based on arbitrary premises) but have become self-defeating, and ultimately destructive. A high view of the self, according to proponents, will make you more successful and less likely to engage in harmful behaviour. Therefore, anything that hinders this high view of self (such as guilt) leads to poor performance, bad relationships, and so on.

The problem, of course, is that it promotes an unrealistic view of the self. To put it in psychological terms, it means you're delusional. It's a bit ironic, then, that what psychology once so fervently recommended was, in fact, a recipe for psychological disaster. But even if self-esteem is now becoming relegated to the fringes, the wake of its influence is still seen all over society. School teachers have been discouraged from disciplining their students for wrongdoing for fear of lowering anyone's self-esteem. Tragically, even youth pastors are often pressured into helping kids feel better about themselves irrespective of anything to do with a Christian sense of identity.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that the proper alternative is its polar opposite, or that any form of psychology is bad. What I am suggesting is more realistic examination of one's self, and self-esteem doctrine simply cannot deliver this. Our dignity and worth is found via a loving Creator God, and this in turn provides the basis for ethics and value. At the same time, having been called as stewards we also have a responsibility. When we are in error, we should not only be aware of it, but sanity dictates that we should have at least a sense of guilt.

Displacing Blame
For better or for worse, the penal system in western society has become increasingly therapeutic rather than atoning. Traditionally, a prison sentence was meant as a way for a person to pay his debt to society. But it's no secret that those who've spent time in prison are often the most likely to wind up right back in again. This has led many to change their mind about what a prison sentence should be. There's a new focus on rehabilitation for prisoners to help them work and live stable lives. This is not only a benefit to themselves but to society at large.

There's no reason to not welcome this, but at the same time it has also led to something interesting about the way we treat people's wrongdoings. In the traditional prison sentence, all blame rested on the criminal, and the punishment was considered appropriate to the crime. Now the blame is often shifted to somewhere else. A lack of education, poor family life, socio-economic status, etc. Studies show correlations between these situations and bad behaviour, so it's not entirely unreasonable to say they have a lot to do with it, but at the end of the day, only one person did the crime.

We've heard this excuse before. "It's not my fault, the devil made me do it." Yet it's just far too easy for us to pass the buck. Instead, Scripture demands that we own up to our misdeeds. And really, why should it not? In both an communal and individual sense, we've reaped what we've sown.

Tolerance, and the cost of our error
Even if we've come to accept a more realistic view of ourselves, and have learned to be honest about our own actions and responsibilities, it doesn't matter unless we begin to understand the magnitude of our sin. The heart of the hell debate centres not around God's love, but his justice. Again, intrinsically, we should already know this.

As a brief personal example, part of my job involves setting up quotes to do service and repair work in the fire protection recently. There's a lot riding on a quote because you need to ensure that it accurately reflects both the time and the material required to do the job properly. If the details aren't carefully thought out, you could set yourself up for a loss. That's exactly what I did recently, with the price I set being far too low.

Being that it's my first time, I was forgiven for making such a mistake. But even in forgiveness, the cost of my error still had to be eaten up. Forgiveness isn't just saying you ignore something, or try to forget it. That's unrealistic. In this simple but concrete example, whatever the difference is between the actual cost of the job and my poorly done estimate is counted as a loss against the company. Forgiveness costs something. It may be freely given, but it's not free.

The problem with my example, however, is that you can easily put a number to it. In the face of an infinitely Holy God, it's far too unfathomable. That's the whole point. People don't like hell because it's so unfathomably horrible, but it's no different than the cost of our sin. That's what makes hell a perfectly justifiable and appropriate punishment. And who are we to argue?

We don't understand the cost. In an age where the great modern dogma is tolerance, forgiveness and love have fallen under its umbrella. But the Biblical concepts of forgiveness and love are far different than the superficial idea of tolerance preached today. Today, being tolerant simply means have a much greater threshold for allowing bad behaviour, and not letting differences of opinions be a concern. To be fair, tolerance used to be something different. It used to mean allowing people freedom of expression while disagreeing wholeheartedly. These days it means ignoring the differences, and not even being allowed to criticize. (It's an entirely incoherent concept of intolerance). But you have to be intolerant, because some things are just plain stupid. Where tolerance brushes things under the rug, forgiveness and love demand our utmost.

Forgiveness
I'm not trying to make the world an enemy. Society has many great things to offer, and many things we can be thankful for. But, as with the conventional wisdom of any age, it often flies in the face of Biblical wisdom. But forgiveness? Forgiveness on a cosmic level? That is radical. I don't believe we will ever fully understand forgiveness in this age. While society influences us, the bottom line still ends up with us giving ourselves far too much credit, excusing ourselves for our own faults, and never understanding the extent of the damage we cause.

Hell? That's easy. Grace? That's far too great. It involves a God who suffers on our behalf. We owed Him nothing, but cost Him dearly. His happiness did not depend on our existence, but he revealed his Love for us anyway, through the death of his own Son. It's unfathomable, but it's the Truth.

Upcoming topics

2011-03-29T22:06:00.000-04:00

Trying to keep up a blog among many other projects isn't easy. Perhaps that why I stopped my old blog 3 years ago. I had just forgotten about the difficulties of keeping something like this up. I'm beginning to think that those prolific bloggers out there are able to spend far more time writing than I can.

Anyway, I've had quite a number of positive comments through the grapevine. A lot of those comments have come from people I have a great deal of respect for, and it's been very re-affirming personally. If nothing else, I'd like to thank you for even bothering to read any of this. It's certainly helped motivate me to keep writing. So, to motivate you to actually keep reading, here is a short list of upcoming topics...

Forgiveness - a brief expose of how society makes it easier for us to accept a doctrine of forgiveness rather than hell, even though forgiveness is a far more radical concept than hell.

Knowing Truth - I take my lead on this topic from several people, including the well known German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and the French deconstructionist/postmodern philosophers Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. These important philosophers have articulated what many people today take as conventional wisdom, but have they serious implications, particularly for Christians. I promise to make it less boring than it sounds.

Christianity vs Secularism - sort of a spin-off of the above topics. I want to reveal how secularism (as a philosophy) has taken upon itself to be the arbiter of truth, attempting to relegate Christianity to the fringes of irrationality, and how secularism takes on the very characteristics it criticizes.

On Hell and C.S. Lewis

2011-03-21T22:33:00.001-04:00

C.S. Lewis is probably most famously known for his book series "The Chronicles of Narnia," especially given its relative success in its recent theatrical adaptations. But C.S. Lewis has had a far greater influence on Christian thought than from just his allegorical Narnia series. A case in point, rather personally I might add, is from his book, "The Great Divorce." Although the title had originally been a response to a book called, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" by William Blake, it has since become a classic in helping many Christians understand the Biblical notions of salvation and damnation. Now, in particular, in the midst of a fury of debate thanks in part to Rob Bell's new book, "Love Wins," it serves as a great resource for those disillusioned by one of the most controversial doctrines of the Bible.

The thing about hell, like many other doctrines, is that on its face it seems entirely illogical, inhumane, and downright evil. That is, devoid of context, it looks incredibly cruel. It's a bit like trying to explain the doctrine of predestination. You can't simply start with predestination itself because the reason for its existence stems from other doctrines. The same is true for Christ's redemptive work on the cross. I've heard some people call it divine child-abuse, as though it were not only evil and unjust, but entirely unnecessary. The doctrine of hell is no different. The nature and reason for its existence is predicated on other realities.

Traditionally, the doctrine of hell refers to the eternal damnation for the reprobate. The keywords surrounding the controversy are eternal and reprobate. For the latter word, the debate usually entails the question of whether God would even send anyone to hell in the first place, if it even existed. The former is the question of whether hell is suffered for a finite period of time, and if those who suffer it are eventually annihilated or redeemed. There's also the question of the nature of hell itself. Is it a place where God's wrath is poured out on the unrepentant, or is it a situation that we create for ourselves when we don't order our lives as God would like? There are at least as many views of hell as their proponents, but they usually fit into one of a few streams of thought. And although they may be historical, that doesn't mean they're historically orthodox.

Today's cultural ideals of pluralism, tolerance, and even democracy and fairness, have caused an increasing number of people to question the legitimacy of Hell's orthodoxy. The topic of hell has been, well, hot for quite some time now. The controversy over Rob Bell's new book, "Love Wins" is indicative of current cultural climate. At any rate, whatever camp you find yourself in, what you believe about the Hell speaks volumes about what you believe about a great many other things, not least of which is your view of God's love. That's because the doctrine of hell is so inseparably intertwined with other doctrines. You cannot divorce it from God's other attributes.

Let's be serious about one thing though. The usual alternatives to hell (i.e. universalism, annihilationism) from as early as Origen or Gregory of Nyssa have never been accepted as orthodoxy. From the earliest of creeds, to Rome, to Eastern Orthodoxy, or to Protestant evangelicalism, these views of always been rejected outright. They've never passed the rigours of proper exegesis, and their arguments have always fallen flat, regardless of how attractive they may seem. To include them as sound doctrine doesn't mean expanding the borders of orthodoxy, it means moving them somewhere else entirely. More importantly, however, if you don't like the traditional view, your quarrel is not with the theologians who argue for it, but with Jesus himself. Jesus talked more frequently, more seriously, and more earnestly about hell than any other person in Scripture. And let's be honest, for someone who went through it, why wouldn't he?

My suspicion is that a lot of people cringe when they hear about hell not because it's in Scripture, but because people who endorse it have often abused it. The BBC once featured a documentary called, "The Problem of Evil" based on the works of the atheist and Oxford University biologist Richard Dawkins. In it was a segment that showed a pastor of a church deep in America's Bible-Belt who would put on plays about how awful hell was. The whole idea of it was to (quite literally) scare the hell out of the youth group kids so they would turn to Jesus. While people can come to a knowledge of Christ after learning about only about hell, a presentation like this served as nothing more than a blatant abuse of power. Kids would repent out of fear of reprisal, not out of a genuine understanding of God's infinite grace. Jesus is a sort of "fire insurance" if you will.

But for those who struggle with hell because it confronts them in Scripture, the first problem is its awful nature. As Tim Keller notes, the idea of hell-fire is probably metaphorical. That is to say, it's probably metaphorical for something far worse. We cannot escape the Biblical descriptions of hell. It really must be that bad, and for all we know, it could very well be even worse.

To some, however, this creates a problem of theodicy. How could a good and loving God possibly send someone to hell, if not for a short time, but eternally? But this isn't a question of God's love, it is a question of God's justice. If we believe God to be perfectly just, then it must follow that what befalls those going to Hell is befitting of the crimes committed. On the other hand, if a hell like this is simply too severe, then either our sin isn't that serious, or God is unjust. An unjust God is a God who, in the end, provides no hope for those who put their trust in him. In fact, he cannot be trusted in the first place. So it must be a question of the seriousness of sin.

Is sin so bad then? Imagine if Jesus himself made the slightest of slips on earth. Imagine if Jesus himself gave into the temptations of Satan. Imagine, if even for a moment, Jesus decided it wasn't worth the pain, everything that he had set out to do on Earth would've failed. At the end of the beatitudes, Jesus declares with finality, "...be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect." That is the standard by which Jesus had to live. Thank the Lord, Jesus did. In the face of an infinitely good God then, the insult of sin is infinitely serious.

And why is it eternal? The answer to that is as simple as it is profound. It's because our very nature dictates it. Some people depict hell as being unjust, as though people in hell are clamouring to get out, begging for mercy while an insidious and sadistic God throws them back in. The problem is, they may look for an escape, but it's not out of a repentant heart. The story of the rich man and Lazarus depicts this better than any other story. The rich man has absolutely no acknowledgment of his sinfulness. Having entered hell, the sinning doesn't cease, it carries on like an addiction that endlessly spirals further and further into a bottomless pit. C.S. Lewis describes it this way...

Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others . . . but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It is not a question of God 'sending us' to hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will be Hell unless it is nipped in the bud.
(The Great Divorce)

So what about the charge that this somehow denies God's love? Hell does not, in any way, take away from God's love. On the contrary, it strengthens it because it demonstrates how deep and powerful it is. At the heart of Christianity is a God who suffers for us, and has become victorious for us. It's one thing for a man to go through hell deserving it. It's an entirely different matter when someone so obviously perfect goes through it voluntarily in place of the other. Perfect justice, then, does not demean love. It makes love all that much more profound. Both God's love and his justice are fully satisfied through Jesus Christ, and is continually satisfied for us.

Does God, in the end, save us all? The Bible clearly says no. But this too does not make God any less just, even if he had chosen just one person in all mankind to be saved. We all deserve to be wiped out in the flood, to never return to Eden, and be cast away. To us, it's not fair. But to be fair, God would just send us all to hell. It's the fact that he has mercy on any of us in the first place that's so amazing. So it's not a question of how God could send anyone to hell, but how he would bother to redeem anyone at all.

Again, as C.S. Lewis writes

In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell is itself a question: ‘What are you asking God to do?’ To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But he has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what he does.

(The Great Divorce)

On Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

2011-03-14T22:56:00.002-04:00

Robert Louis Stevenson is a Scottish novelist, poet, and essayist, most famously known for books like, Treasure Island, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The latter book's impact on my understanding of the human condition helped me to understand how it relates to the controversy over Deeds and Creeds. That is, theology is often blamed for the strife and disunity found within church bodies. The idea is that disagreement over creeds causes unresolved arguments and eventually leads to the splitting of the greater Christian body into factions of denominations. Denominationalism, it is argued, exists primarily on the fact that there are irreconcilable differences between groups of people's theology. Therefore, in an attempt to reunite the greater Christian body, an emphasis is put on good deeds rather than sound creeds. The pastor Rick Warren (Purpose Driven Life) once embodied this idea when he said the church of today needs a reformation of Deeds vs. Creeds. The problem is it creates a false dichotomy--you cannot pit one against the other.

I used to joke that if you walked into the middle of some sort of seminarian convention and yell out the word "predestination" a huge fight would ensue between Calvinists and Arminians. Predestination is one of those doctrines that seem to easily spark heated debates. It's not just predestination, of course. There's infra or supralapsarian; Egalitarian or complementarian; or something simple like the worship wars. Any number of topics can often bring about the most uncivilized behaviour from otherwise calm and level-headed people. So much so, that important debates are often avoided, even discouraged.

Debates about such things often mark the divide between different denominations of the Christian church. Baptists, for example, believe that baptism is reserved for adults who openly confess their faith after a conversion, while Reformed and Presbyterians believe that children of believing parents ought to baptize their children as a sign of being part of the covenant family. Protestants believe that Scripture alone is our authority for revelation about God, while Catholics believe that the Church itself and its tradition take precedence.

In any case, while there are those who enjoy playing the contrarian, the devil's advocate as it were, most people would rather see more unity in the Christian body. To some, the uncivilized bickering and divisive behaviour around controversial doctrines demonstrate a great problem. The "H" word get tossed around, people are labeled as heretics, and those on the outside looking in want nothing to do with Christianity. And so, in an attempt to find greater unity, an appeal is often made to good Christian behaviour over and against a focus on having the right doctrine. Put simply, it's more important to be good followers of Jesus than it is to have right doctrine.

But, unlike any other religion, Christianity is more about its propositional Truth statements than it is about a certain ethical code people need to follow. That's not to say it doesn't have Law. We have the 10 commandments, and we have Jesus's teachings to his disciples, among other things. Great advances in ethics credit their influence to the moral code of the Bible. But the Bible isn't just a book of instructions. The Gospel literally means good news. News isn't something you live by, it's something you react to. Christianity is fundamentally about belief in propositional Truth rather than a system of ethics, codes, and rituals to live by.

In fact the apostle Paul, when writing to the various churches, always appealed to the Gospel as a basis for all his exhortations. Everything that Paul implores his people to do is predicated on the death and resurrection of Jesus. It's simple logic that begins with an indicative followed by an imperative. Imperatives alone cannot unite. Only The Gospel serves as his basis for unity. But that's a whole other topic in and of itself for another time.

The real irony of attempting unity through good deeds, civility, and social justice, is that in the end it results in greater divisiveness and strife. Not only is pitting good deeds over creeds logically incoherent, it's inherently moralistic, and that will lead you in one of two directions: Great despair, or great pride...

Even if we haven't read the book, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I imagine most of us at least know the concept. Dr. Jekyll is a scientist, a chemist more specifically, who develops a potion that separates the good and evil in him into two distinct characters. Mr. Hyde is the character that results from the separated evil. He is dark, sinister, even grotesque. Meanwhile his good character, Dr. Jekyll, is not only ashamed of Mr. Hyde, but is astounded by the fact that he's far worse than he'd imagined possible. In the end, Mr. Hyde ends up getting the best of him.

The part of the story I want to emphasize goes as follows: The reason Dr. Jekyll developed his potion was not out of some diabolical plan with evil intentions. Rather, he wanted to find a way to become a good person. He believed that the potion would fulfill his wish but, as we know, it instead yielded terrifying results.

Since the potion was not doing what he intended, he later reverted back to simply using sheer force of will to be a good person. With great amounts of discipline, Dr. Jekyll would eventually become that person. Or so he thought. Reflecting on his moral fortitude, he looked at the people around him, and realized with a certain arrogance that he'd become a far better a person than any of them. In that moment he had just become Mr. Hyde again. Permanently.

My telling of the story is obviously quite truncated, but the point is this: We usually associate evil with characters like Mr. Hyde. However, good works and upstanding moral behaviour outside of a context of faith and gratitude to God result in the same thing. This is the whole point of the story of the Prodigal sons. (Luke 15:11-32) The older son did everything his father asked him to, but when the younger son was restored to the family, the older son was indignant. He could not partake in the celebratory feast because he had far too much pride in his own accomplishments. In spite of his righteousness, the older son was just like Dr. Jekyll becoming Mr. Hyde.

There is nothing wrong with the intentions of those who encourage good behaviour in the midst of fierce debate. But fierce debate isn't necessarily a bad thing, nor does judging one another's opinions mean you're being judgemental. Important questions demand our attention, and they help sharpen our understanding of what we believe and why we believe it. In the end our beliefs necessarily shape our actions. The more our understanding is shaped by Jesus, the better followers we can be. We cannot have the former without the latter. Great zeal without knowledge is a dangerous thing, not only in our actions, but in our pride.

Unity among Christians occurs when we understand who we are in front of a Great God and when our identity is found in Christ rather than our own personal moral accomplishments. In fact, this is why we have adopted the use of creeds going back to the very earliest church. It's how Christianity can spread through all generations and cross all cultures, and still find fellow beings (who even disagree with each other) sharing the same cup and the same loaf at Jesus' table in unity.

On Reading Scripture

2011-03-12T00:01:00.003-05:00

When the early reformers were convicted by the idea that the Bible should be translated into the vernacular it was a shocking idea for its time. The Holy Scriptures, according the powerful established church, were not meant for the common people. It was dangerous, and only the priests working in the service of the church had the right, or the ability for that matter, to interpret it.

The reformers disagreed.

In fact, it was the reformers who were also convinced of something called the Perspicuity of Scripture. That is, it's clarity. That's not to say that everything is perfectly clear, but that the Bible's main message is abundantly clear to those who read it or hear it. The Bible story is easy enough to be understood by young children, and deep and rich enough for the most thoughtful to mull over it their entire life. In fact, its enough to radically change your life.

The idea of the Scripture's clarity has been called into question many times and for many different reasons over the centuries. We've all seen people get into debates over one another's interpretation of Scripture and the doctrines upon which they're derived. But postmodernism's critique on the modern mind is among the most devastating of late. Essentially, postmodernism recognizes that everyone views the world from a certain perspective and it influences the way they interpret it. It's a legitimate critique, but followed to its logical end, it means that it's impossible for anyone to understand something in an absolute and objective sense.

And it's not just our inability to see things objectively, as modern man felt he could, but that language itself is unreliable. Words and their meanings are constantly fluid. They evolve. How could it possibly capture divine, absolute, objective, and unchanging Truth? At worst, truth is completely conceptual and subjective, and at best it's elusive and mysterious.

We've all seen this argument used as an excuse to explain why one's doctrine is wrong. Clearly, as they would say, so and so has been influenced by the presuppositions determined by the context in which they find themselves, and that makes their view less valid. Or rather, who's to say anyone's view is more accurate than the next?

And yet, it seems that God has faith in human words and man's ability to understand them. After all, it's clearly his preferred method for communicating to us. When God created mankind, He created them with the ability to understand Him in a meaningful, logical, and most importantly, reliable way. This is shown when he gives us the Bible. (Although, even the validity of the Bible as God's word is often questioned, but that's for another time.)

So what are we to make of the many discrepancies among theologians? We simply can't all be right. That's illogical. And for that matter, how do we understand what's orthodoxy and what's heresy? Rather than getting into theory of hermeneutics, I do want to talk about something that is universally true when reading Scripture: the need for humility.

As I mentioned earlier, the postmodern critique is a legitimate one, and yet God has still chosen to use words and human language to speak Truth. Our perspectives necessarily affect the way we read Scripture, not so much that we can't clearly understand it, but that we differ in the way we react to it. That is to say, our preconceived notions of reality, our worldview, and our emotional baggage, are confronted by what the Bible says. There are things in it in which some may find great joy, and others great sorrow. Some things we find are completely normal, and others we find appalling and offensive.

We need humility because if we take God's word seriously, and we take it as being True, then we are naturally going to find these very things that go against our sensibilities and notions of reality. Take, for example, the idea of guilt. According to much pop-psychology today, guilt is the antithesis of success and personal happiness. Guilt is synonymous with having a low self-esteem, and low self-esteem, they argue (albeit lacking any empirical evidence), leads to poor performance and bad interpersonal skills. Yet, it seems according to the Bible, guilt is a sign of sanity! Those who are most aware of their guilt are most aware of their need for God's grace.

The problem is, the more vested our interests in a particular idea, the more difficult it is for us to overturn them. We don't like being wrong. Its a natural tendency for us to rationalize our tightly held beliefs in the face of conflicting evidence. The same is true of Scripture. It confronts us whether we like it or not. But to rationalize, however naturally it may come to us, is nothing short of cowardice.

There is a pattern that occurs when we allow our worldview to be shaped by the things in the Bible that offend us most. In the example of guilt, had it not been for becoming aware of the degree of our sinfulness, we would never have seen the necessity of God's mercy. Furthermore, the concept of God's love would have been reduced to simple sentimentality. In order to see that guilt is important, we have to be willing to give up our prejudices first. We will never understand why certain things are necessary if we choose to ignore them simply because we don't like them. Otherwise the reverse happens, and we read our prejudices into the Scripture instead. Thus, the postmodern critique.

Obviously, there will always be things we find confusing and offensive, but just because they're confusing and offensive doesn't mean they're necessarily false. When Jesus came to earth, he was constantly offending the establishment. Eventually, it led to his death. As we read, we typically have little sympathy for them, but we're often guilty of the same sins. In our reading of Scripture, we often would rather crucify Jesus than take his word for it.

First Post

2011-03-11T20:52:00.001-05:00

I once blogged many years ago, but my last blog post was somewhere in the middle of 2008. Amidst a fury of activity recently around the internet, specifically Facebook, I felt inspired to get back in to some more writing again. Much of Facebook, and most places in the blogosphere for that matter, have been riddled by the sort of silliness akin to the writings on a bathroom stall, so I've resolved myself from getting into any discussion on anything beyond the regular trifles and quips most common on Facebook. While I find having a blog provides a (slightly) better venue for open and civil discussion on topics that are important to us, I'm still not sure what I write will even stir anyone to anything closer to what the Truth may be. My hope is that it will, but that remains to be seen.

I have had a great many influences over the years, and this blog will most certainly be a reflection of that. In fact, most of anything I'll write in here probably won't be anything original to me, but something that I've heard or read from somebody far more important and influential. I will do my best to give credit where credit is due. Enjoy.