Living in Darkness

I try not to write about politics too much on this blog, but from what I've written it should be pretty clear that I lean pretty far to the left (at least, by American standards). I am one of the few liberal, evangelical Christians. Indeed we're so rare that most people consider the phrase "liberal evangelical" to be a contradiction in terms.

I am often frustrated by the prominence of the religious right in America, and the affect they have on how Christianity is perceived. When I found out that Barack Obama was going to run for President, I thought it would be a great thing. I knew that he was Christian, and deeply religious. If he were elected, I told myself, more people would see that there are Christians who care about poverty, the environment, healthcare, and other important issues that the religious right neglects.

What I didn't expect is that almost two years into his Presidency, 18% of the country would believe that he is actually a Muslim, and an even larger number would be unsure of the President's beliefs.

I've read several articles that try to understand how so many people could be so thoroughly mistaken about the President's beliefs. I'm sure a lot of people are simply misinformed. Conservative media and the religious right have put a lot of energy into spreading the lie that Obama is a Muslim.

I am convinced that this isn't simply a matter of ignorance and misinformation. I'm sure that most of the people who claim that Obama is a Muslim have heard him talk about his Christian faith. I'm sure that plenty of them remember the controversy over his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. They're not ignorant about Obama's professed beliefs. They believe that he is lying about his religious beliefs in order to deceive the American public.

A year ago I wrote about this exact issue. I wrote that it is wrong to accuse people of lying about their religious beliefs. I stand by my original conviction, although I am worried that I didn't phrase my objection strongly enough.

The Apostle John wrote, "Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness." When Christians band together to slander our president, a fellow Christian and a brother in Christ, they are surely living in darkness.

The religious right shouldn't be using these kinds of tactics to smear Obama. They should be able to talk about the problems they have with Obama's policies without bringing his religious views into the picture. The fact that they feel the need to resort to these tactics reveals a lot about how many people within the religious right view their faith.

They don't view Christianity as a religion available to anyone, regardless of their culture, politics, ethnicity or nation of origin. Instead they treat Christianity as an exclusive club, where only people with the right credentials are allowed to join, where people all share the same beliefs and opinions.

This kind of exclusive mentality is dangerous. When we have this attitude toward others, it reveals that we don't understand the power of God's forgiveness. Exclusiveness and hatred of fellow believers is also toxic to the faith. It divides Christians against each other and drives people away from Christianity.

Personally, I would love it if more Christians understood the importance of social justice, and became more liberal as a result, but I understand that not every Christian shares my views. I only ask other believers to extend their liberal brothers and sisters the same courtesy.

TGD: Chapter Three - The Case for the Resurrection

Last week we began to talk about whether or not the New Testament provides enough historical evidence to establish Jesus' divinity. I ended by saying that we should focus our attention on the question of whether or not Jesus rose from the dead. This week I intend to present the historical evidence for Jesus' resurrection.

First, let's talk about the reliability of the books in the New Testament. Considered as a whole, the New Testament is far and away the single most reliable work of ancient writing we have. We have more than 5,000 ancient manuscripts for the New Testament, some from the early second century. Moreover, there is an extremely high level of agreement between the manuscripts.

What does this mean? It means that claims that the New Testament is unreliable because it was written a hundred years or more after Christ's death and copied by generations of scribes is completely false. We now know that most of the New Testament was written by the end of the first century and that the version we have today is nearly identical to the original.

We know that the New Testament is reliable. The next question is, is it an accurate portrayal of history? Does the New Testament provide us with an accurate description of the events of Jesus' life and the early church?

Let me begin by saying that if the New Testament were a normal historical document describing ordinary events no one would seriously question its historical validity. As I've already said, it's the most reliable ancient text we have and most of it was written within fifty years of the events it describes.

We have an incredible amount of evidence that the New Testament is a reliable source of history, but the claims made in the New Testament are also very incredible. For that reason we must scrutinize the New Testament rather closely.

The first question we can ask is, do these accounts agree with each other? The answer is that they do, aside from a few minor details. The gospel accounts all give an incredibly detailed account of Jesus' ministry, teaching, death and resurrection. Some of the smaller details differ between the four gospels, but major events remain the same.

The next question we can ask is, how well do these stories agree with what we know about the time period from other ancient sources? There are actually a number of details, particularly from the Book of Acts that historians can independently verify. There are a few places where the author is mistaken, but judging by the standards of ancient history, the Book of Acts holds up rather well.

The final question we must consider is, did the authors have an agenda which may have colored their writing? In the case of the New Testament it is clear that each of the authors had an agenda. They wanted to convince the reader that Jesus Christ was, in fact, the Jewish Messiah.

Knowing this we have to ask, how much of an affect did this have on their writing? Certainly it had an impact, but it didn't stop them from including several details which ran counter to their agenda.

First, the gospels record that his name is Jesus. This goes against Isaiah, who prophesied that the Messiah would be called "Immanuel".

Second, all of the gospels assert that Jesus was raised in Nazareth. This creates a problem because, according to prophecy, the Messiah was supposed to come from Bethlehem. As we mentioned last time, only Matthew and Luke address this issue directly.

Third, all of the gospels claim that Jesus was crucified. This creates a problem because, according to the Old Testament, anyone who is hung on a tree is cursed.

All of this shows that the authors of the gospels weren't simply inventing a story about a Messiah, but were writing a historical account of an individual, Jesus of Nazareth, whom they believed was the Messiah.

Finally, I want to take a quick look specifically at the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. I know it's an incredible claim, but I think it should be considered plausible for two reasons.

First, the claim that Jesus had risen from the dead appears in even the earliest Christian writings. The claim that Jesus rose from the dead wasn't being made centuries after the fact. Paul wrote that Jesus had risen from the dead barely twenty years after it happened. Paul's readers could have easily asked around to see if this was true.

In fact, Paul wrote that more than five hundred people had seen the risen Christ, and that most of them were still alive.

Finally, many of the people who believed that Jesus Christ rose from the dead died for their belief. Not only did they believe it was true, they were certain enough that they were willing to die for that belief.

All things considered, I think it's fair to say that we have good historical evidence that Jesus Christ did, in fact, rise from the dead.

Grace and Social Justice

I read this post on Internet Monk awhile back. He writes that the beatitudes are pronouncements of grace. He says that Jesus is announcing God's undeserved love to the mourners, the poor, the meek, the hungry, and so on. This interpretation differs from my own understanding, but since I read it, I've been thinking about it. I think Chaplain Mike may be on to something.

Let me start by giving you my own understanding. I believe that this passage speaks primarily to issues of injustice. It speaks to people who seek justice in the world or who suffer from injustice. Jesus is saying that they are blessed because they will see God's justice.

When I first read that the beatitudes are pronouncements of grace, it seemed strange to me. It seemed out of place, like he was reading Paul's ideas into the words of Jesus. As I thought about it some more, I started to think about the role of grace in God's justice. I began to realize that grace is really important to understanding God's justice.

Grace, as I have written before, is God's undeserved mercy. It is the love and kindness that he shows to everyone, whether they deserve it or not. It is this love that gives justice it's true shape.

Think about what justice looks like among people. How often do we see a person begging for money? How do we respond? How do we justify our response?

First of all, most people, and I'm included in this group, don't give money to beggars. And how do we justify that decision? We think to ourselves, "She's just a scam artist," or, "He'll just spend it all on drugs." We tell ourselves that they don't deserve our help.

A similar thing happens when we consider programs aimed at helping the poor. We wonder if our tax dollars might be better spent elsewhere. We worry that the poor will become dependent on government handouts; that they won't learn to work or provide for themselves. Once again, we don't believe that they deserve it.

The beauty of God's grace is that it cuts through all of these arguments. God's justice is about loving people and providing for them, whether or not they deserve it or even need it. This is what God's justice looks like.

I'm grateful that Chaplain Mike helped me to see the purpose of God's grace in the midst of it.

Pentecost

Yesterday was Pentecost Sunday, which is the anniversary of the date when the Holy Spirit first fell upon Jesus' disciples, just as he had promised it would. It seems like as good a time as any to talk about the Holy Spirit.

Awhile back I was talking with someone about this blog. He said that if I wanted to try to connect with people who think in modern, secular terms, I shouldn't talk about the Holy Spirit. It's good advice, but I just can't follow it. I can't explain what Christianity is, what Christianity is all about, without talking about the Holy Spirit.

So since then I've been wondering, "How do I talk about the Holy Spirit with a modernist?" So far I haven't had much luck. The Holy Spirit doesn't fit easily or comfortably into such a world-view. If you're committed to thinking about the world in scientific terms, then the Holy Spirit is always going to seem absurd and a little silly.

Still, it's not just modernists who have this problem. This has been an issue since the beginning. You see, as I was thinking about the day of Pentecost, the day when the Holy Spirit made its grand entrance, I was reminded that those first witnesses had a hard time understanding what was going on as well.

In Acts 2, we read about how the Holy Spirit fell on that first group of Christians and enabled them to speak in many different languages from all over the ancient world. Most people are, understandably, amazed and confused by what is going on, but some people have a different response.

They think that these Christians are drunk.

But the real kicker is what happens next. When Peter hears people in the crowd claiming that he and his friends are drunk his response is, (paraphrasing) "We're not drunk; it's only nine AM."

Actually, I think I've just found a way to explain to non-Christians what it's like to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It's like being drunk, except it's only nine o'clock in the morning, and you haven't had anything to drink yet.

That's a joke of course, but the thing is, I don't know that I can give a better explanation than that. I could talk about all the wonderful things that the Holy Spirit has done in my life, but most people would just be confused and a lot of people would probably assume I'm a little bit kooky.

In the future I plan to talk about the role the Holy Spirit plays in God's Kingdom. I will try to lay the groundwork for a theological understanding of what the Holy Spirit is. But the simple truth is that the Holy Spirit is strange and, often times, people who are filled with the Spirit are a little strange themselves.

The Upside-Down Cross

Lies have an interesting way of revealing the truth.

Confused? I'll explain.

When a lie spreads through a large group of people, it often reveals a lot about what those people really believe. As an example, I'll talk about a lie that is pervasive through large sections of the American evangelical church.

The lie is this: the peace sign is actually the sign of Nero; a broken, upside-down cross.

In actuality, the peace sign is based on the semaphore signals for N and D, which stand for "Nuclear Disarmament".

What does this lie reveal about the American evangelical church? First, the obvious, it reveals the conservative nature of American evangelicalism. It reveals how deeply rooted their opposition to liberal politics is. They have no problem believing that the peace sign, a common symbol of the anti-war movement in the 60's and 70's, as actually the symbol of the most hated persecutor of Christianity in history.

But it also reveals something else. It reveals that they believe that the message of the cross is diametrically opposed to the message of peace.

So we see that the lie reveals a fundamental misunderstanding about the meaning of the cross. The message of the cross is fundamentally a message of peace. Peace, first of all, between God and humanity, and secondarily, peace among men. (If you don't believe me, consider what Paul said about Jesus.)

Of course, the lie is even more revealing than that. Why would conservative evangelicals feel the need to slander peace activists like this?

The answer is simple, if they don't, then their congregations might consider the fact that Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers." They might consider the fact that the call for nuclear disarmament sounds a lot like Jesus' call to turn the other cheek. In other words, they use this lie to make sure that their followers' eyes remain blind to the truth.

The truth is that there is another symbol, one that is easily recognizable, which more accurately fits the label of "upside-down cross". That symbol is the crusader's sword.

First of all, cruciform swords, when held upright, bear a clear resemblance to an upside-down cross. More importantly, however, the crusaders inverted the message of Christ. They took a message of peace of love and used it as a justification for violence and bloodshed. When they drew their swords, they turned the cross upside down, both literally and metaphorically.

This perversion is still alive and well in the church. Men spread the lie that the peace sign is an upside-down cross to obscure the fact that they themselves have turned the cross upside-down. In the words of Greg Boyd, they have fused the cross and the sword.

In my experience, nothing combats a lie more effectively than the truth. If you hear someone calling the peace sign an upside-down cross, please correct them. Also, consider telling people about the true upside-down cross.

TGD: Chapter Two - On the Character of God

Chapter Two of "The God Delusion" begins with the following sentence: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." Today's post is going to be a response to this one sentence. Now, I don't pan on walking through the rest of the book one sentence at a time, however, since I worship the God whom Dawkins is slandering, it seems only fair that I should offer a rebuttal.

I'll start by responding to the most egregiously false accusations.

On the top of that list would be the claim that the God of the Old Testament is unforgiving. This is simply not true. Throughout the Old Testament we see God forgiving people. He repeatedly forgives the nations of Israel and Judah, in the book of Jonah he forgave the entire city of Nineveh, which was the capital of one of the most notoriously bloodthirsty empires in the ancient world, and he famously forgave King David when he committed both murder and adultery. Those are just a few examples.

What's more, whenever God does punish people, it's almost always after he has been patient and forgiving over an extended period of time. He waited four hundred years to punish the Amorites for, among other things, ritually sacrificing infants. If anything, the God of the Old Testament is forgiving to a fault.

Then there's the accusation that God is filicidal. I will freely admit that I had to look this one up. Filicide is the act of killing one's own son or daughter. Presumably this refers to the crucifixion of Jesus. That doesn't happen in the Old Testament, but we'll ignore that for now.

First of all, Jesus was a grown adult who went willingly to his death. More importantly, God wasn't the one who killed him. Finally, as John Cleese might say, he got better.

(If we assume he's sticking to the Old Testament, this could be referring to the book of Exodus, in which God calls the Jewish people his firstborn son. The main problem with this theory is that the Jewish people are still alive and well.)

The accusation that God is megalomaniacal is more humorous than anything else. The God of the Old Testament made the whole universe out of nothing and Dawkins is accusing him of having delusions of grandeur. To what great heights could a delusional, omnipotent deity aspire to? Does he take a break from ruling the heavens and the earth so he can pretend to be the King of Scotland? Does the one who formed a human being out of dirt like to pretend that he invented the sandwich? In the preface to the paperback edition, Dawkins said that he wanted this sentence to come across as humorous*. This is one place where I think he succeeded admirably, although not as he intended.

The claim that God is racist presumably refers to how God treats the Jewish people compared with everyone else. It's true that God had a special arrangement with the nation of Israel, but that arrangement does not include special treatment. The Old Testament makes it clear that God cares for the nations surrounding Israel, just like he cares for Israel. In fact, as part of their special arrangement, the Israelites have an obligation to be a blessing to the nations around them. God's treaty with Israel isn't about God loving Israel more than everyone else. It's about God wanting Israel to be a blessing to everyone else, which is more like the opposite of racism.

Of all the accusations that Mr. Dawkins makes against God, the one that is the most accurate is that God is jealous. God is jealously protective of the Jewish people. He wants them to stay faithful to the promise that they had made to serve him. Even though they repeatedly break that promise, God keeps his promise and remains faithful to them. God becomes jealous, but he does not abandon him. In my mind, that is one of God's best qualities. He stays faithful to his people, even when they cause him pain.

The last accusation that I'm going to address directly is that God is unjust. In many ways that one word sums up the whole sentence. The central point being made is that God's reign of the earth, as described in the Old Testament, is unjust.

The question is to big for me to provide anything close to a thorough answer. Instead I will do my best to present, in brief, what the Old Testament has to say on the subject.

In the beginning, God made everything good. Humanity lived in paradise with God and God provided them with everything they would ever need. God gave them only one rule and it was easy to obey. Things fell apart when humanity broke that law. God punishes humanity in order to restore justice, and God promises to fix what is broken.

This is the basic pattern of Genesis 1-3, and it forms a template that recurs over and over again throughout scripture. The template goes something like this: 1) God does something good for an individual or a group of people, 2) sooner or later that individual or group does something evil, 3) God responds to the evil that has been done and 4) God promises to one day get rid of evil and replace it with good. Of all these steps, step 3 is the most flexible. In some cases it seems to be missing (in these cases God is being patient and forgiving). In other cases, God asks the person to make a sacrifice before forgiving the sin. Very rarely, God refuses to forgive the sin and punishes the person for what they have done. As I said above that last option almost always happens after God has already shown an incredible amount of patience and forgiveness.

When people question God's justice they concentrate on steps 2 and 3. They question why God regards certain actions as evil; they question whether or not the people who committed evil were truly responsible for their actions; they question the methods God uses to punish people; they question God's decision to forgive in some cases and not in other cases.

But the claim that God is just does not depend primarily on steps 2 and 3. The books of Ecclesiastes and Job openly acknowledge that how God punishes evil, or fails to punish evil, can seem very unjust at times. Instead, the claim that God is just depends on steps 1 and 4. God is just because in the beginning he made everything good and in the end he will make everything good again. Moreover he has promised us that we will be included in that future where everything is restored, even though we sometimes do evil. That is why I can say with confidence that God is, indeed, just.

This was a bit of a dense post. If there's something you don't agree with, or something that doesn't make sense, feel free to post it in the comments. I look forward to reading them. Thank you.

* In the preface, Dawkins was responding to critics who complained that his writing was too shrill. The above sentence was the example most often given. Dawkins wrote, "It is not for me to say whether I succeeded, but my intention was closer to robust but humorous broadside than shrill polemic." I will say that I think the sentence failed to be humorous, if only because the idea is so unoriginal. As for the broadside, I think it missed its mark. Most of the shots are wildly off course, as I have already shown.

Why Social Justice Matters

Recently, Glenn Beck told his viewers to leave their church if they preach about social justice. I don't normally pay attention to Glenn Beck, but this recent comment is particularly out of line and I want to address it.

What is social justice? Broadly speaking, social justice is the effort to create a society that is more equal, both politically and economically, for everyone. Those who seek social justice seek to help support and uplift those groups that are marginalized within a given society; for example, the poor, the oppressed, slaves, widows, orphans, immigrants, and racial minorities.

The specific term "social justice" was coined by the Jesuit scholar Luigi Taparelli in 1841, but the idea has been around for much longer than that. The idea that society has a responsibility to care for the poor and the marginalized goes at least as far back as Moses.

In the Old Testament Law, which was written by Moses, God's people are instructed to care for the poor, widows, orphans and foreigners. This instruction is repeated in several different places throughout the Law of Moses.

This theme of social justice is picked up by the prophets, who frequently criticize Israel and Judah for oppressing foreigners and not taking care of the poor. Nearly all of the Old Testament prophets touch on this theme. The book of Amos deals almost exclusively with the theme of social justice.

When we enter into the New Testament things only become worse. Jesus frequently commands his followers to share their possessions with people in need. The book of Acts, which describes the history of the early church, tells us that people in the early church shared all of their possessions with one another so that everyone's needs were met.

Glenn Beck also warned his viewers that they might lose their right to read all the passages of the Bible. If Glenn Beck had actually exercised that right himself, then he would know that social justice is not a minor issue for Christians. It lies at the very heart of scripture and of Jesus' teachings.

Glenn Beck's show provides a great example of what happens when you mingle politics and religion. Having a conservative pastor tell their congregation how to vote is bad enough. Having a political pundit tell his audience where they should go to church is even more disturbing.

Glenn Beck is telling his audience not to follow the teachings of Jesus because they don't fit with his particular political agenda. This is a disturbing trend, to say the least.

Living It Out

I recently read a post on Pastoralia titled, Why the Bible is Insufficient for Mission. In it he talks about the fact that the Bible is losing relevance in our culture. He says that scripture is no longer seen as authoritative by most of the culture, and if we want to interact with people outside the church we can't rely on people acknowledging the authority of scripture.

When I read that I immediately realized that what he was saying is true. At the same time, I began to lose confidence in what I'm doing here. I started to realize that what I'm doing here just isn't working.

I quote scripture quite a lot on this blog. I even went so far as to write a post explaining why I quote scripture all the time. I'm beginning to understand that if I keep doing that, then the only people who read this blog will be people who share my respect for the authority of scripture. And what's the point of that?

So what do I do? How can I share the message with people who no longer believe that it is true?

The answer he gives is simple. The answer is to live it out. Instead of telling people what the Bible says, we should demonstrate it with our lives and our actions. Instead of telling other people to devote their lives to Christ, we should show them what it looks like to live a life devoted to Christ.

So in the future, I plan to spend less time on this blog talking about theological issues and more time talking about how to live a life devoted to Christ. I'll still touch on theology and scripture, but my goal is to focus on more practical matters.

As always, feel free to let me know what you think.

Why Do I Bring up the Bible so Often?

Anyone who reads my blog knows that I bring up the Bible quite often. A quick glance at the archives shows that almost half of the posts I've written are tagged with the word scripture. I use that tag whenever I reference or talk about the Bible.

It should be obvious that I personally believe that the Bible's message is relevant even today. I believe that people should try to understand the message of the Bible and apply it to their lives, but not everyone thinks the way I do. I know that not everyone who reads this blog shares my beliefs about scripture. So why do I reference the Bible so often?

I talk about the Bible because I want to provide my readers with a fair presentation of the Christian faith. The Bible is accepted as an authoritative text by nearly every Christian tradition. I use scripture to show people how the arguments I'm making fit in with the Christian belief system.

I want to offer people a fair presentation of Christianity because, unfortunately, the religion is often misrepresented. A recent example would be Pat Robertson's remarks about Haiti. I don't like to see people get taken in by these deceptions. I want people to understand what the Bible actually teaches.

I want Christians to understand what the Bible teaches so they can put it into practice. I also want them to understand what the Bible teaches so that they won't be confused by bad preaching or deceived by preachers who have their own agenda.

I want non-christians to understand what the Bible teaches so that they can be more informed. I'm especially concerned for people who have decided to reject Christianity based on bad information. Like most Christians, I hope that someday everyone reading this will come to believe, as I do, that Jesus is the Son of God who paid the ultimate price so that we too could be called sons and daughters of God.

I know it's foolish to hope that the people reading this will all decide to convert based on my presentation of the gospel. I still do hope for that, but I know it is foolish. In any case, I hope that the people reading this will at least be able to make a more informed decision about Christianity. If people hear a fair presentation of Christianity and make an informed decision to reject it, that's better than if they reject it based on a lie.

Thank you for reading this blog. Thank you for hearing me out. Please feel free to let me know what you think. I'd love to hear it.

The Last Word

Last week I talked about the inappropriate comments made by Pat Robertson regarding the earthquake in Haiti. I said that there would be people who reject Christianity because of what Mr. Robertson said. Since then I've read a few articles that comment on what Mr. Robertson has said and both come to the conclusion that Mr. Robertson's remarks, while tactless, are basically an accurate reflection of Christian beliefs.

Both articles talk about the problem of evil. Simply stated, the problem of evil is this: If God is good and God is all powerful then why does evil exist?

I don't enjoy trying to answer the problem of evil. Attempts to reconcile God's goodness with human suffering tend to be insulting to both God and the people who are suffering. The only Godly response to suffering is compassion.

Still, there is more that needs to be said. We must remember that God Himself has compassion on those who suffer. We must also remember that God has made a promise to humanity. He has promised to set right everything that is wrong with the world and to comfort everyone who suffers.

This is not an answer to the problem of evil. It doesn't take away the very real pain and suffering that the people of Haiti are experiencing right now. This is only a reminder that, as bad as this earthquake is, it is not the end of the world and it is not the end of the people of Haiti.

For now, many people will need to ask, "Why has God forsaken me?" and it is all right for them to ask. This earthquake in Haiti will not be the last word on the matter. It might take a long time, but God's love and mercy will triumph over evil. That is the last word on the matter.

Understanding Evil

In today's post I'm going to be talking about the quake in Haiti. Before I begin, I'd like to encourage you to consider donating money to disaster relief efforts and to long term development in Haiti. Here's some advice for how to give money to disaster relief efforts. Here is the website of a nonprofit that does development work in Haiti and several other countries. Please check out those links and consider how much you think you should give. Thank you.

Today I would like to talk about how we try to understand and make sense of large scale tragedies like the recent earthquake in Haiti.

In one of my early posts I asked the question Is God Really Good? In that post I was looking at the book of Job, but I think similar rules apply for wide scale tragedies such as this. In that post I comment that the mistake that Job's friends make is that they try to provide a reasonable explanation to an unreasonable situation.

Evil is always unreasonable. Evil always defies comprehension. Evil is always without justification; otherwise it would not be evil.

This is a truth that Pat Robertson doesn't seem to grasp. If he did, he wouldn't have claimed that the earthquake in Haiti was the result of a pact with the devil.

Pat Robertson's claim that the earthquake is the result of a pact with Satan is troubling on a few levels. It is troubling because it reveals a gross insensitivity to the extreme pain and suffering that the people of Haiti are going through right now. What they need right now is our support and our compassion, not our condemnation.

This is made even worse because Pat Robertson is a spokesman for a large segment of the American Christian community. When he slanders a nation, he doesn't just damage his own reputation. He hurts the reputations of Christians everywhere. I suspect that more than a few people will turn away from Jesus because of what Mr. Robertson has said, and I can't say that I blame them.

Finally, the most troubling thing about Pat Robertson's words is that they provide his followers with a false sense of security. Pat Robertson has often claimed that wide scale tragedies are the result of divine judgments, but those judgments are always directed at someone else. Pat Robertson's God is often angry, but never at Pat Robertson or his followers.

Jesus warns his followers not to have such an attitude. If I may paraphrase Jesus a little bit here, "Do you think that the Haitians are the worst sinners in the Western Hemisphere because they have suffered in this way?" Pat Robertson foolishly seems to believe that the answer is yes.

If we must talk about God's anger and judgment at a time like this, we should think about how God feels about us right now. We ought to consider the fact that Haiti's poverty and poor infrastructure is what allowed this quake to be so devastating. We should consider the fact that the U.S. is at least partially responsible for Haiti's current economic state.

There is a parable of Jesus that speaks to the relationship between Haiti and the United States. It is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In the story a poor man (Haiti) sits and begs just outside the gate of a wealthy person's home. but the wealthy man(the U.S.) does nothing to ease the poor man's suffering. I won't spoil the story except to say that it doesn't end well for the rich man.

This is the truth that Pat Robertson is concealing from his followers when he tells them that the Haitian people are responsible for their own misery. He prevents them from seeing the simple truth that we are obligated to take care of people in need. He prevents them from seeing that God's true anger is directed not at the Haitians, but at those people who see their misery and do nothing to help them.

Christian Arrogance

Recently, as I was reviewing my earlier posts I realized something. I have been spending way too much time with other Christians and not enough time with my non christian family and friends. I came to this realization as I was rereading my post on the Holy Spirit and I came upon this line: without the Holy Spirit it is impossible to please God.

I wrote that without thinking about how it might sound to anyone who is not a believer. I don't know if anyone else noticed it or was bothered by it, but the phrase contains a kind of arrogance that used to bother me before I became a Christian myself. Today I'm going to take some time to correct my earlier post.

I don't think that what I said was entirely true. I think that it is possible do good deeds that are pleasing to God without the presence of the Holy Spirit. It would be more accurate to say that it is impossible to fully satisfy God without the Holy Spirit. What do I mean by that?

First of all, I'm definitely not saying that God does not love you unless you have the Holy Spirit. It is natural for people to make the leap from, "It is impossible for you to satisfy God," to "God does not love you." The truth is that God loves everyone. God even loves people who do terribly evil things. He certainly loves people don't know God but are kind to those around them.

What I am saying is that unless we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we will never be free from the evil desires of our hearts.

A corollary to that statement is that we all have evil desires. I think anyone who observes human nature will find that evil desires are, at the very least, incredibly common. I believe that even the best of us have some thoughts and desires that we're not particularly proud of.

This is the reason why Jesus gave up His life for us. He died so that we would not be punished for our evil deeds. He also died so that we could receive the Holy Spirit, which sets us free from our evil thoughts and desires as well.

Before I finish I'd like to add one last clarification. I'm not saying that Christians are morally superior to everyone else. I believe that the Holy Spirit frees us from our evil desires, but unfortunately it doesn't happen overnight. Most of the time, being set free in this way is a long and difficult process, and there are often setbacks. But we know that God is faithful and we know that He will get us through it.

I hope this post clarifies what I said earlier. In closing, I'd like to invite you to comment if you noticed anything else on my blog that bothered you or that you'd like me to clarify. I would love to answer any questions you might have about what I've said.

The Essence of Christian Unity

Awhile back there was a guest blogger on internet monk who talked about Christian unity. The guest poster was a Catholic and he summarizes the Catholic position on the nature of Christian unity quite nicely. This post is one of the ones that got me thinking about Christian unity. Today I'm going to be supplying my own thoughts on what it means for Christians to be united.

In my last post on Christian unity I talked about how important it was to Jesus that His followers should be united. I also talked about the deep divisions that Christians today face, especially in America. Now I'm going to start talking about solutions.

First of all, we need to decide what it means to say that Christians are united. In the article I linked above, the author describes how the Roman Catholic Church answers that question. The author writes that Christian unity consists of three things, unity of faith, unity of sacraments and unity of government. In other words, we are united when we all share the same faith, participate in the same sacraments and are under the same church government.

It's not a bad definition. In fact, I think it represents a compelling vision for what a unified church should look like, but I don't believe that this definition captures what Christian unity is all about. I believe that Christians are united by their shared connection to God through the Holy Spirit. That is the essence of Christian unity.

We can see that this was true in the early church by looking at the book of Acts. Starting in chapter ten, the church encounters its first major division. In the beginning Christianity was exclusively a Jewish sect, but in chapter ten of Acts God calls Peter to preach to a Roman soldier named Cornelius. Cornelius becomes the first gentile to convert to Christianity, but many more soon follow.

This creates the first major conflict in church history. The first Christians are reluctant to welcome gentiles into the movement. They see it as a betrayal of their Jewish heritage to share fellowship with people who don't follow Jewish practices and customs. This debate nearly tears the church apart. In Acts chapter 15 they have a meeting in Jerusalem to discuss the issue and settle the matter.

In the end the church decides to allow gentiles to join the church. Despite the vast cultural differences that separated Jews and gentiles and despite the strong traditional beliefs that the Jews held that required them to avoid mingling with gentiles, those early Christians chose unity. The question we must ask ourselves is, why did they make that difficult choice?

The only answer is that they made that choice because of the Holy Spirit. It was the Holy Spirit that called Peter, Paul and other Christians to witness to gentiles in the first place. When they preached to the gentiles, the gentiles were filled with the Holy Spirit, just as the first Christians had been. The early Christians were persuaded to accept gentile believers despite the difficulty, because they recognized that the Holy Spirit was at work among them.

So we can see that the Holy Spirit serves as the motivation for Christian unity. We seek fellowship with others because we see that God is working in their lives just as He is working in our lives.

Additionally, the Holy Spirit is the thing which makes Christian unity possible. The Holy Spirit demolishes the barriers that divide us and gives us the ability to be patient and humble and show love to one another. In this way the Holy Spirit gives us the ability to be unified with people in even the most trying circumstances.

For a moment I want to go back to the three part definition of unity we saw at the beginning; unity of faith, unity of sacraments and unity of government. I think that the definition still holds, but only if we see that God and the Holy Spirit are at the center of it. We share the same faith because the Holy Spirit has revealed Jesus to each of us. We share the same sacraments because, through the Spirit, Jesus' forgiveness is given to each of us. We share the same government because we all submit ourselves to God with the help of the Holy Spirit.

That is what I think it means for Christians to be united.

The question remains, however, how do we live that out?

What is the Holy Spirit?

I have a few ideas for posts I'd like to write in the near future. These posts have to do with the Holy Spirit. I decided that before I write these posts I aught to write a post describing exactly what the Holy Spirit is, just to make sure that everyone knows what I'm talking about.

The Holy Spirit is perhaps the least understood member of the Trinity, particularly in the West. When the it comes to the holy Trinity, most people understand that the son is Jesus, and they understand that the Father is the one who sent Jesus, but they don't always understand the role of the Holy Spirit.

This is our loss, because the presence of the Holy Spirit is essential to the Christian life.

When Jesus died for us on the cross he died so that we could have fellowship with God. That fellowship is realized when the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts. The Holy Spirit is how God makes Himself known to everyone who believes in Him. It is no exaggeration to say that the whole point of Jesus going to the cross was so that we could be made ready to receive the Holy Spirit.

Jesus went to the cross so that we could be baptized in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is how God makes Himself available to us. It is through Holy Spirit that God speaks to us and it is through the Holy Spirit that God lives within us.

This is why I say that the Holy Spirit is essential to the Christian life, because through the Spirit we have fellowship with God. In a sense, this is the only purpose of the Holy Spirit; to bring us close to God. There is more to the activity of the Holy Spirit, but all of it is aimed at drawing people closer to God.

For example, the Holy Spirit transforms us, allowing us to obey God's commands. Indeed, without the Holy Spirit it is impossible to please God, but with the Holy Spirit we are able to do what God asks of us. This is one practical way that the Holy Spirit helps us to draw near to God.

Additionally, the Holy Spirit empowers us to do the work that God has called us to. Through the Holy Spirit we receive God's power in various forms. We receive these gifts so that we may bless others. We receive them so that we may extend the love of God into the world around us. In this way the Holy Spirit allows God draw near to us and to those around us.

I know that for many of us, some of the gifts on that list seem a little strange. We are ignorant about the supernatural and we like to pretend that it doesn't exist. But this is a part of who God is. Part of getting to know God is learning to embrace those things that seem weird to us, the things we don't understand.

To summarize, the Holy Spirit is what allows us to have fellowship with God in the here and now. The Holy Spirit causes God to dwell in our heart. The Holy Spirit transforms our character so that we can obey God. And the Holy Spirit gives us the ability to experience God's supernatural power here on earth.

Science and the Supernatural

Today's essay is going to be about scientific knowledge and how it relates to God. First I'm going to talk about how scientific knowledge works. Then I'm going to talk about how that relates to God. I'm going to conclude by talking about knowledge that depends on faith.

Science seeks to make sense of the complex universe we live in. Science explains staggeringly complex natural phenomena in terms of relatively simple theories. The behavior of light and of electrons is explained in terms of quantum theory. The behavior of planets is explained in terms of Einstein's theory of relativity. These theories might not seem simple, but they are much simpler than the events that they seek to explain.

Because the goal of science is to simplify matters, scientific theories never explain natural events in terms of divine causes. Planetary motion is complex, but it is much simpler to understand planetary motion than it is to understand the mind of God. The Bible tells us that God's wisdom is unsearchable. For this reason, explaining something natural, like planetary motion, in terms of God's will is counterproductive. We end up with a theory that is more complex than the events that the theory explains.

Therefore God must necessarily be left out of any purely scientific explanation of the universe. This doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. It means that no scientific theory can accommodate an unsearchable being such as God. This is because science is only concerned with things that can be fully understood.

Since science is limited in this way, there are some things that can't be scientifically understood. Scientists study the universe and learn about it's history and about the laws that govern it. In the lab scientists can recreate the conditions of the early universe. But there's no way for scientists to study the creation of a new universe.

We can observe and study the universe as it currently exists, but we can't study the first steps of the process that formed it. We know a lot about our universe, but we don't know how it came about. In other words, what is known was formed by that which is unknown.

This makes it difficult for scientists to answer some basic questions about the nature of our universe. For example, why do the laws of the universe allow complex matter to form? Why was the universe initially in a low entropy state? These questions both deal with the same concern. If the universe had been significantly different from what it is now, then we would never have existed.

These facts give me confidence that God exists. The fact that the universe was formed in such a way that life could evolve suggests that it was not some random or arbitrary process. It also suggests that the universe itself is not arbitrary or meaningless, but that it has a purpose. Or, to put it another way, that God had a purpose in making it.

I think we have good reason to believe in an eternal being that created everything. Unfortunately, we can't study this being the way we study black holes or supernovas. As I said above, what is known was made by that which is unknown. Even the bible tells us that no one has seen God and that God is unknown to us.

God is unlike the rest of creation, in that he cannot be directly studied. Indeed, we would not know anything about God, except possibly that He must exist, if God had not revealed Himself to us. We cannot begin to know God unless he first reveals Himself to us. This is why I encourage people to ask God to reveal Himself to them.

I would like to conclude by clarifying the nature of faith. Some people think that faith is merely belief without evidence. I would argue that faith in God is a belief in something for which there can be no direct evidence. God is beyond our ability to understand or comprehend. Whatever we believe about God we have no choice but to believe without evidence, because there is no evidence to consider. That is what it means to have faith.

Authority and the Kingdom of God

Today I'm going to talk about what the Bible says about authority. This teaching is one of the central Christian teachings. Sadly, often times Christians fail to understand and correctly apply this teaching.

Along the way, I will begin to answer a question I posed awhile back, namely, What is the Kingdom of God?

First though, let me talk about what we usually mean when we say authority. The first definition in that link is the one I have in mind. It reads "The power to enforce laws, exact obedience, command, determine or judge." In other words, authority is the power to govern.

In our screwed-up world authority is a results driven business. For every nation on the planet, their authority, their ability to govern, is backed by force or by the threat of force. Military force is used to guard the borders and prevent revolution, and police forces are used to enforce the laws. This isn't because every nation is evil, though some certainly are. This is because force is an effective means of controlling people and, as I've already said, authority is a results driven business.

Keeping that in mind, the Biblical definition of authority is strange and deeply counter intuitive. The Bible teaches us that the real way to exercise authority is by loving people selflessly. We wield authority when we take care of other people's needs without considering our own.

I'll give you a moment to let that sink in.

One reason why this definition seems so strange is because it is fundamentally backwards. Normally, the whole point of having authority is so that I can get other people to do what I want. Under this strange new definition, authority means the opposite of what we think it should.

Secondly, this definition is strange because it isn't especially results driven to say the least. You could love someone selflessly for their whole life without seeing any results. Love isn't an effective means of persuasion, because, among many other reasons, humans are terribly ungrateful.

Nevertheless this is how the Bible teaches us to rule. Love is the basis for God's authority in the Old Testament. Abraham first follows God because God promises to bless him. Later God leads his people out of Egypt because He had compassion on them. When God gives the Israelites the Law He expects them to obey because He rescued them from Egypt.

Throughout the Old Testament God is always promising to love and care for his people. We tend to assume that the God of the Old Testament is full of judgment and wrath. Indeed there are many times in the Old Testament where God does punish his people, but that is not how he typically reacts. In the Old Testament we see again and again that God is slow to anger and rich in love. God only brings judgment as a last resort.

In Jesus we see the loving kindness of God at its full measure. Jesus comes to Earth and ultimately gives up His life for our sake. In doing this, not only does Jesus give us peace with the Father, he also gives us an example to follow. He gives a model of what real authority looks like. He shows us what His Kingdom looks like.

Perhaps the passage where we see most clearly how the role of servant and king come together in John 13. In that passage we see that even though Jesus humbled Himself to serve them, He was still their king. Indeed he was a king because of his humble service, not in spite of it.

This teaching has a lot of implications for how Christians aught to live. It is one of the most important teachings in all of scripture. Indeed, this teaching helps to clarify a lot of what is said elsewhere in the Bible. It also serves as a powerful illustration of what the Christian way of life really is.

Evolution and the Beginning

Today I'm going to be talking about the first three chapters of Genesis. I'll be talking about what it means and why I don't think it contradicts the theory of evolution.

The first three chapters of Genesis are about God and his relationship with nature and his relationship with humanity. The core message of these chapters is that there is only one God who created everything. He created everything that we perceive with our senses. He made people to rule the earth and they lived with God in paradise. But a deceiver tricked humanity into rebelling against God. As punishment, humanity was banished from paradise, but God promised that humanity would one day have victory over the deceiver.

The rest of the scripture follows from here. It is the story of God working through humanity to give us victory over evil and brings us back into paradise and back into relationship with Him. I know I'm only talking about Genesis 1-3, but I want to emphasize that this scripture is a vital part of God's message for humanity.

People who read this scripture often get hung up on the many details that seem implausible to us. Some people use them as an excuse to disregard the message of the bible altogether. Others insist that we must believe that creation unfolded exactly as Genesis describes, no matter how unlikely it seems. I believe that so long as we understand the core message of scripture, whether we believe that creation took seven days or several billion years isn't terribly important.

A lot of Christians will insist that it's important that we read these early chapters of Genesis literally. What most people don't realize is that ever since the beginning Christians have been interpreting these passages figuratively. For example, most Christians agree that the serpent in Genesis 3 is actually Satan in disguise (hence the reference in Revelation to "That ancient serpent".) A merely literal reading of Genesis 1-3 provides no evidence for that conclusion, yet it is a pivotal element of Christian theology. To give another example, the opening verses in the Gospel of John are a figurative reinterpretation of Genesis 1. John equates the "light" in Genesis 1 with the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

Having said that, I'd like to address the question I posed at the beginning. Can Genesis 1-3 be reconciled with the theory of evolution? The main issue, as I see it, is the claim that people, plants and animals were made by God. However, this claim is not a problem if we believe that God worked through natural means, like evolution, to form each of these things. This idea isn't contrary to scripture in any way. Indeed God tells Jeshurun that He made him and formed him in his mothers womb. Here we see that God can work through completely natural means to bring about His desired end and I personally believe that that is what he did when he made Adam and Eve.

Why do I interpret the Bible this way? There are two reasons. The first reason is because I believe that God is not a deceiver. When we try to understand the natural world we should go where the evidence takes us. If it appears as though all life has a common ancestor, then either all life has a common ancestor or God is playing a practical joke on us. I chose to believe the former.

The second reason has to do with my view on the nature of scripture. I believe that the Bible is divinely inspired, but I also believe that that divinely inspired message was written for people of a particular time and place. As such it was written in terms that they would understand and accept. All of the strange details of early Genesis that confuse us are things that made perfect sense to the people that the book was originally written for. God was gracious to give them the message in terms that they could understand, and I believe that we have the right to interpret the scriptures and apply its message in terms that we can understand.

I hope you found my explanation satisfying or at least interesting. Feel free to comment and let me know what you think. I welcome any criticism or compliments you may have.

When is the Kingdom Coming?

This post is influenced by The Gospel of the Kingdom by George Ladd. If you find this post interesting and you want to know more I would recommend reading it. I don't agree with everything he says, but I definitely think that the book is worth reading.

I've already talked about what the Kingdom of God is and why the Kingdom of God is important. Today I'll be talking about an even more challenging issue. When is the Kingdom coming?

Perhaps the most common view is that God's Kingdom will come in the future. According to this view we only truly enter the Kingdom of God when Christ returns or when we die.

If we look at scripture we will find some support for this view. Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God as an inheritance which we will receive in the future. Also, the book of Revelation speaks of the day when the kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.

However, if we continue to look at scripture we will see many instances where Jesus seems to be saying that the Kingdom is about to arrive or that it is already here. He talks about people entering the Kingdom of God now and he tells people that the Kingdom of God has come upon them.

After reading all these passages it can seem a little confusing. In some it seems as though the Kingdom has already come. In others it seems as though it won't come
until Christ returns.

How do we make sense of all this? Amid the sea of seemingly contradictory statements that the Bible makes about the Kingdom of God, there are two parables that Jesus uses to describe God's Kingdom that will help us to understand what is going on.

Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is like a tiny seed or like a small bit of yeast. The tiny seed grows into a bush so big that the birds of the air can build their nests in it. The small bit of yeast is eventually works through an enormous batch of dough so that the whole thing rises.

The Bible makes it clear that the Kingdom of God is here among us right now. Jesus brought it with him when he came to earth as a small, seemingly insignificant baby. Through the ministry of Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit God's Kingdom has come to earth.

At the same time the Kingdom of God isn't fully here. The Kingdom of God still needs to grow and expand and do its work. In the meantime we wait for the day when we can say that, at last, God's Kingdom has come.

So to answer the question I started with, the Kingdom of God has already come, it is coming right now, and it will come in the future. I hope that clears things up for you.

(Dis)Unity and the Church

I wrote this post after this post on Interetmonk got me thinking about Christian unity. Today I'm going to talk about the brokenness of the American church and reflect on how we got here.

One of the major teachings in the New Testament is that Christians should be united. In John 17 Jesus prays that all who believe in Him should be one. Likewise, Christian unity is a major theme in Paul's letters. Paul's letters to the Romans, Ephesians and his first letter to the Corinthians all address the issue of unity in the church.

I want to talk about how these words are lived out. I would like to talk about how Jesus' prayer has been answered. I would like to talk about how Paul's instructions are being lived out by the church. I would like to talk about these things, but I can't, because the sad truth is that the church is very deeply divided.

I should know. I'm part of the American Evangelical church. As a group, we're some of the least united and most divisive Christians around. We might talk about unity among believers, but all too often we fail to live it out, even in our local church. Even though we may say that we value unity our actions reveal a different picture.

It's not surprising that we evangelicals have a hard time with unity when you consider our history. First of all, Evangelical churches are part of the Protestant tradition, which means that we're separated from the Roman Catholic church. And ever since the Council of Trent, when the Catholic/Protestant split became official, Protestants have tried, and failed, to present a unified front against Roman Catholicism.

Very quickly, different groups of Protestants began to separate themselves, not only from Rome, but also from each other. Over time these different groups of Protestants formed many different denominations that are still with us today.

When Protestantism came to America new groups and new denominations began to form even more rapidly. You see, unlike most of Europe, America has a long history of freedom of religion. This makes it easier for new denominations and new church groups to form because the Government isn't trying to impose a single religion on its populace.

Today not only do we have hundreds of different denominations of Christianity, but we also have an increasing number of nondenominational churches. In one sense nondenominational churches can be seen as a less divisive, since they don't make the problem worse by forming a new division. The problem is that these churches are typically independent, not only from denominations, but also from each other. As a consequence, these days the American Evangelical church is broken up into thousands of tiny pieces.

In such an environment it's easy to see why people feel apathetic about unity in the church. With American Evangelicals broken fellowships are the rule rather than the exception.

Disunity in the church is a problem we have inherited, but that doesn't mean that we have to accept it. I believe that with God's help that we can reunite the broken fellowships and bring unity back to the church. In future posts I will be talking about how unity among Christians happens and how we can pursue it.

Testing the God Hypothesis

As I've said before, I believe that God works miracles. The reason why I have that belief is simple; I've seen God work miracles in my life and in the lives of my friends. I've heard arguments to convince people that God exists and that he performs miracles, but I don't find them especially convincing. I think it's something that people need to see for themselves.

To that end, I offer the following advice to anyone who may be wondering whether or not God actually exists. You should try asking God to reveal himself to you. First ask for a sign that God exists or perhaps for some small miracle. Then keep your eyes open and see what happens.

Something might happen right away, but in my experience these things often take time. If you feel like nothing's happening, you can try again. If you feel like maybe something's happening, but you're not sure, try asking God to be more clear.

Some people might think that asking God for a sign like this is putting God to the test. But, so long as you're honestly seeking God, merely asking for a sign isn't putting God to the test.

To understand why, we need to look at why that command was given. God gave Israel this command after an incident in Exodus 17. Reading the passage we see that the Israelites demanded that Moses give them water to drink. Some people jump to the conclusion that they put God to the test by demanding that God perform a sign, but that's not all that's going on here.

In the text it says that they tested God by asking, "Is God with us or not?" This passage comes after God sends plagues on Egypt. It comes after the Israelites are rescued out of Egypt. It comes after they've passed through the Red Sea. It even comes after God has sent Mana to feed them. The real reason why they're putting God to the test is that, after seeing all of that, they still doubt that God is with them. They test God because they don't believe in his goodness even after all that he has done for them.

In fact, as we look through the Bible we see that in some cases, not asking for a sign can get you in trouble. In Isaiah 7, God tells King Ahaz to ask for a sign, anything he wants. King Ahaz politely declines, saying that he doesn't want to put God to the test. Isaiah takes issue with his response, and with good reason.

The whole point of God offering King Ahaz a sign is that God knows that King Ahaz is in a tough spot and is about to make a bad decision. Two neighboring kingdoms have made an alliance against Judah (Ahaz's Kingdom) and are preparing to attack. God tells Ahaz not to worry and, since he knows that King Ahaz has little faith, he offers to give King Ahaz a sign. King Ahaz refuses God and asks Assyria to help instead.

The common thread in both of those stories is that they refuse to trust God. In the former case they refuse to trust God despite everything that God has done for them. In the later case the King refuses to trust God even though God offers to perform a great miracle for him.

The last example that I want to give comes from the Gospel of Matthew. In Matthew 4 Satan tempts Jesus by suggesting that he jump from the roof of the temple and count on God to save him. Jesus refuses to put God to the test. This is because Jesus does trust God, and he doesn't need some dramatic, supernatural rescue to prove that God is good.

That's why I think it's okay to ask God for a sign. For people who don't believe in God it can even be a good thing. It gives God an opportunity to reveal himself, and it gives you a chance to learn that God is good and that he can be trusted.

So, does anyone feel up for trying it? Leave a comment and let me know how it goes.