The Post-Everything Pre-Game Blog

Secularism's Borrowed Capital

2011-03-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

Whether the issue is violence against women, genocide, reproductive rights or imminent domain, internationally, we adhere to moral standards of some kind. And we assume when we do that they are applicable to more than just us. If you visit the United Nations web site, you will find this more than any other place. However, such moral values that underscore the rules or rights pronounced are not derived from any religious tradition or worldview. They're secular. The U.N. has a Universal Declaration of Human Rights page where you can check out the details of these moral claims. Secularism has become the monolithic authority, both nationally and internationally, in terms of defining ethically desireable objectives, as well as undesireable ones. Being devoid of ties to any one religion or philosophical discipline, secularism makes the curious claim of objective and sufficient authority.

My main contention is that non-theists who actually believe in something pertinent to more than just themselves, MUST borrow from Biblical Christianity, in order to hold that view. In fact, if they were to abandon this habit of borrowing this or that Biblical concept, sticking consistently with their own view of reality, not a single opinion, regardless of importance, has any value. There's actually many examples, but let's see where this leads, if we accept the naturalistic, materialistic, atheistic view of reality, regardless of the ethic embraced.

There are two major points that secularism borrows from a Biblical worldview in order for it to hold to any of its ethical tenants; objective morality and free will. Despite the secular and naturalist unavoidable conclusion that neither of these things can exist, they are constantly borrowed, assumed and relied upon in order to make any ethical judgment or underly any worthy cause, whether the ethical judgment or cause is sound or not. What I want to do first is to show you, in detail, just where secularists and naturalists borrow from a biblical worldview of objective moral values and freedom. Next, I want to summarize how the conclusions of secularism and naturalism, if followed consistently, must lead to despair and chaos, then provide the source of their ethical borrowed capital, mainly biblical concepts about humanity, freedom and morality. Lastly, I wish to state how only Biblical Christianity has the answers required for a good life and ethical considerations.

Objectivity Is Required For Real Obligation

In order for human rights to be important values, their must exist objective moral values. To say something is objective is to say that it true is or isn't true, regardless of what we think or how we feel about it. Think about an objective opinion about something. You want someone who has no bias to provide an opinion, in order to obtain a better conclusion about something, like an essay or a business plan. The point behind objectivity is to get to the real state of affairs, unabstructed by things that would cloud our view of them. In terms of morals, and particularly a sense of duty towards any moral code, whether it is liberal or conservative, atheist or evangelical, for those moral values to reflect a real state of affairs, rather than it being reduced to our feelings or opinions or vested self-interest, they must be objective. Some moral claims have universal applicability, like 'you shouldn't torture infants'. They apply to everyone, at all times. They are objective, which means they refer to a real state of affairs, constitute real knowledge claims and all human beings have an obligation or duty to adhere to them.

But in order for them to be objective, they can't be grounded in our feelings or bias about them, although we would be biased and have feelings, some stronger than others. For a statement like 'you shouldn't torture children' to be objectively true, we can't rest this claim on just our feelings, our psychological bias, traditions or our vested interests as grounds for such claims. Otherwise, how could we really know for sure that such statements are true, regardless of our feelings, bias or self-interest? It could be that this is a meaningless statement, despite our feelings, bias or traditions. We may feel that torturing infants is horrible, but on what basis can we know that our feelings against such an act are justified? Without something more to ground these moral claims, we would have to admit we don't know. All we are left with is something like "It's wrong, just because." Although that comes with an intentional desire for obligation, it has no reasons and no justification for it.

What would be required for any moral claim to be objective, in order to be justified? For morality to be applicable to all people in all times, the only way for any moral code to be objective would be for it to come from outside of humanity. It would also have to be grounded in something transcendent from humanity in order for the obligation or sense of duty to be applicable to all people, regardless of feelings, politics, bias or self-interest. Otherwise, all morality is reduced non-justifiable subjectivity. It seems like the only choices we have as an adequate anchor for objective morality for things like a Universal Declaration of Human Rights would be to anchor their justification (and duty) in extra-terrestrials or God, since both would transcend individual or societal vested interest. But let's say our moral code comes to us from aliens from another galaxy. Would that make our moral code objective, when determining them between all conflicting moral notions we have? Well, it would satisfy the requirement for it to apply to all humans, but it would still not be objective. All we have done is zoomed the possible grounds (and real obligations) of subjective and relative morality outward towards interstellar life, if it exists. There could be another alien moral code that conflicts, and no way to adjudicate between them without something that would be able to transcend both them and us.

So, God is our only other option as a grounds for objective morality, but even with the concept of God as the grounds, there are still some problems. If the divine moral code is created arbitrarily by this God (Divine Command), then the morality can't be objectively true or real, since it is arbitrary. Take the statement, 'torturing infants is wrong.' On the Divine Command theory, that's only true because it was decreed by Deity, and could have been decreed otherwise, making it arbitrary. We end up with a '...just because I said so.' type of justification, but with a Deity, rather than a school teacher or autocrat. What if the divine moral code comes to us from God, because its what God Himself has to abide by? Then you end up with something beyond God, which means we are no longer talking about a Deity but just an amplified contingent being....a bigger you or me, which concludes with both an insufficient grounding in morality plus a continued mystery as to whether or not this morality is ultimately justifiable, if it truly exists at all. The only way for objective moral values to exist are for them to be grounded in the eternal character of God....reflect what He's like, rather than being arbitrarily created by Him or some higher code that He abides by.

Without that exclusive grounding in morality, all morality is really reduceable to mere convention and the only objectivity one could drum up would be for morality to be a peculiar way in which natural selection has worked within human animals. But such an explanation, although an objective description, would eliminate morality as being normative and obligatory. It would be reduced to an explanation about animal behavior, sort of like describing how cats lick their paws when they bathe themselves. Cats don't do that because they should. They just do it. It devolves from an 'ought' to an 'is'. Nothing more could be added and no sense of moral duty comes with it.

Without this objective morality, no moral code, whether it is an individual constitution or an international bill of universal rights, means anything. It carries with it no sense of duty or obligation, outside of force and without this objectivity, there is no way to adjudicate between conflicting morals, whether they are to protect women from violence or to support age-old traditions of mercy killings. The difference between them would be the same as the difference between a square and a circle, Pepsi verses Coke or a french horn verses a coranet.

Morality REQUIRES Genuine Libertarian Freedom

Are we determined or free? The best way to define genuine freedom is the ability to choose otherwise. In other words, if I decide to work out in the morning, I could not have done otherwise unless I had the ability to choose not to work out. This is one of those issues (out of many) where we find it laughable to deny our freedom, and yet, under naturalism, we MUST deny this freedom. Why? Because whether we are talking about behaviorism or DNA, the answers always come up the same: we are determined animals. This is arrived because 1) naturalism can only explain things with naturalistic respones and 2) libertarian free agency has no room in a naturalistic worldview, anymore than does a mind, soul, the color red or warmth. Basically, anything that can't get reduced down to physics and chemistry MUST be denied and since the mind, in general, and free agency, in particular, seem to be hopelessly irreducable, they must go.

Why is freedom indispensible in terms of morality? Any ethical statement is ethical only under the presumption that people can choose to either follow the statement or choose not to follow it. It requires free choice. An ethical statement is different from others in that it carries with it a sense of duty ("Wash hands before working the kitchen") and a sense of duty requires the ability to choose otherwise, or else any such statement is meaningless. And ethical statements are exclusively for moral agents....you and me...yet if we have no choice in the matter, then not only are we no longer agents of anything but what we're deterimined to be (whatever that is) is already set and unchangeable. All ethical statements would be irrelevent, since we don't have the ability to choose otherwise. You can't have moral responsibility without genuine freedom to choose. That means when a society stones their women if they hold hands with another man, they do so because of prior causes, whether these causes are language, cultural, educational, genetic or a combination of all. They are not morally responsible. They are determined for all those reasons. That's why you see in some news headlines the defense of a thief where such defense appeals to the thief's inability to avoid stealing the shoes because of oppression and economic injustice, or whatever the prior causes are.

There is a strain that tries to reconcile determinism and freedom together, in harmony. It's called compatibilism. There are compatibilists in both non-theist and theist camps. Classic compatibiblism says that although we are determined creatures, real freedom is simply the ability to act without being encumbered from doing it or the ability to restrain without being encumbered from restraint. It isn't that we are determined not to choose. We can choose, but that we are determined to choose only in line with the desires we already have. The secular compatibilist will say that either our cultural baggage or DNA saddles us with a set of desires in which our decisions are locked or determined. The religious compatibilist will say that we are saddled with a sin nature such that we can only choose the strongest inclinination of the will, without exception.

The problem with compatibilism can't be clearly drawn out unless we can summarize the main difference between it and libertarian free agency. The main difference is causation. The compatibilist believes that although decisions can be made, they are made within the confines of given desires and we don't choose our desires. The desires cause the decisions. The desires are either caused by natural forces ("My DNA made me do it.") or from sin nature ("The Devil, and my sin nature made me do it."). Libertarian freedom looks at the free choice as the first cause, rather than the result of a chain of prior causes. Although those who hold to such freedom don't deny causal chains, even in decisions, they do deny that all choice is necessarily the result of a causal chain, and hold to free choice as a sufficient first cause.

Compatibilism isn't a successful position for two big reasons. First, although a small circle of 'freedom' has been drawn in choosing between present desires, that 'freedom' is illusory. There is no real freedom because all choice is determined based on the strongest inclination at the moment. Second, although the compatibilist is correct in that our desires drive our character, what they fail to explain or even acknowledge is that desires can be changed by intentionality of the will. We can change our desires and our character through free choices that will re-work our desires and character. For example, no one is born a professional tennis player. Our natural inclination is to stink at tennis. Once we set our mind to learn it and master it, our ability changes and our attending thoughts and desires will change as well. The entire concept of character formation hinges on the assumed belief that the first cause of character is free agency, not determinism.

So, how does this all bear out in terms of our Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as all other ethical values? Well, it doesn't move the conversation very far. I will not deal with theological compatibilism as much as secular compatibilism, although some of the same arguments can be made. For a compatibilist, all decisions are caused by prior conditions, particularly desires and those desires caused by other natural things. There is no real freedom with compatibilism. There is only pre-caused behavior. So, Gaddafi torches rebels because they are a threat to national security, while the international community sees Gaddafi as a tyrant, the compatibilist will run into some problems. Since both Gaddafi and the rebels make decisions based on desires which are based on prior natural causes, there is no justification for either side and no moral responsibility. In the end, there are two groups, the Libyan government and the rebels that are caused to move into two opposing camps and really nothing more can be said, without accidentally bringing in either objective morality or free will into the argument. In the end, there can be no morality with determinism, without abandoning determinism at just the point of tension where freedom becomes necessary for that morality to exist.

Secularism & Naturalism, If Consistently Followed, Lead to Despair and Chaos

Secularism is a worldview that is based on a complete divorce from religious beliefs, systems or traditions. It comes from the Latin word saeculum which brings with it the idea of 'here and now' without any need of referring to deity, spirituality or any other concept that cannot be tested with the five senses, presently. It's mainly concerned with civil government, but has also bled over into media and culture in general. Secularism is based on the philosophy of naturalism. Naturalism is a view that believes only the natural exists. All reality is explanable and reduceable to physics and chemistry. Scientism, contrasted to science, is the belief that emperical, observational methods of testing hypotheses is the exclusive way to gain knowledge about reality. If there are some aspects of reality, like consciousness, that cannot be explained scientifically (reduced to an explanation of physics and chemistry), then it is only a matter of time for science to catch up with an explanation through research and study.

Naturalism has used scientism and a bastardized form of logical positivism (the original concept, culminating out of the analytical schools at the turn of the century, was found untenable and self refuting, with a rescue attempt made by the late A.J. Ayer, managed to avoid immediate self-refutation, even though it was still a logically untenable epistemic methodology), has made its mission the reduction of anything in reality that has not been explained in terms of science, into a scientific explanation. For example, in many circles, the spirit or soul was reduced to the mind and the mind reduced to the brain and nervous system, obeying all physical laws. The concept of God is either a curious development in the evolution of human species, psychologically a response to fear of death or just a carry-over of childhood make believe. In essence, the naturalist believes there is only the physical plus nothing. She also believes, as a result, that the only knowledge that exists is scientific knowledge. If it cannot be tested and observed in a scientific way, then it doesn't count as knowledge or a description of what's real.

But, if you think about it, there are scads of topics that are outside science. What about the arts, politics, religion? The postmodern movement was a response to fill in the vaccuum left by naturalism. The liberal arts at the university level, has provided a way for study to continue in these fields, while acknowledging that naturalism is true. What you end up with is no experts in these fields, which then leads to everyone, with an opinion to express, becoming an expert in these fields. There are experts on disease and astronomy, but no such experts on God or politics. As a result, with the help of the media, naturalism hasn't quelled discussion in these areas, but created billions of voices, all saying contradicting and contrasting things, all vying for their day in the sun, none having any more truth than the other. But since conviction, preference, truth and justice are concepts that even postmoderns can't avoid or reduce, the only way to adjudicate between all these voices is political power. So, politics has moved in as the new God or Arbiter of right, wrong, justice, etc. The State is the final say and since leadership in States change, power is the only important aspect and the final goal to a meaningful life.

Power has no ethical clout, in and of itself. If power is the end, then all the means to achieve the end of attaining power can be considered and then all ethical clout is determined in terms of its ability to gain or lose power. This is the same as saying Obama was right because he won in 2008, but wrong because he lost all his congressional support in 2010. It doesn't matter how truthful or ethical the specific topic or issue may be. In the postmodern ethic, all that matters is whether or not we win or lose, with all our attending views and positions becoming truth, depending on our winning or losing. And with a diverse democratic society, power (and truth) changes hands every other year. In tyrannical governments, truth changes after each revolution. There can be no preferred state of affairs, outside of control, with the ultimate conclusion to postmodern thought. It concludes with managed chaos, which has no way to really quell non-managed chaos (using a play on words).

But for those that are thinkers/searchers, there is a far more at stake. With enough insight, one can determine that life, assuming a naturalistic worldview, leads to meaninglessness and absurdity, with any meaning we give as reduceable to nothing more than a way to while away the hours. In 1942, Albert Camus published The Myth of Sisyphus, which provides insight into the ultimate conclusions of a world and life devoid of meaning and purpose. Camus concluded that life is absurd and we can either pretend it isn't by finding ways to occupy our time and minds, so we don't think about it, through work, following lives of public figures, hobbies, sex, drugs, politics, religion (necessity of the sleep of life). Alternatively, we could attempt an inauthentic way to get out of the absurdity of life through invented pipe dreams or Pollyanish answers that aren't necessarily true but held only in virtue of their attempt to find a happy answer, or accept the absurdity of life. Lastly, we could realize the absurdity and fight against it with the intent of finding some happiness in doing so. He used as an illustration the old myth of Sisyphus who was condemned by the gods to carry a rock up a mountain, throw it down, and carry it back up again, forever. He likened that condemnation with an office job or politics in contemporary settings. But by accepting the absurdity of his predicament, Camus concluded that we must imagine Sisyphus as happy. Was he? Are we?

There is no meaning to life found in DNA. There is no moral law contained within quanta. In rare moments in secular writings, this unavoidable conclusion rises to the surface.

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no other good. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music. - Richard Dawkins, Out of Eden, p. 133

Michael Ruse, evolutionary biologist, comes to a similar conclusion...

The position of the modern evolutionist…is that humans have an awareness of morality…because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation, no less than are hands and feet and teeth…. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, [ethics] is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves…. Nevertheless…such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction and…any deeper meaning is illusory…. - Michael Ruse, Evolutionary Theory And Christian Ethics, pages 262, 268-269

Does that mean that the secularist/naturalist can have no happiness, good life or meaningful existence? The only happiness, goodness or meaning that can be given in a naturalistic frame of reference, to the postmodern, is whatever you create for yourself. In fact, this has become a new virtue in entertainment, whether it is in music or movies or literature. It assumes we have no real nature, either good or bad, yet assumes we will always desire what's good, and use that as the jumping board for creating our own happiness, goodness or meaning, regardless of what we come up with. How do you maintain a civilization if one person defines happiness as sexual assault and another as religion and yet another as violence? There's law, but since we've already concluded that law changes as the power changes within the State, you can't conclude any of these are any better or worse creations of happiness. They're just different. And under this strange system, it may be considered virtuous exclusively because it's original.

You can conclude that whoever is in control makes the rules to be followed, encouraging some definition of the good life, or not. You could say that the individual is naturally geared with a decency and moral barometer to keep society humming. But where is this moral barometer located in the body or brain? What is the naturalistic explanation for a moral nature? Is it simply deciding morality based on what works and what doesn't? If so, we're back in the same delimna since determining what works implies an end and if there are conflicting ends, then there is no real answer in this sort of utilitarianism. In fact, most utilitarians I know are very morally motivated politically. Unless the justification for their political beliefs is grounded only in power, they are betraying their own first principles. But then, the naturalist MUST betray their first principles precisely because their first principles leads to death, not life. That's not a reference to religious terminology either. It's a logical conclusion. The law of the jungle is all that remains, when the dust settles, and the rules can be over turned through raw power, at any time. As Steve Turner once penned,

If chance be

the Father of all flesh,

disaster is his rainbow in the sky

and when you hear

State of Emergency!

Sniper Kills Ten!

Troops on Rampage!

Whites go Looting!

Bomb Blasts School!

It is but the sound of man

worshipping his maker.

In order for secularism and naturalism to flourish, it requires a stable soceity and a stable society requires an ethical and moral society. But we have already concluded that in order to have a moral society, morals must be real, apply to all and be objectively grounded in something transcendent, which is absent in naturalism. They must also be applicable to real moral agents and libertarian freedom is required for moral agency, which is denied with naturalism. So, in order for naturalism to flourish, it must borrow these concepts, without any rational explanation for them. The only place these concepts are grounded in sufficient answers is in the biblical worldview.

Only A Biblical Worldview Gives A Foundation For Morality

There are unique concepts found only in the Bible that provide titanic answers in terms to the issues dealt with in this article. First, is the nature of human kind being in the likeness of his and her Creator. What does that mean? In Genesis, we find out that humanity was created to be verbal and communicate with one another. We also discover that humanity had moral knowledge and rationality. The value of humankind is grounded in this image-bearing quality that distinguishes us from the rest of creation. We have aspirations, can think about our ability to think, have moral motions, verbally communicate as a primary means of relating with others in a way not found anywhere else in nature. Because of that value, we have a basis for the treatment of one another. Rather than the worth of others being related to how they can help us or hurt us, or what they can give or take from us. Outside of this answer, humanity has equal value with the rest of nature and either all of nature is held high at the same value or none of it, at least consistently. We can see that in the modern environmental movement. The Bible considers environmentalism a good ethic. However, since modern environmentalism has divorced itself from the biblical undertanding of the value of both humankind and nature, it is stuck between choosing to protect the lives of the Delta Smelt over the lives of people or destroying entire forests for people.

Without an adequate answer to value, which cannot come from naturalism, it is a constant imbalance and the imbalance noticed comes from the essential understanding within us. Although the bible reflects people as sinful by nature, even the most sinful recognize the moral law within, as detailed in Romans 2. Although the content of morality may be wacked, the fact there is morality used in terms of justifying ourselves or condemning others, shows we are fully aware of a transcendent moral law, whether we wish to admit it or not. The 'moral law within' as Kant worded it, reflects part of the reflection from the Law Giver, even if such moral intuition can't be fulfilled. The bible doesn't paint a picture of happy people who simply need to fly right to become happy. It's almost like Camus' Sisyphus, in that we recognize the moral law and yet cannot fulfill it, no matter how hard we try.

The tension felt is ignored with another Camuseque concept of sleep, in that as we tend to invoke the sleep of repetitive tasks and hobbies into our lives to take the tension off of the absurdity, we also invoke a moral sleep to handle the tension of recognizing the good without being able to grasp it. As Paul goes on in chapter 7 of the same letter, he neither justifies our sad condition nor demonizes the very moral law that condemns us. Rather, he concludes that we need redemption through grace dispensed from the same law giver. Jesus is represented as the exclusive inflection point between God and humankind, as well as the fulfillment of the moral law and becoming the punishment for those who wish to accept His substitionary atonement, in our place. Jesus provides the answer to this delimna. However, we are not left simply redeemed from our inability to fulfill the law in our condition. By chapter 11, Paul tells us that by devoting ourselves to God, our character can be tranformed from renewing our minds. This mental renewal is simply a willful and intentional act of replacing former beliefs about reality with those in accordance with God. With that process comes a power to assist us in the transformation of our lives into something it couldn't be without this power.

As this relates to morality, the incarnation of Christ introduces us to the concept of unmerited grace and the power this grace has in our own healing and personal development. This too has been borrowed by secularism. Of course the secularized form of grace is never consistently applied, defined or upheld. Again, devoid of a solid ethical foundation, even the concept of grace devolves into a useful tool for personal gain, at the expense of others, or an excuse to unravel before loved ones and attempt responsibility for our actions. But all of this implies a moral law that comes from without, even if it is recognized within, making this law objective and real. It also implies that people have free will and are the first cause in moral decisions, making them true moral agents. Lastly, the value of humankind being anchored in the likeness of the same Law Giver, coupled with a point to living (being satisfied in Him, above all things), is the meaning to life, aside passing desires, interests or concerns.

But what about God? How can you ground a morality and a free will in a Deity that exists before and without creation? And what does that say about His desire to create in the first place? Although the concept of one God revealed in three persons defies natural reason, it is the only answer that can provide a series of questions unanswered by all natural philosophy, religions and other worldviews. First, one God that existed as three persons, forever in the past and the future, provides a source for the old unity/diversity problem (how can we explain the unity of things without sacrificing the diversity we see...and how can we explain the diversity we see by sacrificing the unity to be able to explain it?). The Trinity also explains why we love, relate with one another and verbally communicate. Rather than these being evolutionary conventions for survival, which would conclude that even a happy marriage of 50 years is an ultimately unfulfillable idea, they were always grounded in the triune God of Father, Son, Spirit, co-existing, each subordinating themsleves willfully to the other and loving without any need or lack. Creation was a free act of this Triune God to share in what was already there, rather than to fill a void. Only Christianity has this answer. It isn't that the Bible is the best answer out of many. It's the only answer that exists. We have been locked up in a reality that outside of Scripture, has no answers.

But we still try. Instead of utilizing our likeness of imagination and creativity to glorify the God that created us and sustains us, even when we hate Him, we use that gift to find creative and imaginary ways to avoid Him at all costs. This is the motivation and the essence of naturalism and secularism, by promoting an appearance of certainty and objectivity, while cutting off its nose, despite its face. Of course, if what I am writing is true, what it means is that outside of a real world-wide Christian revival, there is no hope and no answers for humanity. I believe that is true. But, despite the lack of popular press, I truly believe that revival is world-wide, happening even in the most despotic places on earth (especially in those places), and that the message of the Kingdom has resulted in churches being started in old mosques, meetings happening in homes underground, where its illegal for such meetings. The cause of Christ strongly marches on, even if we in the west are too drunk on living vicariously through famous people, glued to our hand-held phones and gadgets or too absorbed with our own drama to notice. As that happens, we will see a corresponding unravelling of secular society. The pressure of reality will continue and as it does, anything borrowed, begged or stolen for that worldview's existence will erode, leaving it with its own first principles. And the result will be reflective of those first principles. As Steve Turner apply wrote, when we hear 'state of emergency!' or 'bomb blast kills twelve', its the sound of secular man worshipping his maker.

Doubt: Kissing the Demon On the Mouth

2011-02-28T08:19:00.000-08:00

If any Christian tells you that they do not struggle with doubts, DO NOT BUY A CAR FROM THEM. If they lie about that, they'll lie about anything.

We all struggle with doubt. The worst way we handle it is to keep it a secret. We do that to protect ourselves from rejection and criticism of others who continue lying about their lack of any of what we so desperately struggle with.

I do not want you to think that, because you struggle with doubt, your entire belief in Jesus is a fairy tale. Let me tell you about skeptics. They struggle with it more. I used to be one. In fact, for a group whose name suggests the necessity of doubt, you'll never come across a more certain group of people with an almost supernatural knowledge base of everything from cosmology to political prophecy. That doesn't mean they have far more doubt to contend with than you do, although I think they do. But it does mean that they are even more into hiding it than you are. Don't believe me? When's the last time you ever had a conversation about something fantastic, like the beginning of the universe with a non-believer? My guess is that they sipped their coffee and casually talked about exactly what happened 15 billion years ago in a place far, far away. And the idea is to make you believe they are certain...more certain than you are about your views. The fact is they aren't certain at all. They're just more talented at hiding it.

Probably the biggest cause of doubt, within the Christian community, comes from the behavior of others, including us. We see churches torn apart over budget meetings, worship instruments and moving from Sunday School to Life Groups. In fact, the anger, vengeance and terror are so fierce that if it didn't cause you to doubt your own belief in Christianity as truth, you're probably involved in the anger, vengeance and terror. We just experienced a taste of that in our own church. To make a long story short, we implemented a two-service focus on children and youth, meaning we were eliminating bible study groups on campus, to make room for the kids and create a larger pool of volunteers to help with it. You have no idea how ticked some of these Christian people got over that. What amazed me is that through it all, the folks that were the most intent on causing the rift couldn't see anything except their own anger. There was so much being damaged. What I do know made my hair curl. But what I never witnessed would have probably made me come very close to 'losing my religion'. It was like they got confused, then upset, then totally carried away with the hostility, all the while, trying to maintain the Christian appearance.

It didn't work. It never does. And it caused me to doubt.

In other churches, you get a group that digs their heels in, bullies the pastor, the congregation and dominates every decision, casting out anyone who sees things differently. Of course, from their perspective, they're keeping the Body of Christ spotless from those that would defile it. Right. Usually those that concerned to the point of controlling things, end up being exactly what they are trying to hunt down and kill. This problem is so rampant in American churches, that a seminary has created a program dedicated to church health, which is a euphemism for church triage.

And it causes me to doubt.

But the doubts are only reinforced by my own failures. Just when I think I have conquered something I used to struggle with endlessly, I fall into the very same thing...again. What's with that? Let's just take anger as one of many of these struggles. Sometimes anger is proper, if it is aimed at an objective injustice. But, admittedly, 95% of my anger is never really all that justified. In fact, it probably stems from fear, desires to control situations or manage appearances and it isn't working. The fact is I am one of those that do the hurting too. There will be times that I think that my walk with Jesus has matured to a level where uncontrolled hostility is defeated, and then I fall into uncontrolled hostility. What's with that? I have no idea.

And this causes me to doubt.

I read in the Bible where we accept Jesus, decide to follow Him by transforming our mind and offering ourselves as a living sacrifice, and that His Spirit will change us and make us into new creatures, those that resemble Jesus. But when I look around at others and at myself, I wonder if that's true. Some of these people have been at the church thing far longer than me and if they are screaming in a pastor's face over having to drive to someone's home for bible study, what makes me think anyone can get better and more Christ like?

When I read Scripture, I do find that I am apparently not alone or the first to doubt because of these things. Moses, after the Israelites were freed from bondage, began to complain and wish they were back in Egypt. Moses was thinking this was all a huge mistake. Paul had wondered if the Corinthians were really believers, because of their behavior and...worse...their defiance when called out on it. In Acts, Paul had spent the longest time in Ephesus. His ministry was more successful there than Billy Graham could ever imagine. It only took an angry blacksmith's union delegate to turn a town in love with Paul into a town that wanted his head on a platter. I'm sure Paul had doubts. In fact, when you read 2 Corinthians, I think his depressing demeanor was probably the aftermath of that whole scene in Ephesus. I don't think Paul was suicidal, but he did want God to end him. I read the Psalms and many of them are not from confident people. In fact, you can almost see tears and blood stains all over those pages. Ultimately, I look at Jesus and see a man who asked His disciples to watch for just a short amount of time, and they fell asleep. I see a leader within His group betray Him three times. In Acts, after being taught, watching His healing ministry, His execution and subsequent resurrection, what was the pending question on the minds of His believers? "Hey, are you going to kick the Romans out now?"

Despite all the obstacles, including the crucifixion, I never saw Jesus doubt what His mission was or waiver from it. And He had all kinds of reasons to leave it and do something else. But He didn't. In Hebrews, the writer says that Jesus was tempted in all the ways we are all tempted, yet was without sin. That means He had the task of being allured by hostility, fear, jealousy, lust, and intentionally kept His eye on His Father's will for Him and for us instead. That made Him not only our leader, our redeemer and Master, but it also made Him the perfect bridge between a really messed up group of people and a holy and righteous God.

Maybe that's the key to understanding these doubts. Your belief in Christ is only as good as Christ, rather than the church, or the programs, or the committees or boards. It's either all about Jesus Christ and how He withstands the test of reality, or the entire thing is a waste of time. It seriously is. If it's not about Jesus than why bother getting up early on Sunday morning to go to a place and sing, listen to a speech, give money then leave? Why not sleep in and watch a movie? If it isn't about Jesus then it isn't about anything.

But I know how we Christians operate. We lip services that stuff all the time. "Oh, it's not about me. It's about Him." Right. In fact, most of the time, it is about you and me. If it weren't, then why all the desires to have our way? Why all the anger? Why all the vengeance? Do we really think we have a temple cleansing event happen that often and we're in a great position to cleanse it? Come on. Fact is, we know, cognitively, it’s not about us. But we really believe it’s all about us. And that's what the problem stems from. We lie to ourselves, then to others, then when the chicken skuballa hits the proverbial fan; our worlds are crushed in doubts.

You see, from the day you began to interact with other people (that's pretty young) you realized some things. You realized there were demands, there was a chance for failure and there was a chance you would get hurt. We are all are wired to handle this one way and one way only. We create a strategy on how to wade through life to avoid those things as much as we can. It involves creating a persona. When we are sexually or physically or mentally abused, maybe we go the extra mile and create a few personae. But it’s the same thing. We carefully work on our persona, tweaking it, making it our life's biggest project....the project of us. The crazy thing about our persona is that it’s a lie and we know it. That's the part of us that keeps us awake some nights. We're a lie. We have been since we entered kindergarten.

But the world is structured in such a way that it would be suicidal to abandon that carefully maintained persona. So, we figure that although our 'character' is a lie, its one we'll just have to live with and make it all work somehow. When we get hurt, our persona kicks in and we try to eliminate the pain by burying it somewhere. Of course, if the hurt were a serious cut, it would be like forgoing the bactine or stitches, sticking on a bandage and hoping for the best. When the infection starts oozing out the sides of the bandage, we find we're spending more time on taking care of the damage than we are the persona that tried to hide it in the first place.

The clashes in our lives are caused by competing personae, all vying for our places of security and significance. The rivers of blood we create are from scared kids that grow up into dysfunctional adults who have learned how to manage things as best they could, knowing it was all a big 3 act play to begin with. When the tragedies hit, our persona can't help us and we get a little crazy.

Despite what you see among the skeptics and even among those saints in church of whom are a lot of the subject of this note, repentance has more to it than simply saying you’re sorry. It means turning from fostering this stupid butt hole you try to make into a loveable person, lay it all down at the feet of Jesus and decide to let Him manage your safety and your significance, His way and on His terms. Some make salvation seem sort of shallow and maybe vapid. But when you think about it in terms of taking off your mask, standing there naked and placing your entire trust in Jesus, salvation is something that is entirely impossible for us, unless God intervenes. That's just too risky and crazy for any of us to even begin to consider, unless either God brings us to a precipice where we have to face this fact, or He simply invades our space and melts our hard hearts into something pliable. Salvation is more of a miracle than creating time and space out of nothing. It's more of a miracle than bringing someone back from death. It's amazingly incredible.

I think our doubts are founded in the things about us that are carried into our Christian life from before. Sometimes that involves a persona developed out of a significant amount of hurt, rejection, pain. Jesus stands ready to heal all of those things, if we simply let Him. It means casting away everything you placed your trust in...everything. More lip service from Christian talk, but when I mean everything, I mean that mask you are wearing right now. Consider what He promises in Matthew 11:28-32, rip the mask off, cry a good long while, and let Him pick you up and begin a new life...one that is actually His life for you, rather than the lie fostered since kindergarten.

I'm talking to you, fellow believers. I'm talking to me. And I am talking to any skeptic who is weird enough to read all the way through some crazy Christian's note. Goes for you too. The demon of doubt can be killed. But it has to be acknowledged. It has to be dealt with honestly. And it involves you more than it does some concept or set of doctrines. You may think it’s about those mean Christian people or your own slip ups. But what it involves is the deepest part of you, the part of you that you never show to anyone else. Jesus stands at the door and He is ready to take on all those burdens, hold you in His arms and get you prepared for an incredible life that never ends. Here's the kicker....certainty about all things is not the prerequisite. It never was. Who told you that? Give me his or her name and number so I can call them and let them know how dumb that was. Kiss the demon that has paralyzed you right on the mouth and tell them that you have a Friend that will never allow any of that harm to touch you again. He told me to tell you.

The Necessity of Faith & Strength from Doubt

2011-02-13T13:47:00.000-08:00

I have to be very honest with you about some things and I believe this honesty may surprise some and possibly make other uncomfortable. I do not mean to intend the latter, but I can't see how this can be done without initially doing some boat rocking. Of course, I never intend to shake anyone without it first having shaken me, and only to the extent that it's worthwhile. Before that, I hope you can bear with me for the next few paragraphs so that I can at least set up some definitions that will help me in explaining the concepts of this note.

Faith is trust in someone or something. Belief is an assenting to a knowledge claim about reality. Reality is an actual state of affairs. A justified true belief is something that you not only believe about reality, but have good reasons for believing it to be true. This last definition is a bit tricky because you can accidentally be right about something, and although you would be right, your belief would not be justified. You accidentally got it right, despite your reasons. So, there have been theories proposed in terms of justified true beliefs that speak about things like defeaters, which are possible explanations to refute the belief held. There are even defeaters for defeaters, if that makes sense.

What justified a belief? Are beliefs and faith isolated to just religious life?

Before delving into these questions, let me set up the critical side of isle. Skepticism can mean two things. In the general sense, it can mean someone who critically examines things and arrives at doubt and inconclusiveness. A narrower meaning would represent a school of philosophy that rejects the ability to either know anything, know with certainty or to know anything outside of what you perceive with the senses. The latter form is more prevalent and is sometimes referred to as verificationalism...the idea that you can't know anything unless that knowledge was gained through your five senses. Of course, the skeptic will have no use for faith or beliefs. However, upon closer scrutiny, you find the skeptic's definition of faith and belief are mainly relegated to religious speculation. As such, they are considered unwarranted in terms of actual knowledge with their usefuleness being merely therapeutic or to produce a desired outcome. But the content of faith or beliefs would be non-cognitive, or in other words, not something knowable about reality.

When it comes to belief in God, there are three broad schools in Christian circles and one broad school in skepticism, with many different flavors. In Christian circles, some say belief in God is rational and based on evidentiary arguments. This school of thinking got its traction during the Enlightenment. In other Christian circles, some say belief in God is necessarily irrational and groundless, despite belief. This school, too, can trace its birth to the Enlightenment and shortly thereafter. You can have both non-Christians and Christians (used in a very broad sense) in this same category. Both would believe that assent to things like God, Jesus and the Bible are irrational to hold, and they would part ways as to whether or not it was ok to be irrational in believing those things. The Christian skeptic would believe you can and the non-Christian skeptic would think it assinine. I tend to side with the non-Christian skeptic, when comparing the two together.

The third school is called Reformed Epistemology and proposes that belief in God, as well as other certain things, is properly basic. That is, these beliefs are immediate and not grounded in any evidence or arguments and no arguments are required to hold it. These beliefs, held by properly functioning minds with the natural inclination towards the truth, are basically held and such beliefs are natural. Reformed Epistemology says that there are things you know that are basic and do not require argumentation or criteria in order to hold. One of them is a belief in God. They believe that although Christianity is rational and there are great arguments to support Christian beliefs, none of them are necessary.

Needless to say, although there are both Christian and non-Christian evidentialists, there are only Christian Reformed Epistemologists. That's because the idea of basically proper beliefs runs contrary to foundational evidential or skeptical beliefs (there's that word again). Since it would appear that Reformed Epistemology is sort of the step child in mainstream circles, does that mean it's the least plausible explanation for knowledge, particularly as it relates to faith and God? No. In fact, I think it is by far the most persuasive. If you were honest, regardless of which side of the fence you were on, you would admit to it as well. There is a avalanche of knowledge claims we simply accept and use to support other knowledge claims. For example, I am typing this sentence. I need no supporting arguments to know this. It's properly basic. Whether or not you believe belief in God is properly basic is another debate. The purpose of this note isn't to dwell into that debate as much as sort of clarify the use of faith and belief in every-day life. In this regard, Reformed Epistemology or Classical Common Sense is the best explanation for what we know.

As belief pertains to arguing the existence of God or the non-existence of God, I have read tons of Christian apologetics (defense of the faith). I have also read tons of atheistic works. There's good and bad among both. The negative tendency in Christian apologetics is to be pedantic and dogmatic, without getting into the actual muck of real life. The negative tendency in atheistic works is that a great majority of them are more passionately and pejoratively driven against theism and Christianity, rather than presenting valid reasons of their own. There are exceptions, such as the late J.L. Mackie's The Miracle of Theism. But for the most part, they are emotional and angry.

Here's the honesty. There are rational arguments for atheism. There are also irrational aspects of Christianity. I realize that's a hard pill to swallow, but its true. And there is no final arbiter found in argumentation, even though it can aid or support a belief one way or the other. In the end, everyone, Christian and atheist, requires faith and belief in order to continue living, all fueled by the will. And that very will or internal decider will color and skew all arguments, evidence and support to better fit what you have already committed to believe. It isn't fatalism. You can change your mind. I have. But normally it will not happen until something tragic happens to you. And that's because we build up scaffolding of diversions to keep us safe from delving too deeply into things we may have even contemplated as being inadequate in our minds, but would never voice to others. Reality is what it is, despite what we think about it. But because of our will's involvement in gaining and supporting knowledge, we all have the tendency to cheerlead our position and avoid dealing with its difficulties.

Regarding rational atheism, if you reject the supernatural and the existence of God, for example, the theories that are prevalent are somewhat reasonable, especially since matter, time, energy and space are all you begin with. The concept of evolution and abiogenesis has an internal consistency and rational explanation for all that we see. On the other hand, there is nothing obvious about understanding the Trinity of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or the idea that Jesus was 100% God and 100% man. There simply are no arguments to either prove those things or make them seem obvious. They are difficult to explain. On the other hand, the concept of consciousness, morality and the design of nature make a mechanical and material explanation of reality seem very underwhelming, to say the least. If you are an atheist, belief in God is considered either cultural or psychological survivalist instincts, at best and folk mythology, at worst. If you are a Christian, atheism is considered rebellion against God despite evidence, an inability to recognize Him through the noetic impact of sin or a combination of both.

Despite the difficulties of certain theological doctrines, can I still say that belief in God is properly basic? Yes. Although those doctrines are considered essential, they are not essential in explaining belief in God. Because these doctrines are difficult, it doesn't make them false. Understanding the detailed creeds with about those doctrines aren't necessary to know before believing God. In fact, you believe in God and through that belief, you come to believe the other things that are not basic. In atheism, the refusal to believe in God doesn't require you to understand evolutionary biology before you hold to that belief. And being a Christian, I believe in God, believe it's rational and know Him to be real. Contrary to evidential arguments, I think the hardest stumbling block for many atheists aren't the arguments, but the lives they see. I realize that many of the more virulent atheists like to paint us as all horrible, backward and dangerous people, but the truth of the matter, in real life, is that those not in the lime light, who love the Lord, are themselves a very formidable argument that atheists have a hard time dealing with.

I bring all this up to show that regardless of where you come, there are some things we must come to grips. First, we do not have the option of certainty. Knowledge doesn't require it and since our reasoning abilities as well as our senses are limited, it's not available to us. Second, we all, whether religious or non-religious, operate daily through faith and belief. You use it every time you sit in a chair or turn on a light switch. In fact, because certainty is outside of our reach, faith and beliefs are requirements to keep on moving, anyway. The Christian is mistaken (sorely mistaken) if he or she believes God can be proven with certainty or that all the verities of the faith are obviously factual. The atheist is mistaken (sorely mistaken) for the same things, except in rejecting God or in defending alternative explanations through science, philosophy or just ranting. We are all shut up in a reality that we simply cannot know apart from faith. Faith is a prerequisite for knowledge.

But the skeptic (or perhaps even some Christians) may argue that things self-evident, incorrigible or sense perceived, require no faith whatsoever. It falls on the concept called the Verification Principle, which states that the only knowledge gained is that perceived with the senses. Anything that is claimed to be knowledge that cannot be perceived by the senses, doesn't count as real knowledge. But there are two really basic things wrong with this. The first one is a bit nerdy and the second one is undeniable. The nerdy objection is the obvious fact that the theory itself cannot be obtained through the senses. There’s no way we can empirically verify the verification principle. It's very difficult to seriously consider a theory that cannot stand under its own first principles. The undeniable objection is that there are, in fact, many things you know that could never be observed with the five senses. For example, when you are angry, you don't perceive this through your senses. Recognizing a moral value or an aesthetic value, although could be recognized through something seen or heard, are not known by the senses.

Another objection would be that faith is separate from knowledge because knowledge is based on criteria. In other words, if it fits a certain criteria, then it counts as knowledge, such as whether or not it is sense perceived, externally verifiable or internally consistent. Those things may be true with certain knowledge claims, but there is a problem with this theory. It's like a dog eating its tail. It ends up in a vicious regressive circle. Here's what I mean. If knowledge requires criteria before it can be known, then the criteria is itself a knowledge claim, which also requires criteria for it. And the criteria for those criteria of knowledge are knowledge that requires further criteria for its justification. This goes on ad infinitum. So, although this objection may initially make sense, once you push it to its logical conclusion, it is no explanation for knowledge.

In addition to the requirement of faith in terms of knowledge, we can also turn the skeptic's exacta knife inside out and look at this another way. Instead of having to prove you know what you know, the real question is are there any good or sufficient reasons to doubt what you believe? Absent these reasons, the skeptic is left with either iterative and repetitious questioning ("How do you know? Well, how do you know that? How do you know?", etc). or trying to convince you that so long as there is even the possibility you could be wrong, you should doubt your belief. Neither of those methods is very good nor can be taken seriously. Unless and until you are presented with reasons to doubt the belief you have, you are within your rights to continue holding to that belief.

Do I believe in Jesus Christ as the risen Lord and Savior? Yes. Is it possible that I could be mistaken? Yes, I could. But the possibility of being mistaken is different from reasons to doubt my being mistaken. Not only that, although I could possibly be mistaken, I do not believe that I am and I even know that I am not. Knowledge doesn't require 100% certainty nor does it require proof in order to hold it. Otherwise, not only is skepticism the only game in town, even skepticism itself falls by the same sword, which also leads you into a brain burner. Knowing that you know nothing is to know something.

There is great importance for a intellectual and spiritual honesty. Traditionally, we have buried doubt, made doubt a taboo subject and even scorned any believer of standing that would voice such doubts. What we have done is bought into the enlightenment bologna that certainty is required and evidence is our foundation for faith. Both are false. In fact, we have doubts. We all know it. It's the white elephant in the room. But we need not treat doubt as the boogie man. Our doubts can be the tools we use to strengthen our knowledge and faith. Instead of making sure no one ever questions the essentials of the faith, the hypostatic union of Jesus' incarnation, the problem of evil or any difficult topic, we need honesty. We need to bring our doubts out and place them on the table, before each other, in a non-condemning and non-judgmental way. By doing so, we accomplish two major things. First, we can now actually grow in our faith and knowledge of Christ, rather than pretend to and then manage that facade. Second, we can actually tap into the power of the Gospel in ways restoring the church to its original intent, rather than the stoic, boring, legalistic and hurtful thing it unfortunately has become in many cases.

From an evangelical standpoint, there's another set of questions. How can I present the Gospel to you or give you reasons for the hope I have, if you don't believe? Is it possible? If it weren't, then the New Testament is a false document and all personal testimony outside of it is false. But how many other things do you believe as an atheist or a skeptic that sets the bar that high in order for you to accept it? If it's because God isn't empirically visible to you, then why do you believe anything that is beyond empirical observation? If it's because you have never personally experienced anything of the supernatural, have you ever experienced abiogenesis or the morphing of one animal into another? I know you believe it, but have you seen it? No? Then what is it? Surely, if you were honest, Christianity isn't irrational. There are great arguments for the Gospel, in all kinds of forms. There are also some very intelligent Christians. In fact, many of them are far above par, intellectually, despite the bad press. If I can open up with you and admit that there are great atheistic arguments, that some of them are rational and persuasive, that many atheists are very intelligent and even far more so than myself, will you believe me?

And if you do, can we really talk? Not this rhetorical ping pong tournament we normally engage in, but real conversation...honest and open conversation. I hope so. It's my fervent prayer, even if that makes you uncomfortable for me to suggest. I can't change my beliefs to avoid discomfort for you. All I can do is be willing to be wrong, make a friend, and in the worst case, agree to disagree without being so damn disagreeable. On the other hand, my struggles with doubt, confusion, tragedy and searching have actually confirmed my beliefs and I really have no problem defending them, if need be. Could I be wrong? Yes. I don't believe I am. In fact, I know I'm not. Now, if you know otherwise, contrary to the spirit of the age, I'd actually to know what those reasons are...if you cared enough to let me know as I care enough to let you know, you would strive to persuade me as much as I do you. Otherwise, it's all an ego trip and we're both trying to impress others and manage our appearances. I have to tell you, I am not the least bit interested in that anymore. It's a waste of time.

Christianity With Hardly Signs of Life

2011-02-06T14:22:00.000-08:00

It doesn't take long to read any of the four Gospels and notice something that sticks out. People were almost violent to get to Him. Huge crowds made their way wherever He went, especially when He intentionally strayed from well populated areas. Take the cripple who couldn't get into the home where Jesus was staying. His friends boosted him to the roof and clawed through to create a hole large enough to lower the man down on a mat. Even Jesus Himself stated that people were forcing their way into the Kingdom.

Now, if you live in America or the west in general, look around, particularly in the churches. Where are the throngs of people violently trying to make their way in? When's the last time you even heard of someone clawing through the roof of the First Baptist Church to get inside to hear the Good News and be restored?

What we normally see are churches that pop up, grow, stabilize and then decline, split like a zygote and turn into either a wedding chapel or a pizza joint. We get excited about numbers, baptisms, enrollment, new ministries, a stray Christian movie or two. Not that any of these things are necessarily bad or not to be celebrated, but when you compare that with throngs of people bursting through the door and clawing their way through the ceiling, these things seem mundane and devoid of any vibrancy. Do you really anticipate seeing vagrants and invalids busting down the door to get into the church that has begun to study John Piper's Desiring God series or has a seminary president come speak as the guest preacher? Again, don't misconstrue (as we Christians love to do with the uncomfortable or unfamiliar), I like Piper and if Danny Aken came to speak at our church, I would go, but not to the point to where I would claw through the walls to get in. Seriously, not even close.

So what happened to us? After all, Jesus left us with the promise that in His Name we would do far more and the Kingdom would manifest itself and grow like yeast working itself through a lump of dough. But instead, we re-invent ourselves, over and over again, with little difference. We run campaigns and do new ministries, which are ironically a lot like the prior ones, except with new hair or "dude" thrown in for good measure, to attract the younger demographic. Oh, of course we do have the snake oil salesmen and saleswomen that do talk about the Kingdom manifesting itself, but when you listen, it turns out to be about nothing more than money, a raise, a new car or super-human health, which triggers the gag reflexes. None of this is the Kingdom I read in the Gospels. It simple isn't even close. And that is what I long for. But I can't even begin to be anything but depressed unless I sort of try to figure out how our fire got put out. I do see us growing and rapidly, but it’s not here. It seems to be almost everywhere except here. I have been to Africa and got a taste of what I see in the Gospels. I have heard missionaries talk of outpourings, huge numbers of conversions, Mosques turned into churches in the most dangerous places a professing follower of Christ can live. But here, where Christianity is legal and a church on almost every street corner, the vibrancy isn't there, outside of it being contrived.

I have a few ideas why we are in this sad shape and I also have to admit that these ideas are far from original. In fact, much of it I originally heard from my own pastor and after reading Scripture in that light, I was 'ruined' so to speak. Once you see truth, you simply can't unsee it, no matter how hard you try. And I believe that if we could at least confess of our deadness and understand where it comes from; maybe we can see the same vibrancy of His Kingdom that is rampant all over other parts of the world.

First of all, I think we are far too Greek in our knowledge than Hebrew. When a Hebrew talks about knowledge, it is understood to be both cognitive AND something you actually live out. The Greeks loved the cognitive aspect of knowledge, but fell short of it having much to do with daily life. The Romans had little use for speculation and were all about the practical. But instead of having a bunch of cognitive knowledge that didn't touch life, they ended up retrofitting knowledge claims to fit the life they already considered desirable. In other words, the Greeks liked to understand concepts and didn't care if it was something to be lived out while the Romans started with a life they considered virtuous and retrofitted all knowledge to fit that lifestyle. Both end in sad results.

When Jesus talks about knowing, it is ALWAYS in the context of both understanding and living out. And once lived out, only then is it fully understood.

If there is anything in this note I wish you to walk away with and never forget it is the last two sentences above.

Propositional truth is something you initially comprehend, then you live out in the warp and woof of life, and only then you truly understand it, know it, own it. It involves all of you, mind, body, spirit and social context. So, being an intentional follower of Christ yet unintentionally Greek or Roman in our thinking, we as evangelical Bible-believing Christians either stay up in the lofty vestibule of doctrinal truths, out of touch with real life, or we cling to the familiar, the traditional, and retrofit doctrine to fit it. And both lead to deadness, even if the numbers increase. And that's because unless you handle the actual Gospel of Jesus Christ, it has a shelf life and by looking at a lot of churches these days, the expiration date is long past due. It's the reason why we are hypocrites to the watching world (of course, all are hypocrites, but that's another topic) and it’s the reason why all our Christian talk has long since lost its relevance with daily life. It's not that the things referenced in our language are irrelevant, but that in our shallow understanding of these things, we cling to language to get out our sentences and to stay on topic, even if it is powerless. And the reason our understanding of Scripture is shallow is because we focus on only cognitive understanding, at best, or retrofitting doctrine to fit our familiarity, at worst. And in either case, no one listens, cares or bothers.

That should convict us. I know it does me.

When you see people in the church try to split it up or run off a pastor or other members, in almost every case, these people could quote you Scripture frontwards and backwards, even though it would defy their behavior. And what I described above is the best thing I can come up with to explain their actions. They cognitively know Scripture, but they are ignorant of it, because they've never bothered actually living it out to do, as Jesus commanded, find out if His teachings are from God or only from human understanding. Some of the meanest people I have met know their Scripture and can quote it on demand. But listening to what they quote seems hopelessly disconnected from their actual lives. How about loving God with all you are and loving your neighbor? What we usually see are churches that focus on the other, treat other people like hell and call it love, or we see churches that ignore the first, contrive the second and make sure everyone sees it. And in spiritual realms, these actions are like hackings, impalings and buckshot wounds through the souls of lives, all over REAL important things, such as musical instruments, PowerPoint aids, popular controversies or devolving into nothing more than a glorified political movement.

So, what can we do? It seems the obvious thing is to do more than study Scripture. We should actually start trying out Scriptural truths in our lives, starting today. I think by doing so, two things will emerge. First, we will discover that Jesus' teachings are from God, rather than human ingenuity. Second, we will see just how enslaved we have been to our vested self and petty interests, as well as how we have trained our mind, body, soul and social context to serve those interests, rather than to serve others for the sake of the Kingdom. Since I began to try putting these teachings in place in my life, I have discovered both of those things. I have also discovered other things, like certain emotional triggers that used to control my words, actions and my general outlook. And although those triggers are still there, I can separate myself from them, captivate them and try to bring them under the dominion of Christ's truth. All of the sudden, Scripture is more than a suit, shiny shoes and a program. It is a living, vibrant and exciting life, far more exciting than I thought it could be.

For those of you, who, like me, could interpret a sort of legalistic bondage in anything I wrote, let me try to defuse that right now. My walk with Christ REQUIRES I deal with failure. Failure is a prerequisite for victory. Failure is necessary. Not only are we to not avoid it, we can't avoid it. We have fallen into a weird view where if it involves any participation on our part, we deny grace and consider it something akin to legalistic bondage. Legalism requires enslavement to outcomes. It works through human ingenuity to manage opinions and appearances to that end. Jesus commanded us to obey, but also understood our failures and weaknesses. His atonement on the cross and His resurrection from the dead means failure isn't fatal, even if it is required, if we are to be honest and serious about putting feet to Scripture.

I think if we start thinking differently, understanding the true Gospel of Christ and as a result, understand ourselves better, there is no telling where we go from there. If I can just take Africa and use that as my sole personal experience, I can at least tell you that you have never experienced true amazement, excitement and life drama. He cannot be contained or controlled. In that sense, He's wild and untamable. And when we earnestly become His apprentices in this manner, expect the unexpected....and expect it with the three aspects of His Spirit ...power, love and sanity.

The Demons Cleanthes & Epicurus

2011-01-27T07:25:00.000-08:00

Notwithstanding my beliefs, consider these demons as pandemic neuroses, if it helps. But grant me the patience to indulge in a bit of this language to illustrate a point or two.

Through my own struggles as well as my observations, I see two demons rampant within human life: Cleanthes and Epicurus. Each one has its own methods, but both have the same result in destruction and decay of human life. Those possessed by Cleanthes, as well as Epicurus, willfully do so out of the need to manage all outcomes and appearances. But once one gives in to either, the incredible amount of energy and intellect expended on the methods they use can amaze, even if it carries destructiveness with it.

Cleanthes is a spirit that requires control. His words are stoic and proud. But those terms are window dressing for a deeper desire to control everyone and everything. A person possessed by Cleanthes has a tendency to be abusive, controlling and manipulative. Although Cleanthes can posses anyone, religion is a great avenue and wonderful fodder for his methods. But outside of religion, Cleanthes runs rampant. His name is spread, and disciples made, in areas of business, politics and social networking. Wherever you see the nervous and accelerated energy to control, roll over, destroy or manipulate, you are seeing his gospel at work. This disciple comes across as terrifyingly moral and ready to correct. Yet, I think it was Sigmund Freud or Carl Jung, or some other famous thinker who stated, of all the heads they unscrewed, not one time did they not find someone terribly afraid. Fear of the future, the unknown as well as our own security and significance can drive us into the arms of Cleanthes. And once there, his promises of rectitude are alluring and although they always end up very bitter-sweet for us, the bitter may sting us, but with just enough sweet to keep us going, planning, strategizing for the next step. And the sweetness of any success employed by being an apprentice of this demon leaves a bigger desire for more satisfaction. There is an unquenching thirst to drive longer, harder and speed it all up. Of course, there is no satiability, just more desire. The projects either fail, causing disappointment, or succeed, causing emptiness and disillusionment. But Cleanthes, upon the despair of his disciple's wake, whispers in his or her ear, "don't look back. it's all about you." Those words have a fatal draw for a will that tries to take care of itself. Once allegiance is made to Cleanthes, getting away is practically impossible. As a result, people are used up, resources are expended and a wake is left behind a trail of business plans, political platforms and new ministries.

Epicurus works through a different angle. If Cleanthes plays on our desire for significance, Epicurus plays on a fears for security. The world is a very harsh place. Having it full of people possessed by Cleanthes in powerful positions doesn't make it seem any less harsh. In any case, we tend to want to curl up and hide somewhere for a while....close the blinds and turn off the phone. But this sort of resignation isn't always anti-social. People can get energy from solitude or from social gatherings. And neither is a stumbling block for this demon. Epicurus has his ways of working the hopelessly social as well. His tools of the trade are the allure and subsequent hammer of our hurts, habits and hang ups. Sexual addictions, chemical dependencies and just self-possessed desires for an ambiguous satisfaction are tools the disciple of Epicurus illicits. His disciple also ends up with bitter-sweet results, with the same mixture. The fix is momentary and the desire that was their before the fix, shows back up, stronger and deeper than ever before. Rather than the Cleanthian disciples outward control of other people in order to move onward and upward, albeit things turned upside down, Epicurus destroys his disciples from the inside by alluring them into a false sense of security through sex, drugs, food, work, revenge, requiring more and more with diminishing returns. Whether the disciple is wealthy and famous or poor and invisible, he makes no distinguishment other than using those circumstances to his benefit in their personal destruction.

Both disciples are bent on destruction. Cleanthes' disciples destroy others before they turn on themselves. Epicurus' disciples avoid the middle step and begin destroying themselves right away. Both end up, outside of redemption, in the human garbage dump, along with all the contracts, buy offs, dirty needles and broken relationships. Both disciples are capable of choosing otherwise. Despite the draw within and the circumstances without, there are other ways. But because of a prevailing feeling of ultimately being completely alone, it seems impossible to ignore their whispers. Both types of disciples will cleverly hide the despair behind the facade of saccharin-like satisfaction, which is sometimes cleverly deceptive and at other times, hardly more than thinly transparant to even other disciples of that ilk. But the facade has to continue because admitting defeat, giving up and giving in seems almost suicidal to them. The grip tightens. It will be death rather than admitting a deep and profound misery and surrender. New distractions or another project or soap box may help in steering clear, but the distractions must continue to be better, projects more intense and political banners far more enveloping to keep out of those dangerous waters.

The Great Physician is the only antidote and the last place these disciples will turn, were it not for a divine nudge. Although His words, "Come to me all you who are weary and heavily burdened and I will give you rest for your souls..." makes cognitive sense to them, they have convinced themselves they are in no need of this cure. In fact, they have deluded themselves into actually believing the tricks they invented to avoid resignation. In fact, they have convinced themselves there isn't any such thing as a soul, as if somehow reducing themselves down to an organic structure will eliminate the despair or make it illusory. Of course, by doing that, then they can no longer distinguish between reality and imagination. Pain hurts, but contending it is all in the mind leaves them fragmented. This is probably why The Physician always stated that He came for the sick, rather than the well. Of course, in context of those sayings, you can tell that the 'well' were simply Cleanthian disciples disguised as pictures of health. The fact is, all are disciples are one or the other, and know, deep down, that if something doesn't happen soon, it will be a sad end. But aside those words The Physician calls out for those in need, His harsh words are recognized as well: "Be quiet! Come out of him!" Of course, that's hardball, and so long as these disciples can avoid hardball, as well as The Great Physician, all will remain as it does.

He calls out to them. He calls out to us. As one who has been a disciple of both demons, I am living testimony of all that I have written above and declare to all disciples of every dark force that The Great Physician, Jesus Christ, can and does heal. He has the power to eliminate the bondage described and, although circumstances may seem the same, inside of us, we are changed and calm, with a peace that passes understanding. This is salvation and it is available now. It doesn't matter if we are already serving these demons within a religious context. Come to Him. Leave all your burdens at His feet and become a new sort of disciple. One that restores and rebuilds, rather than destroys.

The Nature and Knowledge of Stuff

2010-11-21T17:33:00.000-08:00

I always thought about writing a book, but there's two major problems with that proposition. First, I am boring. Second, how can I compete with fictional novels about vampire romances? I was at Barnes & Noble in Ontario, OH this afternoon and God gave me at least a half day of some clarity. Fear comes in all sorts of ways. Whether it is financial, job-related, social, etc. And I think fear is the number one cause of cloudy thinking, at least with me. Today, fear seemed far away and clarity was welcomed, even if just for a bit. So, in order not to waste it, I wanted to jot down some things before I forget it all in the morning.

I love philosophy. I read lots of it. In fact, I received the multi-volume set of Coppleston's survey of western philosophy and I have been a kid in the candy store, savoring it as much as possible. I spent time reading and then re-reading Plato and Aristotle. Something about both of these guys seems even more clear than ever before. If I can use a boat metaphor, Plato and Aristotle are the boat and all current philosophical schools are barnacles growing on the outer hull of the boat. Those two guys, outside of Christ and Solomon rocked in terms of thinking about reality and how to explain it. But aside that realization, I began to think about metaphysics on my own, rather than fall back on theories and came up with some things I wanted to get off my mind and in writing.

Metaphysics is the study of being. That sounds very obtuse, but let me say it another way. Metaphysics tries to explain the nature of things...the nature of stuff or the universe. Why do things exist, rather than nothing? What is the nature of what's there? The pre-Socratics were stretching it to try to come up with an explanation about the nature of things, but to keep it short, all they were trying to do is try to explain why things change but yet there there is a stasis too, contrasted to change. Things change. Things stay the same. How do you explain that? That was their task and whether it was finding a binding essence that explained it, be it fire, water or atoms, they were all coming up short, crying out for some explanation. None came for a long time. Then comes Plato and he tries to explain change and sameness but saying that ideas are perfect and eternal and sort of imprint themselves on dead matter, so that the sensible world is nothing but an imperfect copy of these ideas. To Plato, things change because they are imperfect material copies of an unchanging and perfect realm of ideas. Aristotle, who found no good reason to figure out how to tie in the realm of these ideas to what's sensible, he tried to mix the cream with the coffee by saying that these forms or ideas are inherent in matter and matter expresses the actualization of the forms that were potential within it, like an acorn and a tree. Still come up with some problems. With Plato, he gives an explanation for ideas and concepts but at the expense of the sensible world. Aristotle tries to salvage the importance of the sensible world at the expense of the exemplary. Every philosopher since has failed to further this topic. In fact, post moderns have given up, simply abandoned the project and say that its all language and that's as far as we can go. Of course, that argument is weaker than the pre-Socratic views. So, what is the nature of things?

Things are comprised of stuff that is natural and stuff that is created. Through the senses and how the mind works, including the mind itself, we know a chair or a tree based on its purpose. The name is arbitrary. But when we see more than one chair, we see commonality of design and function. Chairs are for sitting. Once more, if I see a piece of the arm rest of a chair, that isn't a chair. It's part of a chair. If I see a chair back, seat with three of four legs, that is a chair, but a dysfunctional chair. The difference is enough parts to complete enough of the picture to conjure up the common design of chairs seen before and the understanding of what chairs are for. Does that make sense?

For natural stuff, its a similar concept, except natural things aren't made by humans for a purpose, even if humans can use things from nature to make other things for another purpose. Take a tree. A tree takes in carbon dioxide and gives off oxygen...provides shade, fertilizes through dropping acorns and becomes home for an entire habitat, in the case of forests and jungles. Eyes tend to see. Stars tend to give heat and provide gravitational influence. Rain tends to help vegetation, which provides food for living things. A brain contains a self-aware mind where the body and environment impacts it and it is a first cause that impacts the body and environment. The list goes on and on. But the ideas associated with chairs applies here too. We look at things nature based on what seems to be their function or end.

The forms or ideas are tied to material things based on design or end of those material things, rather than eternal realm of ideas or a pregnant piece of matter with potential. The telos or design of things tells us the function and the nature of what we sense. The concept of design is based on our sensibility on how we see things plus our rationale in the concept of purpose. When you see a chair, you know it is a chair based on 1) recognition from seeing other chairs plus 2) memory of realizing what chairs are for from seeing the very first one, forward. It's that simple. The nature of things is determined by purpose, design or function and a mind that properly functions to recognize it and also a part of it all. Again, language rules and definitions are arbitrary from the concepts of nature, design, purpose, etc. For example, a toddler can recognize spinach before she knows what to call it or how to say it or write it.

Are the only things that exist material/sensible? No. In this sense, Plato was correct and the nominalists were wrong. Realists believe, sort of like Plato, that there are non-material things that exist, as well as material things. Nominalists believe there's only physical or material things and all non-material concepts are handy illusions, rather than anything real. Nominalists believe that your idea of blue circles doesn't exist outside of your head. Nominalism reigns in all schools today because of the consensus of scientism and naturalism as the foundation for all knowledge. But there are obvious problems with nominalism. You can reduce blue circles as much as you want, in order to try to eliminate properties, relations and universals, like reducing blue circles to atoms and reflected rays to eye recepters. For example, the color blue is the aborption of all frequencies except the frequencies that bounce off and hit our eye receptors, giving us a blue sensation. But the explanation has properties like reduction, reflection. It has relations like sender and reliever, being the light waves and the eye receptor. There are universals, like atoms, rays, eye receptors. If you wanted to eliminate non-material entities, you would have to further reduce those properties, universals and relations, ad absurdum. You have to rely on the very things you want to explain away or eliminate, which are properties, universals and relations, in order to try to do it. So, you can't deny the existence of non-material entities. So, things like numbers, colors and morals can exist without being reduced to material explanations.

What about knowledge? This is sometimes referred to as the study of epistemology. How can we know something exists and its nature? How can we know anything? Skeptics believe that things called 'justified true beliefs' are impossible because of absurd problems that come up in trying to define what a justified true belief really is. But, regardless of the skepticism school you study, there is one common denominator. They all believe that any knowledge claim is guilty until proven innocent. In other words, unless you can perfectly explain any knowledge claim, you can't claim it as real knowledge or a justified true belief. How do you respond to these skeptical ideas? Well, its obvious. Of course there are some knowledge claims that require more than simple conclusions, like what the atomic weight of helium is. But there is knowledge that requires no deliberation. I know I am typing this. I know I had a steak for dinner. I know that when I turn on a switch, the light comes on. Now, I may be mistaken, but unless I have good reasons to doubt these claims, then there is no good reason to doubt them. So, my response is this: Any knowledge claim that has no good reasons to be doubted are justified and innocent until doubt can be established. A child understands this. A PhD has problems with this.

Knowledge also requires a mind that functions properly, the way it's supposed to. That binds metaphysics to epistemology. A working mind senses and critically thinks about what's out there as well as what is self-aware within us, whether it is pain, gladness or despair. All of this, whether it is metaphysics or epistemology, hinges on the universal and binding concept of purpose, design and proper function. In other words, the design of everything is the underlying foundation for philosophy. Without design, we can't discuss any of these things.

Now, regarding atheism and its sub schools of skepticism and nominalism: It seems gratuitous to begin with the knowledge claim that there is no God and use that as the foundation to arrive at nominalism or skepticism. Especially the latter. It would seem that atheism is a great big 'hold the phone' in terms of arriving at any conclusions. You can't prove the existence of God beginning with our tiny perspectives. But you can't conclude atheism for the same reason. However, when considering the nature of everything and knowledge, you can't discuss these things outside of design and design requires a Mind that's logically prior. If a chair is designed by a mind to help people sit, a Mind is behind the weak and strong force in our universe, gravity, multi-dimensions with only three spacial plus one temporal being sensed by people with minds that function to understand and comprehend. In other words, there's far more reason to believe in God than their is not to. This is Romans 1 in a nutshell and why Paul stresses design as the single important proof, even regarding morals as things that are 'self evident' so that we are 'without excuse.'

This has turned from a philosophical meandering to an apologetic one. However, if design or function underlies the topics of the nature of things and knowledge, then God or an Intelligent and Moral Mind is logically prior to design and makes it all tie back to God. Without God, you don't have a philosophy or a coherent world view. There's what you espouse and another way you live. With theism, you can live what you espouse without tension. Nominalism and skepticism and even sub-categories of logical positivism or deconstruction only work in a college classroom on a chalk board or a test. But they have no relavence in the real world. Abandoning God is the single most important reason why metaphysics has been abandoned, the prospect of true knowledge claims outside of scientific ones, impossible. And those conclusions are held in tension with living real life outside the classroom.

Another Brick In The Wall

2010-09-27T10:18:00.000-07:00

I've managed to keep friends who've had every reason to never speak to me again and abruptly lost friends without ever knowing why or what happened. And I've managed, to my regret, to keep distance from making too many new ones because of those two realities. For those that edge towards being a bit contemplative by nature, gaining a friend gives enough fuel to last decades and losing a friend is a play ground for self absorption and self destruction. Regardless of our respective natures, in this way, we are all damaged goods. The more disappointment, the more intricate and sophisticated the masks we wear and the sheilds we hide.

My nature is to justify myself. Based on what I know of you, it's yours too. If a cherished friendship is gained, I secretly celebrate the discovery of my self-imposed virtuosity, in all its vanity. If a cherished friendship is lost, it must have been for my own good or someone from which I was being protected. But in truth, below the justification, is the acute despair of rejection and any justification is a way to avoid facing the rejection much as avoiding an endless abyss. Fact is, I'm not all that virtuous and I am also not all that stinky. Neither are you. Fact is, being damaged goods, as our individual realms bump into and out of each other's orbit, its a weird and overwhelming experience of fresh wounds opened and amazing sacrifice...sometimes from the same friend. When that friend exits, especially if they are awesome, it makes it tougher, because you begin to think maybe you aren't awesome or worthy of having awesome friends. In truth, it's probably the case they aren't all that awesome and if you knew why they split, you'd bought them a going away gift. Unfortunately, many times, you may never know.

Rejection is a strong fear. For those that were abandoned by someone that was a part of their closest circle of sufficiency, the scars and wounds are profound and sometimes lead to even death, if not physical then social. Not all may have something this profound, but we all have dealt with it in one way, shape or form. In fact, I think it's so strong that we've learned to cover it up with strategies for relating to each other in ways so natural, we are almost unconscious of them. As a result, we're oblivious to the fear that still motivates us on every level. Some people develop a personality that appears warm up to a point only giving way to a protective barrier that refuses any trespassing. Those are the more obvious means of avoiding the fear of rejection. But they can be far more subtle. Maybe the way you stick your left thumb in your pocket when conversing with someone or perhaps growing a soul patch when you're 43 :-) There are probably hundreds of learned ways of coping with this stuff we just don't think much about anymore. After a while, it gets hard wired.

For a non-believer, rejection and abandonment are more real than anything else. Fear and despair are at the core and joy, happiness are all around the periphery to the point that the core is only ignored if the mind is sufficiently occupied...I think that's way alcohol and antihistamines or People Magazine are so useful. But regardles, you have learned to move and glide your way through them, not because you are strong, but because you are numb. I was there. It's more of a game, sort of like Marathon Man, but involuntary. You figure out how to survive on your wits, avoid the potholes and strike or be stricken. For a believer, rejection and abandonment are very real too, except with the added element of mere imaging the way God thinks of you in the same way the person who rejected you thinks about you. It's not so bad if your friend bashes in your windshield or steals your lawnmower. But if they are really awesome people, their rejection profoundly hurts and makes it much easier to believe God feels the same exact way about your sorry butt.

For the believers who understand this, can I get an "Amen!" and from the non-believers, a simple "Hell yeah!" will do.

Let me focus on those who are believers for a moment. Over the past 3 months, I have had conversations burned in my memory about how we treat each other. I have a pretty good church family and sometimes I forget how it works most other places. Not saying my local church is the New Jerusalem. It's not. But it seems I have been protected from the abject horror of the religious profession, to a large extent. Let me say that although we are a body of believers, redeemed, called from eternity at the pleasure of God's will, for an inheritance, we can be some of the meanest people on earth. You know how spraying deodorizer in a room where the cat pooped and you can't find it smells worse than had you not sprayed anything at all? There's just something about the mingling composite aroma of Floral Sachet and cat crap that increases the gag reflexes more than if it were simply cat crap. In the same way, we can be worse because although we may not be as 'in your face' as pagans, the fact we are under the guise of the redeemed in Christ our neurotic, rotten behavior is almost as abjectly horrifying as Dahmer's testimony.

I think we do that because we believe things about ourselves that simply aren't true. We also don't believe things about ourselves that are as true as death and taxes. Our false idea of ourselves can't deal with the weight of real life and we act wounded animals, rather than children and heirs, when reality weighs heavy on us. So it would seems we'd treat each other better if we were able to abandon the silly religious facade and own who we really are, warts and all, as a first step. The second step would be to realize that God is very fond of us. Now, don't glance over that last sentence too quickly. Fact is, to be honest with ourselves, we think God is always sorely disappointed with us, and keeps His back turned most of the time.

Now I hate empty promises, especially religious ones. Nothing pisses me off more than a Hallmark encouragement that is probably false, and prefer a harsh rebuke that is embarrassingly true over it anyday. I am not giving you an cheap Hallmark card when I tell you that God is fond of you. He is. The fact that His Son willfully took on everything you and I deserved gives those of us who trust in Him a unique place of avoiding His wrath and anger and rejection. If we were honest, we'd have no problem understanding our true nature. Deep down, we all know we are screwed up. Understanding Christ's words in John, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" goes beyond a simple reading. They are true. It also says in Romans 8 that for those in Christ there now no condemnation. None. Instead of messing it up, He’s made it all good, before hand. He may orchestrate friendships to come and permit them to unravel, but His love for you has never wavered a bit. You may feel rejected and those who have rejected you may even be godly people. But to believe God feels the same way about you is to call Him a liar. You can do that, so long as you realize those are your choices…..believe Him or consider Him a liar. Even the people closest to you could profoundly hurt you even more, precisely because they are so close. But the rest and peace of knowing that you are loved, cherished, adopted by God as His own, has to be fed from His word to your mind until it penetrates your wounded heart and spirit. That’s why Paul says to think of the good things He’s done…not the things that suck you are pretending are good, but the really good things. They are there and they are many. What that does, in light of Jesus, reminds us of who we are, where He pulled us from and what He will do for us before its all over. We need to remind ourselves and He will help us if we make an effort to do just that.

Just always remember when friends are plenty, you can’t be the best friend to them until you realize you are loved unconditionally, cherished and forgiven by God Almighty, through faith in His Son Jesus. And when the friends split, their rejection of you has no resemblance to the way God feels about you. If you are not a believer, I wish I had some great wisdom for you, but I don’t. Outside of becoming a weird Jesus-freak like myself, not sure there is much to say without simply cheerleading you in the effort to manage outcomes and other people to best suit your needs. And I can’t do that, because its crap. But I realize for you it may be the only game in town and I don’t want to seem way too nihilistic and respect your position, even though I secretly pray for you to reconsider ;-)

Is There Evidence For God?

2010-03-19T08:15:00.001-07:00

The last note discussed an explanation behind hostility and anger toward evangelical Christianity, being an utter failure for naturalism (the belief the physical world is all there is and there isn't any real knowledge outside of knowledge about the physical world) to provide a successful alternative.

But most naturalists discount theism out right. In particular, the media and the university only consider theism as a privatized matter of an individual or a people-group. But the concept of God isn't treated seriously because, in this view, science has provided a far better explanation for reality than the introduction of a deity. Is that true? I don't believe it is. There are three very basic evidences for God in general and one I bring up for the Christian God, specifically, to offer up. These are not intellectually complicated concepts. They are really very simple. In fact, although the skeptical arguments against God are prevalent from K-12, the university and media, it's not that those arguments are simple at all...just familiar.

The first three evidences are not based on Scripture, but simple reality. God has revealed Himself through Scripture, but the fundamental and ubiquitous evidence for God is not Scripture.

The universe began and something caused it.
First simple idea....anything that begins to exist is caused. If the universe began to exist, it was caused and since it couldn't be naturally caused by anything within it, the only explanation is that the cause was a Will or Mind.

A very basic idea behind the second law of thermodynamics is the idea that energy naturally gets used up, rather than the other way around. You fill up a car with gas and drive it, the gas burns up and the tank becomes empty. It's an established fact that the universe is expanding and using up energy. When the energy is used up in the universe, some things happen. First, the lights go out. Since it takes fuel for stars to burn, once they burn off, they no longer emit light. Second, the heat goes out. Heat requires energy and once energy is gone, there will be an absence of heat. Third, there will be no motion.

But, if the universe is using up its energy, then it must have started using up energy in the past. It couldn't have been using up its energy for an infinite past. If that was the case, it would have already burned up all of it. Go back to the car. If you have a quarter tank of gas, you never question whether or not gas was initially pumped into the tank. It couldn't have been burning up gas for an infinite past or else you'd already be out of gas, rather than have a quarter tank. In the same way, it is obvious that the universe had a beginning. It's not an infinitely old universe. A consensus of cosmologists have even concluded that at some time in the finite past, our universe began.

Something can't begin without a cause. A car just doesn't pop into existence, spontaneously, out of nothing. Since the universe began to exist, it has a cause. That cause can't be a part of the universe or even explained by the laws of the universe, since those very laws began with the universe. God is the only reasonable explanation for that cause. Why? What else could be a proposed efficient cause for time, space and matter? Well, it would probably have to be timeless, spaceless and immaterial. And since it would be prior to natural causes, the only other explanation for a sufficient cause would be a mind or will to cause it to come about.

So, the universe isn't eternal. It had a beginning. That beginning was caused and the only reasonable cause for it is a Mind or Will and that Mind or Will is God.

What's the alternative? Well, there are many. But do they fair better? You tell me. Let's take the beginning of the universe. Some may say the universe and time itself is infinitely old. But how could you ever arrive at the present if time had no beginning? Let me put it to you this way....how could you jump out of a bottomless ditch? You need a beginning point to even get anywhere and without a beginning point, there is no way you could arrive at the present time anymore than you could jump out of that bottomless ditch.

How about a cause for the beginning? Is it easier to believe something that begins to exist was caused or else something begins to exist without any cause at all? With regards to the sort of cause, does it make more sense to embrace some concept that the cause was due to chance or law, over a Mind? Seems as if it was chance, we simply can't even think about it, let alone talk about it anymore...and if it was law, again, how does something produced in the universe become the cause of the universe? The alternatives are far more of a stretch than the simple idea that the universe began to exist, was caused by a Mind or Will.

The origin of complex biological information.
The simple idea is that information can only come from an intelligent mind. Life contains huge volumes of information. All life must have been designed by a Mind.

I have to use Moreland's example from last weekend, since it is better than anything I could dream up off the top of my head. Let's say I have a huge bowl of alphabet soup and toss it into the air. When I do, the ceiling fan (which is on high) flings symbols all over the place sending a series of symbols to land on my desk. The pattern is "&KKH!8216,;@0". That would be a random sort of pattern. It conveys no sort of information. But, let's say I do the same thing 800 times and the 800th time, the letters on my desk form a simple pattern of "MEMEMEMEMEMEME". That would be a pattern, rather than mere randomness. Yet, it would only be a pattern and wouldn't convey any information in it. What if I threw up the soup, hit the ceiling fan and the symbols on my desk had this pattern, "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country."? This would convey information....content.

Stay with me a bit. Think of the movie, Contact. Jodie Foster's character worked for SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence). Satellites launched into deep space would receive sounds and transmit them back to SETI and SETI would look to determine if those sounds contained information. If they did, it would provide evidence of intelligent life in the galaxy, outside of earth. In the movie, Foster's character received a pattern of prime numbers, providing her ample evidence that we were being communicated with, by intelligent life. Had she received a random series of blips or even a simple pattern of blips, it wouldn't cause as much excitement as did receiving a pattern of prime numbers. And if SETI receives a pattern that can be classified as information, it must come from an intelligent mind.

Living things are filled with volumes and volumes of information. Did you know there are between 25,000 and 35,000 genes among 3 billion DNA pairs of the human genome. A DNA pair contains a combination of A, C, T, G and U proteins that pair up to make a chromosome that contain information that give us brown or blue eyes, tallness or shortness, hypoglycemia, etc. A living organism, in general, and human beings, in particular, contain billions of pieces of coded information. What best explains this? Chance or the same definition SETI would use if it received a series of prime numbers from outer space...that it comes from an intelligent Mind?

The most prevalent alternative explanations out there are that given enough time, under the precise natural circumstances, micro-cellular bits and pieces would form simple amino acids, which form more complex proteins and eventually we get DNA strands and libraries of coded information, which lead to life and then people named Charles that think, create, relate, using a mind. The explanation to reduce enormous complexity of information, outside of a Mind, is to attribute it to a long enough time line. Which makes more common sense? Do we redefine information as something that doesn't necessarily come from a mind? If so, if SETI received a series of prime numbers, couldn't you also conclude that it was chance, rather than intelligence? Nothing to get all that excited about. But the reality of it is, we all realize that information assumes a mind. Under a naturalistic view, we would have to introduce the concept of God, THEN discount it, prior to thinking of it as not really associated with intelligence. Like the cause of the universe, a theistic account for all life...that it contains billions of libraries of information that were designed by a Mind, has far more explanatory plausibility than a long enough time line.

Undeniability of Moral Obligations and Absolutes
Objective moral values exist. In order for morals to be objective and universal, they have to transcend humanity or else they aren't objective or universal. Objective moral values reflect the character of a moral Law Giver.

Among the things we know as facts are moral propositions. We know that throwing yourself on a grenade to save your comrades or giving half of your income to the poor are good things. We know that torturing toddlers for pleasure is wrong. Once more, we know these things as certain as we do that the external world exists or that 2+2 = 4.

What are the alternatives? Only theism and cognitivist pure virtue ethical theories provide objectivity to moral obligation. All the others reduce down to subjective moral values. And subjective moral values are far different from objective moral values for a couple of obvious reasons. First, they can only describe behavior rather than prescribe it. Second, there's no over-arching reason to determine morality between two conflicting views, outside of whoever has power is right and whoever doesn't is wrong. Once you get to the top of a ladder, climbing further requires falling. Likewise, if you peel the moral layers back and arrive at things like sociological evolutionary conventions, mere preference, etc., they are the top of the ladder and can go no further. However, everything within us knows that we have to go further in what is undeniably an objective moral view we have. Lastly, we can't live as if there are no objective moral values. Take a radical leftist environmentalist who rejects the concept of God and objective, universal absolute moral values. Then tell them you think it would be fun to throw tons of pool chemicals into the ocean. Would they say, "Hey, that's cool if it works for you." or would they get red faced and want you locked away? You can't live as if moral values aren't objective, absolute, universal.

But if that's true, they have to transcend humanity. You can't have more steps to a ladder, beyond its top step unless you can transcend that ladder. In the same sense, you can't have real rights or wrongs for humanity unless those concepts are grounded in something that transcends humanity. Since moral values convey propositional information that go beyond mere behavior, those moral values must originate in a transcendent moral Law Giver. Outside of that, you fall back down to the ground or get stuck on the top rung.

It's more plausible and persuasive to think the universe had a beginning, that it was caused and the cause was supernatural and intelligent. It's far more plausible than to consider the universe as infinitely old, or had a causeless beginning or that the any cause could only be in accordance with natural laws.

It's more plausible and persuasive to believe the volumes upon volumes of genetic encoding is information, that information can only come from an intelligent Mind and that all life reflects this Mind. It's far more plausible than to believe the information for all life, as complex as it is, is the result of lots of time and coincidental circumstances.

It's more plausible and persuasive to believe there really are real rights and wrongs, moral obligations and many are universally true and that because they are this way, they either had to come from a moral Law Giver or they don't really exist. It's far more plausible than to believe that morals are objective and come from a Law Giver than they come from nowhere, or that they are based on preference or biological convention and are yet still objective and real. And it is impossible to live as if they weren't.

The old fashioned Bertrand Russell argument says that it is rational to not believe in God simply because there is no evidence to support a God's existence. There are three obvious objections to this. How can you conclude it less plausible to believe the evidence above without first believing God's existence is impossible? If it is more plausible than the non-theistic alternatives, wouldn't that mean you might have to question your atheism or agnosticism and at least be open to the possibility of God's existence? Otherwise, there could never be any evidence to convince you, because you approach any evidence rejecting the existence of God outright as your rule to judge the evidence for His existence in the first place. That's putting the cart before the horse.

Second, the non-theistic alternatives require us to force them by devaluing common sense or experience. Let's face it. Which is easier to understand, the concept of imaginary time with reference to space-time curvature concluding in no real singularlity or beginning, or that the universe began and was caused? Which is easier to swallow, that DNA strands are accidental libraries of information that happened given enough time or that they reveal a Mind that designed this information, because information by definition comes from intelligence? Is it easier to believe there are real, actual and universal rights and wrongs that have to come from beyond us, or that they really don't exist outside of our conventions?

Lastly, several may conclude there are evidences against God's existence, like the reality of pain and suffering. But there are problems with using purported evidence against God's existence in this manner. First, it doesn't really provide an explanation to the evidence for His existence. Second, it confuses not being able to explain a difficult reality as conclusive evidence, when all it concludes is that there are difficult things that we just can't explain. Lastly, especially in terms of the reality of pain and suffering, assuming no God doesn't provide any resolution to the problem. In fact, I think it does the opposite....it jerks the rug out from any justification for concluding negative implications for these things. Voltaire's Professor Pangloss was an example of a wrong-headed response, but non-theism fairs no better and doesn't really deal with evidence that does exist that points to God.

As believers, we have no reason to waffle on even the most sophisticated arguments, because any sophisticated argument is based on a very simple concept that either makes sense or doesn't...either flies with what we know, or doesn't. Sometimes we let perceived intellectual superiority or study intimidate us. Once more, unfortunately, many in the church have bought into the false dichotomy between faith and thinking...belief and knowledge, emphasizing the former and discouraging the latter, as if that were even possible. We can stand flat footed, have the confidence Peter talked about and provide very good reasons for the hope we have.

Christian God versus Alternatives
None of these ideas show that Christianity is true. They only show that it is far easier to understand the existence of God as the best explanation to things, than atheism or agnosticism. But can the Gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in the New Testament arguably be the best option among all other religious claims? I think so.

First, you have to pick a religion that believes in the supernatural. The naturalist would argue there can be no supernatural because we never see signs, wonders, miracles or supernatural beings in everyday life. But limiting knowledge to just what can be observed with the five senses will cut the rug out from under all rationality. Empiricism is one way to knowledge, not the only way. Secondly, I would argue that there is evidence for the supernatural in everyday life. We have consciousness and consciousness cannot be reduced to physical processes. Believe me, I have read on this topic at length and the best naturalism can provide in terms of explaining consciousness is that it has to be reducible to physical processes, even if we can't figure out how that would be possible. Really? That's preferable over consciousness not being reducible? And if it can't be reducible, we walk around everyday with evidence of something beyond nature....supernatural. And it is so mundane and regular, that it is more so than any perceived law of physics. The evidence provided above also point to something beyond the natural. Nature can't explain the universe's cause, the origin of life's detailed information or the existence of objective moral values. To accept a religion that rejects the supernatural is naturalism with extra bits to it.

Second, you need a religion that is verifiable, rather than unprovable. Let me use Islam as an example. The entire religion hinges on one man, Mohamed, going into a cave and coming back out with a different story to spread, given to him by an angel. How is that different from Christianity? Well, Jesus Christ is purported to have been born in Bethlehem, became a teacher in His adulthood, was arrested by the Sanhedrin, turned over the Pontius Pilate and executed with two other prisoners. It is also purported that many people, including friends and enemies, witnessed Jesus bodily resurrected from the dead. According to Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, 500 or so were eye witnesses and several were still alive to talk to about it, when he penned that letter. There's lots of strong historical evidence that points to validating the Gospel accounts of Christ's life, death and resurrection. I won't go into them in this note, but the point is, it is open to historical verification, unlike Islam.

Which is easier to take seriously, something where you have to take the word of one man for an event that is unverifiable or take the historical accounts in the New Testament and test them to see if they can be verified or rejected? The unique thing about Christianity is that it is tied to time-space historical events, people, places. It is open to verification. None of the other religions are. The fact that liberal scholarship has spent over 100 years trying to debunk the history and release Christian beliefs from history is, in and of itself, very telling of its uniqueness.

For the non-believer, I ask you to consider some of the simple evidences and also consider my own story and life, when it comes to God's existence. I am not the most moral person in the world, but He changed my life in 1996 and I have never looked back....and I used to be an avid skeptic of the Christian faith and all religion. But don't just consider my own personal testimony. Look at what is obviously very good evidence and don't presuppose skepticism of God's existence before you consider the evidence. That's close minded.

For the believer, you have nothing to fear. Truth need not fear evidence and will always vindicate itself. It isn't about winning or being right. It's about finding the truth and going where the evidence and existential realities lead. We have good reasons to give people for the hope we have. And it doesn't matter if you are knowledgeable in physics, chemistry or philosophy. God has provided us very simple and obvious evidence for His existence outside of Scripture. And if you do engage with a skeptic, don't take the postmodern route of separating faith from knowledge and use it to try to escape dealing with the arguments on their face. Your faith is based on knowledge. Truth is a real state of affairs. Knowledge is a belief about a real state of affairs. Regardless of all the scholarship that tries to undermine that, it's rock solid and even the scholars who teach against this, use it everyday to do it. Don't get intimidated. All of the sophisticated arguments are window dressing of fair simpler ideas that more than likely don't hold any water.

Naturalism: A Big Reason for the Anger & Hostility

2010-03-16T08:17:00.000-07:00

(I am going to attempt to regurgitate the conference material from J.P. Moreland last weekend, to the best of my ability. Of course, it will be in my own words. I may miss a thing or two, but will try to get the main ideas that were presented, across.)

Ecclesiastes 1

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?

A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.

The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.

The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.

All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.

All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.

There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
among those who come after.

I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

What is crooked cannot be made straight,
and what is lacking cannot be counted.

I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.
For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

WHY THE HOSTILITY
There has always been a hostility towards Christianity, particularly evangelical Christianity. In fact, I can recall my own hostility towards it in the not-so-distant past. But, a rather new trend is to consider evangelical Christianity immoral. If you worship Jesus as Lord and Savior and as the only way, you are not only considered ignorant, but also immoral and bigoted. That's relatively new. Lots of anger directed at evangelicals. Why? I mean, I can understand the ignorant claims, since they aren't new. But coupling it with immorality seems really weird....people who worship Jesus as the way, truth and life are immoral people? How has this new hostility come about and why? After all, there are good statistics out there that show that dedicated Christians are more apt to give to charities than their non-believing counterparts. Our work in the third world is unmatched in terms of providing basic needs. Even our ultimate example, Jesus Christ, taught us to be servants to all. So why are we singled out now as essentially immoral?

There are particular arguments raised, but I'd like to try to get behind the noise and see what the real reasons could be. I think the text above nails it better than anything else I have ever read. It isn't exhaustive but does give us some incredible insight into a big reason behind the hostility. And that reason being our current prevalent worldview and the logical implications of what holding that worldview will have on our outlook on life. The worldview is naturalism. I have brought this up in a few previous notes, but will define naturalism once more. It is the prevalent idea that nothing exists except the physical world and the only things you can know are through the scientific descriptions of that world. Things such as morals, religion, politics, philosophy...the entire humanities departments of all universities...are not engaged in real knowledge. The only knowledge attainable is that which can be reduced down to physics and chemistry. There is no supernatural, no God, no spirits. Just the physical world as observed through the five senses.

Now, it can be effectively argued that this worldview isn't defend-able nor a good one to hold, rationally. I am not going to get into that in this note because Solomon decides to take a different approach. He's talking from the standpoint of someone who has lived out all these views to their ultimate conclusion and is speaking as one with experiential knowledge, rather than just theoretical knowledge. And the conclusion is that there seems to be bad side effects on one's outlook on life by logically and fundamentally embracing naturalism as the only reasonable and available view of reality.

King Solomon illustrates that conclusion in chapter 1. First, he proclaims that 'under the sun', all is vanity. The word for vanity, in Hebrew, has two meanings. The first meaning is fleeting....quickly passing. The second is meaninglessness. The literal Hebrew word provides a visual of breathing on a spoon....fogs up and then quickly disappears. Under a view excluding everything except the physical world we see, our lives are, in the scheme of cosmic time, infinitesimal, fleeting and meaningless. What does a man or woman gain from his or her toil? It's implied: nothing.

Going down this text a bit further, we find something that does seem to last....the earth. Winds blow, rivers flow, suns rise and set, long before we are born and long after we die. One reason why environmentalism is a new religion and earth/nature the new goddess has alot to do with what Solomon has said here. Without God and only a view of the physical world as all reality, what lasts? Even though we don't, the earth does. So, our tendency is to diminish our own value and raise the value of the earth/nature.

"FIND A HAPPY PLACE....FIND A HAPPY PLACE....FIND A HAPPY PLACE...."
So, what sort of outlook does this view outlined by Solomon give him? Dissatisfaction and despair. Look at verses eight and nine. All things are full of weariness...eyes are not satisfied...ears are not satisfied. It reminds me of Turkish Delight in Chronicles of Narnia. The kids were given Turkish Delight, but the more they ate, the more they craved and became addicted. Likewise, by looking at reality as only natural, all the things seen, heard, done, result in dissatisfaction and then despair. Everything has been done, said...nothing new. And that causes us anxiety and depression, on a deep level.

Solomon brings up two conclusions: 1) whatever is crooked cannot be made straight. 2) what is lacking cannot be counted.

Consider a couple of quotes from atheistic scientists in this regard:

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference. -- Richard Dawkins

Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth.... Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, [ethics] is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says, `Love thy neighbor as thyself,' they think they are referring above and beyond themselves.... Nevertheless,... such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction,... and any deeper meaning is illusory.... -- Michael Ruse

If there is no straight stick, you can't really even call a crooked stick, 'crooked' and have it mean anything. Under a view that has no room except the physical universe, then there are no real moral values. We can't live as if they don't exist, but under naturalism, there just seems to be no place to put these undeniable things...so we explain them away as either relative or clever biological conventions. In either case, they are really just describing us, rather than making statements about real states of affairs, like 'torturing babies for pleasure is wrong'. We may feel that's an objective, universal, absolute moral value, but with naturalism, there's no room for it.

But that leads to knowledge, which is conclusion 2. You can't count what isn't really there. We can't deny morals, but we have no room to allow their existence under a naturalistic framework, which creates a weird mysticism....living against what we know because of what we don't know or understand. We fill in the gaps and try to make the best of it when the best of it isn't very good because, you can't count what is lacking...you can't explain what is unexplainable if your view of reality is only the physical universe. We know enough to agitate our curiosity and we are ignorant enough to make life miserable.

So, where can we turn, if we insist on holding to naturalism, in light of this conclusion? Solomon first states we could pursue an education to try to give life meaning and purpose. Go to college, get a PhD and fill in the void with lots of scholarship. But Solomon doesn't give us a very hopeful or promising return if we decide to pursue education under a naturalistic point of view. Solomon says it creates sorrow. Not very promising. So, without God and only considering the physical world as all of reality, an education is a waste of time, because all it will conclude with is sorrow and meaninglessness. The more you know, the more depressed you get.

What's next? Pleasure. This is Hollywood. Wealth, notoriety, sex, drugs, rehab, satisfaction with having a name in lights. But Solomon concludes in chapter 2 that this leads to meaninglessness. In fact, the sad part about Hollywood (and even music industry) is that they ultimately realize that their jobs are worthless. That creates an overwhelming sense of guilt and then there's the enormous energy spent on all kinds of charities and causes....trying to make an empty life worthwhile after all. In the end, its all nervous activity, not to make the world a better place, per se, but to quell the anxiety and depression of a life that isn't really making alot of sense, even with all the wealth, notoriety, pleasure, etc.

Solomon goes on to get into money, work, etc., but you get the picture. By only focusing on life 'under the sun', everything is vanity and is a striving after the wind....striving after nothing. That makes people angry, depressed and hostile. Even Christians can get this way, but it isn't systemic and ultimate, like it is by holding to naturalism.

A SOURCE OF CONTENTION
So, then here comes a Christian wanting to talk about Jesus and eternal life, etc. For the naturalist, they don't want to hear it. It's the last thing in the world they want to hear. It invokes anger and hostility because it goes against the basic view of naturalism, which has led to nothing but despair, meaninglessness and that pisses them off. Why else would The Simpsons or Arrested Development portray Christians as pollyannish, insipid and naive people? Because we're generally happy with our view of reality and our faith in Christ, and we didn't have to strive at great lengths like they did...and it pisses them off. This is important to understanding Solomon's conclusion in everyday life. That anger reflects the despair of a bankrupt worldview, the pain and disappointment it causes, in light of someone smiling, happy, content....because, of all things, a God-Man who was born of a virgin, died on a cross, rose again and offers salvation for doing nothing more than admitting to weakness and placing all hope in His hands? They may claim these things violate rational thought, but that's not really the reason behind the anger, to be honest. In fact, giving good reasons doesn't seem to help much. You remember before Jesus how you used to feel about Christians? I know I can and I hope I can paint that picture clear enough.

In fact, the naturalistic worldview these days has a perverted sense of stoic virtue of having tried over and over, with pain and failure, as a proudly worn badge of honor. To come along and talk about Jesus pulling you out of darkness and meaninglessness, all the sudden, violates those stoic sensibilities. But since there is no real charge to stick on those who act consistently with the teaching of Jesus Christ, charges have to be invented. Among some; we are against science, rational thought, freedom and liberty, even a meaningful and moral life, to mention a few. In fact, let me give a few examples.

"When people say to me, 'You hate America,' I don't hate America. I love America. I am just embarrassed that it has been taken over by people like evangelicals, by people who do not believe in science and rationality. It is the 21st century. And I will tell you, my friend. The future does not belong to the evangelicals. The future does not belong to religion." -- Bill Maher

Today factual information is readily available so there is no valid excuse for believing in the myths and deceits so common two thousand years ago. There is no empirical evidence for supernatural beings or places. The evidence that the existence of all human life ends when the body dies is overwhelming.. This is the only life that humans will ever have and for the purveyors of religion to say otherwise is to engage in blatant deceit for their own benefit. -- Kieth Cornish

The only reason its not taken literally today is because science has advanced to a point where no sane human being can claim to believe in it literally without being ashamed of themselves and laughed at publicly by anyone who knows even an elementally level of natural science. Further more if they could get away with it, these same people would ban science, and impose ignorance on the population because it is only in a vacuum of knowledge that religion can exist, multiply, and flourish like a virus, because that is exactly what faith is, the worst case of bioterrorism in human history, a man made virus responsible for the ruining of more lives than any other known to man. -- blogger

Either Solomon was wiser than these guys or these guys are self-misguided. We can expect more hostility, more bullying. Yet, a defensive reaction to such behavior will not work. In fact, they'll smell blood. Confidence...a quiet and obvious confidence in our beliefs is required and provides the best response to this hostility. You can't have that confidence unless you have very good reasons behind your knowledge of God, in general, and Christ, in particular. This isn't 'smart guy' knowledge but more like stripping away alot of the window dressing we're taught most of our life (public schools teach naturalism as a staple) and realizing that outside of Scripture, God has given us enormous evidence of His existence and our responsibility to respond to such evidence. I'll regurgitate three basic (and very obvious) things that not only provide a far more adequate alternative to naturalism, but a confidence in this evidence that will help ease you more if (more like when) you get blindsided by this hostility.

Why Preaching Jesus in a Public School Can't Really Be Considered Improper for Secularists

2010-03-10T11:42:00.001-08:00

If Franklin Graham came to PS 32 in NYC, in the middle of world history course for 8th graders and preached that Jesus died, rose again for their sins, it would be controversial, to say the least. In fact, it would be all over the news as well as blogs and several FB links. The outcry would be on the grounds of 'separation of church and state'. Pressed further, that argument would be an appeal to interpretation of the rules of the road, in this case, as they apply to speech in a publicly funded setting. But the outrage wouldn't be over the breaking of a rule. The outcry would be visceral and from the perspective that preaching Jesus in a public school, aside the prescription against mixing church and state, would be objectively wrong. Some might say that you can't force your opinions on to others, especially religious ones. Others might claim that Jesus being the only way to salvation is bigoted or that even suggesting something is wrong with us would be insulting.

In essence, Graham's preaching to a world history class in a public school would be considered a moral violation, in addition to being perceived just as rule breaking. Not only that, it would be considered normative and objective and universal moral violation. As the argument might go, preaching Jesus to kids in public school would be a real state of affairs that should never be permitted (normative). The same argument more than likely would conclude Graham's speech, or others like him, from preaching to kids in a public school should never be permissible, regardless of other opinions (objective) and that it would apply anywhere, at anytime, to anyone (universal).

Those with the outcry would come from a strict secular perspective where religion and state should not mix. Some might even be avid church goers, so it wouldn't necessarily split down the categories of religious and non-religious. The underlying and fundamental reason backing the secular idea would be that religion in general and Jesus in particular are not knowledge claims but only express cultural idioms and traditions. This isn't in the context of a school's curriculum but more behind the moral objections to bringing this sort of speech into a school to begin with. In this view, science gives knowledge. Mathematics gives knowledge. Any claims Graham has about Jesus are personal, individualized and isn't knowledge, per se. Along side science and mathematics, can there be knowledge claims about religious claims? Is knowledge purely gained from the five senses? Well, that's another topic (but a good one). I bring it up because it is related to this topic. What sort of moral arguments against Graham's speech are out there? Here's a summary of some that are popularly held.

Moral relativism believes that morals are relative to the individual or society and cannot be objective, normative or universal. Anyone who believes that Christianity is 'true for you but not for me' is subscribing to this thinking. There are several types in this category. There are those that just feel its wrong (emotivism), or that it simply expresses the desires of society (prescriptivism or imperativalism). However, if separation of church and state, in general, and someone like Graham preaching Jesus in a public school, in particular, is REALLY wrong, no matter who does it, where they do it, then there is an exception to the moral relativist, in this regard. But if there is this one exception, are there others? If pressed, it would seem that if morals are relative, then even a moral claim about moral relativism would have to also be relative. So, if the moral relativist is right, she's wrong and if she's wrong, she's still wrong, by her own rulebook. So out goes that theory. It certainly can't be used against Graham's alter call in world history class. Under moral relativism, neither Graham or those against him would have a moral argument that would apply to anyone outside of themselves or their group. There's simply no way to adjudicate between either side of that argument under moral relativism. What ends up with moral relativism is a inclination towards simple prescriptivism or imperativalism. In short, that's what you see on The View and other day time talk shows. Overpowering, rather than justification, is the game plan under those settings. If there happen to be more Graham supporters, then Graham wins. If there are more secularists, they win. Nothing more can be added. So much for that.

But then there are those that would not side with moral relativism and say what Graham did is really wrong. These folks would fall into two types: 1) ethical non-naturalists, like crazy evangelical and catholics (tongue in cheek, obviously) and 2) ethical naturalists. Ethical naturalists hold to objective moral values, so they would condemn Graham but it would be based on evolutionary biology. In other words, they would hold it as wrong because most people would hold to that value as a societal convention created for survival purposes. Most in this category are considered utilitarianists or those that believe the rules are based on maximizing outcomes, as outcomes are perceived by a species or society. You could have relativists that are utilitarians but there are also ethical naturalists that are as well. But the grounding feature of the latter folks would be evolutionary biology, more than likely. Graham, in this view, would be wrong because it goes against the tribe's rules and the tribe's rules are there for the survival of the tribe. In this case, the tribe would be America and the tribes rules would be having religion overlap in publicly funded settings.

So, do these views have any merit and how would they fare against Graham's speech? Ethical naturalism devolves, rather than evolves, into subjectivism...meaning, things aren't really right or wrong. The reason why is that they confuse an 'ought' with an 'is'. What does this mean? It means that saying something is really wrong, but then backing it up with it being attributable to biological or societal instinct is only describing behavior, rather than justifying anything or condemning anything. Describing the color of tree bark is entirely different from saying that tree bark should never be brown. Silly analogy, but you get the drift. You can't successfully go from the first description to the second prescription, without it ultimately being relative, subjective or privatized. Notwithstanding the persuasiveness of the argument, the naturalist would say that condemning Graham is how our society has chosen to protect and promulgate itself. But that isn't an argument against Graham's speech. It's just a perceived description of those that are against Graham. First, it could be an entirely different set of tribal rules are more effective at survival than those, in which case one would have to suspend judgment if cogent arguments were raised. Second, even if those were the best rules for survival, it wouldn't tell us anything regarding its rightness or wrongness. It would just be describing animal behavior. So, that's out.

What's left to argue against Graham's alter calls in a public school? Power. In the end, the only framework secularism can devise any moral propositions is through power. Whoever is in charge rules and whoever isn't doesn't. The only reason Graham's speech is detestable is because Graham isn't in charge. Secularism is in charge, so Graham is wrong. However, that also means that if Graham is in charge, then secularist arguments are all wet. In the end, secularist ethics devolve into king of the hill realities. I would contend the only reason why secularism's power struggle hasn't already devolved into bloodshed and tyranny is because of an old, fading Christian consensus. As that continues to fade, as it is today, there will only be the non-theistic cognitive and non-cognitive alternatives to morality and as we have seen, they can't hold any water and are really just power struggles disguised as arguments.

So, what would the Christian possibly argue against the Graham alter call? You might be surprised. Although the Hebrews in the Old Testament were a theocracy, initially (they became a monarchy before the kingdoms split), the New Testament recognizes a secular state, as was the reality in the 1st century as it increasingly has become today, and commands respect for those authorities. Romans 13 is a case in point. You can also go to Jesus' teachings about paying taxes to get the same principle. Why should the believer in Christ observe and respect secular authorities, even if they are anti-Christian? Two reasons are given in Scripture: 1) All human beings are given a moral barometer that reveals the character of God, whether they believe in God or not. This demands respect. 2) Love. Pure and simple, we are to love others and serve others. We are to show Jesus and be the salt and light He proclaimed we should be. The New Testament teaches under a setting of secular rule, not a theocracy, as some would try to incorrectly portray Scripture. So, Franklin Graham would probably not give an alter call in PS 32 world history class, out of obedience to these overarching biblical ethics. Would that mean Graham would simply not talk about Jesus? No. He would simply find a venue that would not create contention and contempt, so that he could show Jesus Christ, rather than another political power struggle. That's the Scriptural and real view of the situation at hand. We should be lovers, not fighters, because Jesus is our example. He didn't raise an army. He didn't protest the consulate. He told the truth, excepted the consequences of doing so, but never disrespected others. Quite the contrary, His entire ministry and His work on the cross is one of a servant.

So, only the evangelical, ironically, would have an argument. You may not agree with it, but the real issue at hand isn't whether you agree or disagree, but whether or not there are good reasons out there. Ironically, secularists' arguments all fail, morally speaking. Folks with an outcry against it may simply be emoting their feelings for or against, in what ultimately is only a power drama, rather than an argument about real right and wrong....or they are confusing a state of affairs with a moral argument and are skirting the issue altogether while claiming to be providing an answer to it. Only the believer's adherence to a moral sense that is inherent in all people, reflecting the character of God, rather than biology, sociology or relativist musings, is the only argument that stands. Again, you may not agree with it and there are arguments that can be taken. I will say that it can be sufficiently defended, but the point in this article is to put the cards on the table, given a specific situation and see how secularism fares. And it is a non-starter, despite itself.

Lost Wages

2010-02-23T13:55:00.000-08:00

$12.4 Trillion is the amount of debt outstanding for the USA. The federal government brings in $2.1 Trillion in tax revenue and spends $3.5 Trillion, year after year.

Gross Domestic Product is around $14.3 Trillion now. So, tax receipts are about 14.7% of GDP. Got it?

Now, in order to balance the budget (remember, can't begin to reduce debt till that happens first), we would need to either raise taxes $1.4 Trillion raising it to 25% of GDP or slash government spending by $1.4 Trillion. Perhaps we split the difference. Just raise taxes $700Billion and slash spending $700Billion.

First, you would probably see GDP go down because it costs more to do business with higher taxes and you will never get the coveted $700Billion. Second, if you slash spending, where would you do it? Defense spending is about $660Billion, Social Security is around $759Billion, pensions are $190Billion....interest on the debt, alone, is $558Billion. Everywhere you look is a goiter the size of Canada.

But assume you were able, somehow, to accomplish it and balance the budget. Ok, now we can start to look at reducing debt. But wait, we just discovered that, in addition to owing $12.4 Trillion in bonds, we apparently have robbed all the payroll tax revenue, year after year, from social security, medicare, medicaid, prescription drug benefits, to the tune of $107 Trillion in "IOU's". Once more, it appears we also forgot to mention that the FHA and GSE losses on mortgages is about $6 Trillion. Total real debt owed is not $12.4 Trillion but more to the tune of $125.4 Trillion. We only make around $14.3 Trillion a year in income. If we taxed 100% of GDP, we would be able to pay off the debt in 8.77 years. Of course, that's insane. It's sort of like asking someone to not eat for 12 years in order to pay off a VISA card.

Maybe we just scratch all future social security, medicare, medicaid and prescription drug benefits for everyone....say "I'm sorry" and start over? Assuming that was palatable, it would mean losing $107 Trillion in payroll taxes from employed, legal workers for a lengthy period of time. If we are willing to part with all that money and forgo all the benefits, then we'd be able to eliminate the $107 Trillion. We could also eliminate the bond debt too...since $7.5 Trillion is owed to other countries, we'd tell them to take a hike. Since $1.5 Trillion is owed to people who invested in bonds through an IRA or mutual fund, they'd have to write off all that money as a loss, since it won't ever be redeemed. The Fed owns the rest, which is sort of like Fantasy Land and so we will leave that alone for now. Could we get away with that? Hardly.

So, what do we do? Maybe we play games with our currency. Get the dollar to tank so that our debt is worth far less tomorrow than it is today, then we could pay it off easier. But in order to do that, we'd cause prices of all goods and services imported to us...cars, toys, picture frames, watches, etc, to go way up in price. Wages would have to go up to in order to keep up, but in the mix, we end up getting back into serious deficits because taxable income would keep going down and although we'd have cheaper debt, we'd have a bigger hole to jump out of due to inflation.

Maybe we elect all Republicans in the fall and then take the White House in 2012. Ok, fine, but we already did that and spending, deficits and debt, along with robbing from social security, medicare, medicaid, etc., still happened, even if on a smaller scale than with Democrats...so, history shows that Republicans won't answer this problem.

Yeah, but maybe there could be a reformation and we could send a new breed of people to DC in order to fix this mess, unlike all the other times before. Well, if the USA had no stomach to finish Iraq, and that was far away, brought to us by 24 news channel reporting, how much of a stomach will the USA have to do what I mentioned above? We expect climate control, water you don't have to boil in order to drink, plenty of staples at the grocery stores, lots of pharmacies, doctor's offices, hospitals with machines that go 'ping' and lots of entertainment.

What we are seeing in Greece, Spain, Portugal, England, Ireland, Ukraine, Japan are all the same stories...governments that have continually spend FAR beyond the means of both tax revenue and borrowing capacity. This whole cycle began about 100 years ago as a means to move onward and upward, improving the lives of citizens around the world, and has ended up with global insolvency.

The fact is...as distasteful as it is....we have no answers to our problems. All the capital has been spent and leveraged, far beyond the remaining capital's value. The way I see it, hitting a 'reset' button is about the only avenue left. But that will rock the world in ways we've probably never read about throughout recorded history. All government bonds, derivatives would just have to get written off. Balance sheets all over the world would tank, barring more squirrely accounting FASB rules. It would catapult governments and economies into chaos and world stability would go away for a while. The 'reset' button's bright side would be betting on something good happening once the dust settles.

What I am getting at is that the world you were born into and grew up in is passing away rather quickly. It still looks the same and seems to keep humming like it always has. But just like ENRON, GM or any other business that is in serious trouble, there comes a time when you are out of cards and run to the authorities to seek protection. The difference here being, the authorities themselves are in need of protection, when none exist.

My guess is when the 'reset' button is pressed, the other side of it will probably require a third Humanist Manifesto, since the first two were dismally Pollyannish, if we're fortunate to be thinking about, let alone, writing any kind of manifesto on the other side of this. "The ways of man seem right to him, but the Lord sees the heart." Everything will be alright. However, it won't be because of economic stability, a new provisional government or another computer revolution.

Although I am a screw up, with plenty of mistakes littered through out my life, I have one thing going for me. I am beloved by Jesus Christ, saved by Him and promised to never be abandoned and also promised to inherit an unmovable Kingdom. That may sound Pollyannish to many of you, and I can understand that. I just would hope you would consider the fact that there's no way anyone could read this note and call me Pollyannish, without impugning their sanity :-) I believe I am a realist, and the Kingdom is as real as you can get. If I look back in time, from the time Christ started His church until now, I see kings and kingdoms come and go, with His Kingdom growing and growing. I have His Word and that history to help me stand on something firm in a world where very little, if anything, is firm these days. He suffered and died so that idiots like me could approach God with confidence and simply be loved into the type of person I was always intended to be. Hard pressed to find another alternative to that, to be honest.

In a world about to get shook like a can of paint, I implore you to get on the Rock and stand firm on His unmovable Kingdom. The only thing required is to accept the way Jesus provided, with empty hands. He's done all the rest. I know, many of you think this is nuts. But I've just about tried and thought about every other way. And as for reputation, I have little to lose and everything to gain. Take that for whatever its worth. If I didn't give a rip, I wouldn't bother.

Living and Dying

2010-02-20T10:42:00.001-08:00

I was studying the word 'sin'. Another one of those religious words that seems to carry with it no more objective meaning than the memories it conjures of those who used it against us or when we used it against others. And, as a result, more of a weapon than a word.

But here's the meaning. The Greek word is hamartia. It comes from the root word meros, where we get merit, meritocracy, meritorious. Meros give the image of a portion, share, division of something good. The 'ha' at the beginning of hamartia is usually used as a negative prefix. Put them together and it implies no portion, share or division. Sort of like missing it...not obtaining it. In fact, many times the word is interpreted as 'missing'. That's why many bible teachers use the phrase 'missing the mark' to define sin. It's a derailment on the way to a purposeful destination.

In Hebrew, the word for sin is chataw and it means the same thing, but carries with it even more connotations. Chataw invokes the idea of leading astray in a way that results in harm.

What is the missing thing? What's the main idea or destination implied in this word? Well, a clue is found in James 1 when sin begins with what can be interpreted as desire or feelings. The Greek word for it is epithumia and means a heart's desire, coveting or lust for something. The feelings work together with our thoughts and choices to bring forth a missed objective. In James, the contrast is between life and death. To allow the pressure of our existence to bear down on us provides an opportunity for our faith to build us up strong and durable through the mess and lead to the crown or wreath of life. On the other hand, allowing the pressure to conjure up feelings to give in and react ultimately lead to death.

So, although we always have heard that sin leads to death, it usually goes in one ear and out the other as another religious phrase. I want to know what it means without allowing those thoughts and preconceived judgments and memories conjure. And I think the actual meaning in the Bible brings out an incredible thing. In fact, it knocks me over every time I think about it.

You think about it for a minute. Take inventory of an average day. Go through all the things that happened, your reactions and the stuff that resulted from it. How much of your day is driven by what happens to you, creating feelings that drive your reaction? Be honest. Someone drinks the last cup of coffee and leaves the pot burning causes you to cuss and spit. Maybe more serious things, like a pink slip or served with divorce papers. If you think about it, human beings are really just held captive to events and our almost unavoidable response creating a chain reaction and even more events, and it works outward like waves caused by a rock thrown in the water. If you were honest, you would have to admit that people are in bondage to what happens to them, what could happen to them or what they wish would happen to them. And our responses always follow accordingly.

Someone tempts you, messes with you, threatens you or your own, it produces feelings that produce reactions. They can either be active or passive, but they are reactions and strategic ones at that. They are intentional and are born out of a deep fear and mistrust about our own survival. We are thrown into existence, live through all these events and then die. We know this from the beginning and carry with us an anxiousness that acts like fuel for a car all our lives. Of course, we don't walk around as fearful, scared creatures. Some do. But most learn to mask it and mask it well, to the point that by the time we are adults, we are unconscious of it anymore. We're layers.

And despite our best efforts to drive appearances and outcomes, we get drug around by our feelings and desires. In fact, they drive our choices, thoughts, bodies and social context. Things we choose are driven by feelings. Our thoughts, whether they are imagination, perception or judgment are driven by them too. Our bodies follow and so do those we choose to hang around or not hang around...who we accept and who we reject. And rejection is so harmful to us at the deepest level, it alone drives most of those feelings and the resulting actions we take. We necessarily become self-absorbed, self-obsessed. Knowing how wrong that it and also realizing we are powerless to overcome it, left to our own resources, we mask these horrible deficits through well-practiced ways of appearances and relating. Yet, with all our ingenious ways to mask it, it is still there and as the pressure of life increases, our management of appearances works less and less until what is really on the inside is visible on the outside. It impacts lives around us, the entire time, including our own, and we end up destroying ourselves through all our efforts to survive and flourish. This is what is meant by sin leading to death.

At the beginning of James, he doesn't state that believers in Christ are immune to this dynamic. It's obvious we are in the middle of the mess too. But the distinguishing thing about us is that even though we are in the mess, we can count on the faith given to us (we don't have faith in God unless God gives it to us, because of everything I described above), to make us stronger, endure more with the end goal of being non-impaired, regardless of what hits us, lacking in nothing. And it leads to real life that we were looking for all along, rather than the counterfeit we get by following our desires like a dog on a chain. Many Christians, me included, can act just like the person giving into desires and the strategies to survive and prosper, just using 'Christianese' to mask it all. But we know what we're doing and it works no better than the unbeliever that does it. We end up getting dinged pretty good. It happens sooner or later, but it happens.

But, at that moment when we lose the client, get the pink slip or simply see the burning coffee pot, we are hit with the impact and at the very depths of us, we can either follow the pattern or fall back on the faith given to us. What does that mean? It means when the crap hits the fan, which it inevitably will, we can handle or manage it our way, or trust God with the circumstance, the strength to deal with it and the wisdom on how to move forward through it. What that does is help us trust Him more than we did before. For anyone who trusts that Jesus is the Son of God, died for all this mess so that we can have a way to God, His Spirit resides with us, all the time, asleep or awake, good times and bad. We have Someone to cooperate with and lean on all the time. And that trust as it plays out in life creates in us an endurance, a maturity, that leads to us resembling Who we worship. We don't need to fake it or even stay conscious of that fact. We just accidentally look like the One Whom we give praise, honor, thanks and glory.

Of course, that's what happens when we place our trust in a comedian, politician or rock star...we start to resemble them too. But there is power in resembling the One who holds everything together, sustains it and is redeeming it, over time. And there ought to be excitement in being able to be a participant in that whole deal. That's life. Real life. It's why we are hear and the point to our existence. As for old ideas of religion, church, preconceived ideas of a stifling imagination of the religious folks we knew or encountered, or the stifling life many have encouraged us to embrace and even pretend to love, forget that all. What He offers is a life far more imaginative, creative, exciting and wonderful than the coolest thing this world system could ever conjure up. He really does. We fall down, mess it up. But, unlike those who decide Jesus Christ doesn't have anything to offer, our mess ups are never cosmically fatal. We can get back up and get on the tight rope again, realizing the Net below is will always be there. This assurance gives us confidence to get back up.

By giving Scripture a second chance and using the resources available to us these days, I encourage you to delve into what Scripture means by these things, rather than relying on talking heads or billboards to interpret them for you. Something incredible can happen. I can remember getting my eyes checked and getting new glasses. It was like I could see for the first time. Stripping away all the layers of paint and getting to the actual source, you will find that Scripture isn't just the best answer for living; but the only answer out there.

Life Begins At 40: Living honsetly without hope

2010-02-15T11:50:00.000-08:00

Life Begins At 40: Living honsetly without hope

Let's Suppose

2010-02-12T07:49:00.000-08:00

Let's suppose that there is a God who is absolute in His holiness and righteousness.

Suppose He freely creates mankind and gives each human being the gift of life.

Suppose He sets His creatures in an ideal environment with the freedom to enjoy the wonders of the entire creation.

Then let's suppose that God imposes one small restriction upon them, and warns them that if they violate that restriction, they will die. Would such a God have the right to impose such a restriction with the penalty of forfeiture of the gift of life if His authority was violated?

Then let's suppose that for no just cause, the ungrateful creatures disobeyed the restriction. Yet suppose that when He discovered their violation, instead of killing them instantly, He redeemed them.

Suppose the descendants of the first violators increase their hostility and disobedience to God to the point that the whole world become enemies of God.

Suppose God still determined to redeem these people, and set aside a distinct nation for Himself, giving them special gifts, so that through them, the entire world would be blessed. Suppose He kept delivering them from all their enemies, yet as soon as they were liberated, they rose up in rebellion to Him.

Suppose, because of His mercy and grace, God sent specially endowed messengers or prophets to plead with His people to return to Him.

Suppose the people killed these divine messengers and mocked their message. Suppose they then began to worship idols of stone and things they had made.

Suppose they then invented religions which were totally opposed to the truth He had made clear to them, and they worshiped creatures rather than the Creator.

Suppose in an ultimate act of redemption, God Himself became incarnate in the person of His Son. Suppose this Son came into the world not to condemn the world, but to redeem it.

Suppose this Son were rejected, slandered, mocked, tortured, and murdered. Yet, suppose that God accepted the murder of His own Son as punishment for the sins of the very persons who murdered Him.

Suppose this God offered forgiveness, and a cleansing from all guilt, victory over death and eternal peace with Himself. Suppose God gave these people as a free gift the promise of a future life that would be without pain, without sickness, without death, and without tears.

Suppose that God said to these people, "There is one thing that I demand. I demand that you honor my one and only Son and that you worship and serve Him alone."

Suppose God did all that, would you be willing to say to Him, "God, that's not fair, you haven't done enough?"

If man has in fact committed cosmic treason against God, what reason could we possibly have that God should provide any way of redemption? In light of the universal rebellion against God, the issue is not why is there only one way, but why is there any way at all?

taken from R.C. Sproul

COUNTRY RUN!

2010-02-07T17:58:00.000-08:00

Anyone remember studying about bank runs? People would lose confidence in the bank's ability to secure our deposits, we'd go withdraw them from the bank....along with everyone else, hence the panic. Our solution? Create a lender of last resort, namely, the Federal Reserve, or in other countries, the Central Bank. At the centralized level, banks would secure deposits with a combination of tax revenue treasury debt. That seemed like a problem resolved for many years. Of course, the system necessarily devalued currency and caused several booms and busts, but we all seemed to acclimate ourselves to these swings.

Now, it appears we've reached the bottom of the central bank bucket...specifically, central banks are stressed on the ability to raise funds for government spending through the sale of government bonds. For Greece, which is insolvent, a bank run has evolved into a country run. Greece, like us, have a problem controlling government spending. Add to that a progressive tax system, like ours, that relies almost entirely on rich Greek citizens, you have the ingredients for a country-run. The rich pull the money out of Greek banks and go somewhere else. Those remaining are left to potentially pick up the slack, causing even more pressure and more potential for flight. Now, the EU has to seriously consider bailing out an entire country. If they do, Greece will be healed for the time being. However, without curtailing the systemic issue of spending and taxation, they will just be back at the EU trough in the near future. Also, we have Spain, Portugal, Iceland and Ireland teetering as well. Spain will probably go next. If the EU bails out Greece, it sets precedence for bailing out other nations and jeopardizes the EURO as a currency and the EU as an entity.

Over here, California is Greece. It's insolvent. They have over $500billion in IOU's with no ability to pay, a progressive tax system relying on rich people, while rich people are leaving, creating a bigger hole and, as we have seen in the brilliance of California governance, higher taxes on the rest, which will never fill the gap. Michigan is right behind California. New York, New Jersey, Oregon are all sliding in the same direction of insolvency. The main problems? Well, aside the real estate crash impacting all of them, including Nevada and Arizona, the states I mention are like the Federal Government in that they are heavily weighted down with welfare spending and ever-growing public sector union payroll and pension costs. In collective bargaining, you have the labor force negotiating for higher compensation across the table with company management, who try to maximize profits. In state and federal government, collective bargaining means automatic pay raises and pensions, even during recessions when the private sector experiences cuts and lay offs.

In essence, the progressive dream from 100 years ago of a heavy centralized government Network Operating Center, managing aspects of human life at the state and federal level, has failed. What we are seeing in the states and in other nations is insolvency, collapse and uncertainty about what fills in the gap. In the short run, central banks and the Fed will simply rely on shooting up the same narcotic....auction off more bonds and raise more cash. However, they also have to balance that with making sure the amount of cash in the banking system encourages lending. Add to that the stress of selling bonds in a world that is already so heavily leveraged, Moody's has even considered downgrading the United States from AAA to AA. As that happens, yields and interest will necessarily rise, causing more stress on the private sector and more gaps in government spending compared to tax receipts. As interest rises due to spiralling interest and government spending/debt, corporations and individuals have less taxable income and the government loses tax receipts. Add to that a central bank (The Fed) that tries to manipulate growth and contraction through soaking up or pumping in money via debt creation and you get our tenuous situation. As debt gets harder and harder to sell, culminating in zero interest rates and quantitative easing, both the government and the fed are running out of tricks as the law of physics bears down more and more.

It's a spiral and barring some reset button, this 100 year experiment is speedily culminating in a global watershed moment. Since progressive power is entrenched in Washington and most state capitals (the Reagan Revolution didn't extinguish progressive government....just slowed the train down about 5 miles per hour), it doesn't look like a return to constitutional republicanism will prevail without adding an element of political upheaval to the mix.

Human government is impossible. Human systems, no matter how ingenious and successful in the short term, fail and end up in the dust of time. Our choice is to bury our head in the sand, fight for change we can't really envision after a century of centralized bureaucratic and monetary exploitation, or trust God. A remnant will trust God. However, the rest will choose either of the first two options. If, for some strange anomaly, many people do trust God, then maybe we can see new life breathed in America. However, that doesn't seem likely. Couple this with a global melt down, it seems as if much more than human short sightedness is doing the shaking these days.

Count on the church surviving it all, contrary to all efforts to marginalize or quell her. In the west, her numbers aren't growing that much. However in parts of the world where preaching Jesus is still illegal and constitutes jail time, it is growing rapidly. You can bank on God and His church hanging around through the long haul. Even though Rome co opted the church in the 4th century, when Roman state fell, the church survived and became a constant reality throughout history. It will be no different through this watershed period. Intricate monetary or governing systems are ingenious creations destined to follow the curve and end up in the trash, along with all the others.

We can spend our life or invest it. You can't invest it in human systems that end up in the land fill. If you could ask Octavius Gaius Caesar, he'd concur, if you could get him to stop cussing and spitting long enough to respond.

The End of An Era - The Beginning of A New Era

2010-01-11T13:24:00.000-08:00

Any society's foundation is only as strong as it's weakest link. That goes for Egypt, Rome, Greece, Caliphates, British and even American world powers.

But today, western culture, specifically America, has a unique situation. It has no foundation. It has long since abandoned its original and really hasn't replaced it with anything except a buffet-style steam table of different cultural ideas, religions, philosophies and ethical systems. As a result, our society is now sort of like a balsam wood stack resting atop a foundation of brittle Styrofoam. We aren't necessarily rudderless....we're guided in directionless, chaotic and spastic movements by thousands of tiny rudders, heading off in different directions...leaving us tugged to and fro from within.

We have merits we fall back on to help encourage us. We abolished slavery, universalized the vote and shattered systemic racism in our society, even though it may still exist in pockets. But those achievements were prior to our aimlessness....a bygone era, based on a foundation we no longer embrace. Within a couple of generations, we have only lived off the capital of these accomplishments and created no more ourselves. We have decided, for example, beginning with the universities and ending with the churches, that Biblical Christianity is intellectually naive and obsolete, to be accredited with horrors. By ignoring the horrors realized today, and those planted and nurtured for a future generation, we are blind guides, leading ourselves and our progeny into trenches and shackles.

Ironically, we replaced this with refuse. Blind guides with willfully deteriorated Swiss-cheese intellects, passionately arguing, with all moral pathos, against objective morality....standing flat footed in absolute resolution against the existence of absolute truth. Our origins have become well crafted mythology, supported with all rigor, believing as fact that bats and sponges share a common ancestor, while denying a human nature. We are troubled with evidence of a beginning, so we begin postulating multi-verses to ease that tension. Our destiny as ambiguous and ever-changing as fashion sense. Our interests have degenerated into voyeurism, living vicariously through the lives of people we never met or never will meet, in order to stimy the pain of boredom and emptiness in our own lives, in which only the only antidote is scandal, profligation, gossip and promiscuity. Any society in our shape would have vanished into dust. Ours has been living off of the capital from the past. But our capital has run dry.

Our wealth, arguably built upon a rich foundational view of reality, used up, recycled and used up again. For the past 100 years, our wealth has been generated through debt creation, our currency devalued completely, as it is backed by nothing more than more currency and that currency representing debt. As I write this, our last recession has resulted in record breaking declines in economic activity. Twenty four months into this recession, sales and jobs continue to decline, which hasn't ever been witnessed before. Rumors abound that the only reason we have a stock market is attributable to the Federal Reserve and US Treasury being the primary buyer of marketable securities, in the absence of demand. Our strength abroad has deteriorated, aspiring new tyrants to test the waters of our resolve. Those more brave are giddy with the ability to disrupt everyday life through the act of terrorism. Less is taught, less is known, generations reveal an indirect correlation of declining desire for knowledge and increasing desire for more entertainment. Of course, the entertainment is a much needed diversion. The less we know, the better off we are, so we think. A well presented speech trumps actual leadership for us, any day.

We are about to head into another election year and although it seems as if incumbents have much to worry about, even a completely different congress in 2011 will be dwarfed by a monolithic and extraordinarily entrenched governmental machine, put in place, gradually, over the past 100 years. Now, democracy is totally eclipsed by bureaucracy. Our economy is no longer based on production, but buying and selling financial paper promises. Our industries artificially managed by federal agencies, with little or no success, comparable to gamers playing interactive Sim-Nation scenarios over XBOX. And our leaders are clueless, dishonest and make decisions purely on the short term gain, despite the long term impact. And we accept that, encourage it, by sending them back or replacing them with the same old, dry, corrupt, pooled reserve of political insiders who have made a killing at being 'servants'.

In essence, the United States of America is terminally comatose. The signs of life that remain are like twitches or raised fingers in a comatose patient. Maybe we'll snap out of it. But, diagnostically, we probably won't.

For those that solely defined themselves as Americans, this is horrible news. In fact, its the end of the world for you. It's still horrible news for me, but it's not the end of the world. In fact, it could be that we are on the verge of a new era, in which opportunities present themselves in ways they never could have before.

For those that don't buy into Biblical Christianity, you're waiting for a brave new world to come rescue us before the dark sets in. In fact, many of us in that category are still in denial that the sun has set, let alone face the coming darkness. Notwithstanding, that new world will come for you and replace this one. Although it will be akin to a high tech serfdom, its perks will scratch the itch. You will not only be satisfied with it, you will probably hold in contempt anyone who would want to replace it or change it. A world currency is in the works, along with a world economy. Countries that have a cost advantage over others will be the producers and the rest will be the consumers, fueled purely by debt...borrowing the new currency controlled and backed by a world bank, loosely held together by several nations. And with the currency, comes hegemony. Our governments will be subservient to this new system, even though it will appear with the same old fashioned constitutional, parliamentary trappings.

It could be that none of this transpires, we encounter a national revival and continue on another 200 years or so. It could happen and I'm open to it. However, it seems like all that has transpired, represented by alot of what has already been described here, appears as if a pattern has formed...one that is set. Several want a return to Constitutional purity, as do I. But even re-establishing Constitutional purity isn't sufficient for a foundation. Constitutional purity must rest on a foundation. Without that, it's like trying to build a second floor without a first floor. That foundation has been utterly rejected by so many, that those that are not hostile towards it, have replaced Biblical Christianity, as a foundation, with Constitutional purity. And that's fatal. Even if I were an atheist, it seems logically conclusive that if God has spoken, there is no foundation sufficient aside what He has revealed. Any other way to look at it would be to treat God as an encouraged Saturday morning cartoon for adults.

For those who have placed confidence in Christ but are saddened by this reality, consider the fact that although we have been blessed to have participated in a civic experiment never before witnessed in world history, we are now, united in Christ, without borders. We belong to the King and our future is secure. As this new system sets in place, quite distinct from any other way of life, we love those in this new system...serve them in the name of Christ even though they want nothing of Him or us. We will be considered weak, easy targets, yet impossible to extinguish, which will fuel the anger and hostility, leading to even more violence and persecution. Instead of lashing back in violence, we accept it, and rejoice that we had the opportunity to share in His sufferings. All this, with, contrary to popular fiction novels, a very technologically advanced and wealthy world system. For His own, it won't be too comfortable. We'll be the football to be kicked around. But our strength is beyond us, and our resolve will baffle and fuel even more contempt. But out of that, more will come out of that system to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, just like we did. Right now, places like China, Africa, Indonesia are on fire with the Gospel of Christ...churches planted and growing in the midst of horrible persecution. Meanwhile, the church in the west is flattening out and declining. The coming hostilities will ironically fuel the flames of our passion for the Gospel and our resolve in reaching as many as we can, being servants, rather than masters, the punching bag, rather than the fist.

It may seem depressing to consider, but only because the familiar is going away. Uncertainty and the prospects of such treatment doesn't bode well and we shudder in considering our children and grandchildren in this reality. But remember, Jesus has conquered the powers of this world, even death itself. He will replace the fears with excitement, upset the odds, supplant concern with encouragement. Take what He's done in your own life and consider it to pale in what He will do. Once more, His Kingdom continues to grow throughout, like yeast in dough....like a conspiracy. Despite the end of this era, I want to assure that the next will end with far more than we ever anticipated in this one. No more heart-ache, war, tears, death or sickness. In the meantime, He still reigns and if you listen for Him carefully, tuning out the noise, you will see Him on the move like never before.

Problem of Being Atheistic & Believing in Evolution

2009-11-20T07:57:00.001-08:00

With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has developed from the mind of lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust the conviction of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

Charles Darwin in a Letter to William Graham Down, July 3, 1881

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/weekinreview/12wade.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss

Take a look at the above article from the New York Times before reading.

SOME TERMS
Atheism is the belief that there is no God. Naturalism is the belief that nothing exists but nature....things that can be reduced to an explanation of physics and chemistry. So, atheistic naturalism is sort of a redundant term, but nonetheless, conveys a belief that there is no God and no supernatural. I think that would be consistent with all the atheists I know and converse with or even read. I also have yet to meet an atheist that rejects scientific naturalism or evolution. So, the two are hand and foot, frick and frack.

Evolution can be defined as modification of species, over time, through decent, with the objective of survival. Evolution's basic interest is trying to get a species in the right place, at the right time, so that genes can be propagated. Anything that aids that process is favored by evolutionary modification through decent. So, evolution favors anything that aids in survival and disfavors anything (or at least is indifferent) to anything that doesn't aid survival. Patricia Churchland (pro evolution philosopher) has stated that evolution works on species using the four F's....fighting, fleeing, feeding and......reproduction. In other words, a species survives as manifested, behaviorally, by those four F's. Behavior conducive to survival is favored over all others.

Lastly, justified true beliefs can be defined as a knowledge claim/belief that represents or corresponds to reality and is justifiable for the person to hold. The idea is that we work towards believing as much true things as we can and rid ourselves of as much false beliefs as we can, in order to hold an accurate view of reality. This can only be done through properly functioning brains...sometimes referred to as noetic or cognitive equipment. If your thinking cap isn't functioning properly, then there is a very low or inscrutable probability that you'll be successful at the project of ridding yourself of false beliefs and gaining knowledge of justified true beliefs. If your noetic equipment is functioning properly and you have justification for the belief, then you have warrant for that belief as it corresponds to reality.

DARWIN'S DOUBT
The quote from Charles Darwin illustrates the problem between evolutionary forces, naturalism and the reliability of our knowledge claims/beliefs.

So, how does atheistic naturalism, evolutionary theory and the reliability of properly functioning thinking caps coalesce or jive with each other? Not very good at all. In fact, holding to atheistic naturalism, evolution and reliable beliefs are incompatible. Either you hold them all and conclude that there is little or no reliability in any of your beliefs, or else consider that you can rely on your cognitive abilities and question atheistic naturalism and evolution.

What's the probability that we can trust anything we believe, given atheistic naturalism and evolution? Restated as a probabilistic equation, what is P(R) = (N&E&C), where R = reliability of beliefs, N = naturalism, E = evolution and C = properly functioning cognitive abilities?

If P(R) > .5, then we have a good or favorable reliance on our beliefs as being true. If P(R) <.5, then our reliance on our beliefs is low or inscrutable. So, how does evolution and naturalism hold, in regards to our beliefs?

Natural Selection Is Interested in Beliefs That Aid Survival, Without Regards to the Truth of Those Beliefs
Consider the article from the New York Times, with regards to evolution, the God Gene and religious beliefs.

Religion has the hallmarks of an evolved behavior, meaning that it exists because it was favored by natural selection. It is universal because it was wired into our neural circuitry before the ancestral human population dispersed from its African homeland.

The article doesn't side with atheism and actually raises the idea that this new theory could be detente between atheists and the religious. But can it? As the article promotes, natural selection is mainly interested in survival and is indifferent to the content or veracity or truth of the belief. In essence, it doesn't matter if it's true. It only matters if it aids survival. So, if that is the case, then natural selection could promote false beliefs because they aid survival. In other words, natural selection has favored a belief that may not be true, because it helps aid in the survival of people groups.

If that is the case, then we are at a point where evolution, specifically, natural selection, is not interested or cares about the truth of a belief or knowledge claim. In essence, evolution cannot provide a basis for any justified true belief, as Darwin himself pointed out in his letter to Mr. Down.

So, given N&E, we are more apt to end up with P(R) <.5....or, given naturalism and evolution, the probablity of our beliefs being accurate are either low or inscrutable. An atheist may agree, with regards to religious beliefs. But the problem is, given the understanding of naturalism and evolution with regards to reliability of beliefs, it applies to ALL BELIEFS, including evolution and the hypothesis of the God Gene.

And here's where, given atheistic naturalism and evolution, we have a bottomless pit we can't jump out of, with regards to reliability on the truth of our knowledge of anything, including naturalism and evolution. In order to resolve this delimna, you would have to either abandon atheistic naturalism, evolution, both or hold to an incredible skepticism with regards to anything anyone could possibly know or believe.

So, can we believe in evolution and be religious? It would fix the problem with P(R) and by accepting a supernatural, including God, there would be a foundation that could provide a reliability in our beliefs that is greater than .5. But, since evolution was an attempt to provide a purely naturalistic explanation for all of life, without reliance on religious or supernatural beliefs, it seems that holding to belief in God along with evolution is sort of like trying to invite Castro and Reagan to live in your house. There's going to be tension and alot of discomfort! Once more, emperically, even though there is a great deal of evidence of change within species, there doesn't seem to be much credible evidence to support change between species....like a common ancestor between bats and, say, sponges.

But what evolution, specifically, and naturalism, in general, provide us is a defeater against the trustworthiness of any belief we have....in anything, including evolution and naturalism. It's called an undefeated defeater, as defined by Alvin Plantinga (as is most of the arguments presented in this note).

So, I think there are no good reasons to hold to either naturalism or evolution without jerking the rug out from under even your beliefs in evolution and naturalism. Given the fact we live in a postmodern world, we probably don't even care about that. We'll believe whatever the big plasma screen tells us, what Bono tells us or what Jon Stewart mocks or defends or what places us in the best possible light, regardless of its veracity. In essence, we're a pretty pathetic, self-absorbed, empty-headed (and hard hearted) culture. But, for those that still attempt to hold objective truth as something useful, then I think this line of thinking is solid and irrefutable.

I'll leave it up to the reader.

OUR MODERN CONFESSION OF FAITH

2009-10-30T06:10:00.000-07:00

We believe in Marx/Freud/Darwin/Nietzsche/Lukacs/Gramsci/
Sanger/Dewey/Bloom/Kinsey/Derrida/Foucault

We believe everything is OK as long as you don't hurt anyone, to the best of your definition of hurt, and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage.

We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy is OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything is getting betterdespite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there's something in horoscopes, UFO's and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher although we think His good morals were bad.
We believe that all religions are basically the same-- at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then it's compulsory heaven for all excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan.

We believe in Masters and Johnson. What's selected is average. What's average is normal. What's normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament. We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed. Americans should beat their guns into tractors and the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good. It's only his behavior that lets him down. This is the fault of society. Society is the fault of conditions. Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him. Reality will adapt accordingly. The universe will readjust. History will alter.

We believe that there is no absolute truth excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth. We believe in rejection of creeds (except this one)

We believe in everything
We believe in nothing
We are dead men walking to the abyss
Follow us and we'll make you dead men, too!

If chance be the Father of all flesh, disaster is his rainbow in the sky
and when you hear:

State of Emergency!

Sniper Kills Ten!

Troops on Rampage!

Whites go Looting!

Bomb Blasts School!

It is but the sound of man worshipping his maker.

(Steve Turner)

Uneasy Tension of Postmodern Mysticism

2009-09-06T12:29:00.000-07:00

This clip comes from the 2001 movie Waking Life which delves into deep philosophical waters about life's big questions. It is a series of interviews with professors, writers, thinkers, then juxtaposed with a dramatic scene that ties into what each interview discusses. Before getting into the meat of this, I want to define a few terms first:

Freedom - A person's decision is the first and sufficient cause for an effect. My decision to lift my arm is caused by my decision to raise it. There may be other events that are a part of that decision, but the decision itself is uncaused, making it free. This is required for morality because morality presupposes freedom. You make a moral decision only if you could have freely chosen to do otherwise.

Determinism - A person's decision is not the first or sufficient cause for an effect. My decision to lift my arm is caused by God or by a chain of natural events, starting in my nervous system and ending with a reaction in my arm lifting. Determinism reduces morality to a mirage. We think we can freely choose otherwise, but if our decisions are determined by other things, we can't choose otherwise, and all morality is illusory.

Compatibilism - The idea that freedom is complimentary with determinism. We are determined, but it isn't contrary to a real choice. This is more of a 'middle ground' effort, but in essence, either we are free or determined.

Are we determined or free? When I lift my arm, is it ultimately because I chose to do it, or because a series of events in my environment and within my nervous system, led to it? If I admit I am free, then what does that do to a scientific view of reality? If I deny freedom, how does that look, lived out consistently?

As David Sosa explains, it's a pretty big deal. On the one hand, freedom is grounded into morality and even our very self. It constitutes a basic, fundamental aspect of who we are and what makes life what it is. But, David also admits something very telling. Prior to the 'age of reason' great thinkers wrestled with the problem of freedom in terms of God. But today, its the same problem, but in terms of science, rather than God. Science explains how our eyes, ears, brains and nervous system work. But it cannot provide an explanation for trust in mental activity or even our ability to freely choose anything. Replace God with science, and the problem doesn't just remain, but becomes even more acute.

David believes we should accept the scientific conclusion of determinism but hang on to freedom. He holds to the existential shibboleth that we are a sum total of all our choices. But, as he correctly concludes, if that is so, then are our choices, really choices? Are we determined by laws of physics or the indeterminacy of quantum theory? He prefers to be a gear in a deterministic world than a chaotic quantum happening. He gives no reasons why, other than the idea of abandoning freedom leads to horrific and absurd conclusions. In other words, David is a mystic. We do not reject freedom, morality and the concept of individual persons, despite all of the evidence to the contrary. Over 250 years of enlightenment and progress of thought and we end up with mysticism.

This isn't just a problem with secular thought. There is also a form of Christian freedom and determinism, with compatibilism as a middle ground alternative. So, this question of freedom and determinism isn't just a problem with religious people or scientific naturalism. Either God or nature swallows up free agency, moral motions, self identity, or we need to see if God or nature are nessecarily contrary to free will.

What's the Real Problem The reason David can't reject freedom is because...you simply can't reject it. It's such an intrinsically important part of existence, to deny it would be to pull the rug out from underneath even rationality. But science, so far, seems to have done nothing but made the concept of freedom more and more like folk lore. We are forced, under scientific naturalism, to either abandon freedom in the name of science, abandon science to hang on to freedom, or else hold both in tension, without any basis for freedom or even know if it exists. All we can say is that we can't deny it, experientially.

Freedom is real. It is a first and sufficient cause for things. But it is not a part of scientific knowledge, nor can it be. I realize there are hopeful people out there waiting on psychoneural studies to explain it all. But as we wait and ferret through the nutty hypotheses offered, the underlying reality, whether we admit it or not, is that freedom is not within the realm of scientific study. In fact, freedom belongs to a series of knowledge claims that are non-scientific and because of that, are unjustified, unproven and unexplained in a society that holds science as the primary or final arbiter of all knowledge. But such knowledge exists, is justified, even though it can't through scientific inquiry.

But even if we get past that issue, we are far from out of the woods. Whether we are Christians within the Reformed or Armenian camps or non-believers in the deterministic or libertarian free agency camps, we cannot resolve the issue between determinism and freedom. You can't criticize Christian thought for not resolving God's will with human responsibility anymore than you can criticize non-religious disciplines for failure of resolving freedom with determinism. We are all, whether Christian or atheist, locked into a reality that has no final answers about this topic, starting from ourselves (using logic, science) or relying solely on Scripture (Scripture affirms both freedom and God's ultimate sovereignty, without resolving them).

So, the real problem is the craving the human mind has for resolution to things, to the point that we refuse....absolutely refuse....to accept the tension and continue with the theories, explanations, etc. What if the answer to this problem is....we don't know and can't know? It almost offends the senses of either humanist or Reformed or Armenian Christian. We must simply get resolution or implode. There is no resolution. And life will continue sufficiently without one. The real problem is that we crave answers that are beyond our grasp.

The Solution Isn't Mysticism Unlike David, I believe in Scripture and am not a mystic. Now, when I say 'mystic', I mean someone who holds to unjustified beliefs. There is a huge difference between someone who believes things they have no right to believe from someone who believes something that can't be completely resolved, with what we know and have to work with. For example, here's the two positions summarized in two different statements:

1) Free will and determinism, although seemingly contradictory, may be resolved with answers that are beyond our grasp.

2) Free will is falsified by determinsism, but I will continue to live as if that wasn't true, despite evidence to the contrary.

My belief in freedom is anchored in the fact I am created with image-bearing qualities that reflect my Creator. I think and choose on a limited human level, reflecting a Mind that ultimately chose to create me and had thought of me long before the universe even came about. God is unembodied personal power (Spirit). I am embodied personal power (spirit). Science will never be able to analyze, prove, reduce or eliminate this spiritual aspect, because it is beyond science, and is grounded in non-scientific knowledge, justified, warranted knowledge, but beyond science.

David, on the other hand, rejects this. So, what does he ground freedom in? Nothing. It's a brute acceptance. Not only that, its a brute acceptance in the face of scientific evidence that, in the absence of Scriptural answers, seems to not really exist at all. He believes contrary to reasons or evidence that suggests otherwise. David is a mystic. In fact, anyone who is not a pure determinist, yet holds to the acceptance of freedom and self, are mystics too. Outside of Scripture, your choices are to be deterministic, leading to a wholesale rejection of morality, personal identity and rationality and holding on to any vestige of those things only under some mystical 'leap of faith'... for practical reasons only, and as a betrayal to scientific knowledge. If we want to live out determinism out to its logical conclusions, we become very scary people. I think after B.F. Skinner, even the secularist folks abandoned behaviorism and re-introduced the mental realm back into curriculum (someone needs to inform Obama and the czars of this....since they are about 30 years behind them in this area). But if we avoid determinism, our only choice is mysticism.

So, we start with Descartes, go through the Age of Enlightenment, scientific revolution, technological advancement, ending up with more mysticism than we started with before rejecting the authority of Scripture in the first place. We were permitted to move forward in a different direction, only to end up in the same place, but with the tires stuck in the mud. It turns out, by rejecting Scripture and beginning with our own raw materials and environment around us, we cannot arrive at any final anwers.

To rehash Francis Schaeffer, we are locked into a reality that, outside of Scripture, simply has no answers. Any suggested are non-answers and are mystical leaps. Why else would there be such a renewed interest in the occult, spirituality, etc.? We know this to be true. You know this to be true too. I would be curious to see what reasons you'd have, if that's not the case.

CHASING THE WIND: MEANINGLESSNESS IN CHOOSING THE SAFETY OF PRISON OVER THE UNCERTAINTY OF LIBERTY

2009-08-30T15:33:00.000-07:00

Ecclesiastes 11:5-6

"As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good."

Let me place this text in context with a few more pertinent portions of Scripture:

Exodus 16:3

"The Israelites said to them (Moses and Aaron), "If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.""

1 Samuel 8:4-5

"So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, 'You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint us a king to lead us such as all the other nations have.'"

2 Thessalonians 3:11-12

"We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat."

Steve Brown, a favorite Bible teacher, once said that only when the pain of prison becomes greater than the fear of freedom, real change starts to happen. This change is necessarily rooted in trust and trust, by definition, is hope in things not seen. That's hard for a society rooted in naturalism to embrace. I would say its harder than any other generation. Let me explain.

When I was about 14 years old, my Dad and Mom drove us to Temple, Oklahoma, where my Mom grew up. I saw the old farm she was raised. I walked around in the barn that contained alot of stuff she hadn't seen since her childhood. It amazed me to see the differences between how she lived at age 14 compared to me. On the way back, Dad drove us through Mill Creek, Oklahoma, where my Dad spent a few years growing up. We drove through a dead town, down a dirt road and ended up in a pasture. In place of the home, there was a concrete foundation, a well house, milk weed, spiders and a few snakes. I saw where they had to cut down trees to build the log cabin, the well they dug for water. Again, I was amazed at how different it was from my own youth.

My parents succeeded in making sure none of their kids had to worry about the things they had to worry about in their own childhood. My family is not alone. I would say that many of you reading this have similar situations and stories about your parents or grandparents, their struggles and their hard work to create a better life for you. They did that because they loved us and wanted the very best for us. The problem with the 'very best' is that life and human nature have a way of miring that lofty goal.

Being an adult, with a family of my own, I realize that I am in their position now. I am to create a good life for my daughter and try to provide for her all the opportunities I can. But the fear of failure and having to deal with the same things prior generations had to deal with can be haunting. I sometimes think of what my parents accomplished and through heavy circumstances and think that there is no way I could possibly have the strength or the brains to do the same thing, if it were called upon me. There is a motivating fear of failure, being the head of a household, that can seep into many areas of our psyche, our opinions, our reasons for doing things and reasons for not doing other things. There is an option, in the midst of this fear: look for someone or something to take responsibility for my family and me. I would relinquish my freedom, but would also find solace in a replacement for parents, or so I would think.

I am not alone, either now or in any time in history. In fact, in my own day, there are those who know no other life than that of being taken care of by the government. Groceries are paid for, transportation is supplied, all paid by Medicaid. Rent is free. Generation after generation grows up in this reality and it is all their reality. Just as my nightmares of having to dig my own water well and log cabin in the middle of nowhere haunt me, their nightmares of having aid cut off haunt them. And it keeps them in the prison. It keeps them fighting for safety of the prison. Then there are those, similar to my background, who have similar fears, but decide the idea of increased government control over aspects of health, transportation, education, communications, all aspects of life, is comforting. It means exchanging this safety for many liberties. But those liberties could result in a failure too much to risk. So, like the Israelites who chided Moses and Aaron, or commanded Samuel to find a king, just like all the surrounding nations had, these folks are looking for exhanging the uncertainty of liberty for the comfort of the Nanny, even in the face of the loss of certain lilberties.

Now, before someone considers this just another political blog, keep in mind, my point to this is not political, even though politics is a part of it.

This is about trust.

Trusting God is a carefully chosen myth for those who are permeated with naturalistic thinking. First of all, such trust is blind and in a contentless object that tends to change forms, definition and purpose, as the circumstances of life change. That is not at all what I am talking about. I am talking about the God who is there, has spoken, revealed Himself in a Son, in time and place. I am talking about the same God that requires our trust in Him to grow in desert wanderings, when game plans have gone out the window, when the enemy has surrounded the city. He requires it because trust is worthless unless it is real and it can't be real unless we can truly direct it towards something beyond our immediate line of vision. Hebrews 11:1 states that faith is hope in things not seen. The Israelites were forced to trust God for nourishment when none was seen. They were forced to trust God as thier King, although pressures from without and within were intense, and they were the only ones that seemed to be different from surrounding nations.

Quite frankly, I believe this is easier for third world nations than for us. We're so steeped in naturalism, that trust in anything beyond our immediate observation seems foolish. That in itself seems extraordinarily foolish, in perspective. But even I have been permeated with the same worldview that allows no trust in anything except what can observevd and controlled, manipulated. In this way, Zimbabwe is more advanced in knowledge and wisdom than we are. As a sidebar, the activity of the Kingdom of God in Zimbabwe is so tangible and widespread, that we would not be able to comprehend it. I believe demonic activity can be more effective and successful in a secularized, naturalistic society, than any other. It hides the ugly, revealing it slowly, as it does so through playing on our distrustful nature...our fears of the uncertain...causing us to embrace immediacy, even though it could mislead us and even destroy us.

The biggest reason Michael Moore trusts government is because it's safe to him. There are other reasons, but that is the biggest. It's also something with cash value that can further the message of him or anyone like him. Everyone understands fear. And since he has no apparent belief in anything larger than government, its sufficient and all other avenues of safety are dangerous, foolish and pure folly. It is much safer than the uncertainty of going it alone in the absence of a well funded Parent, to replace our biological ones. True, there are great evils in our society. There is greed, waste, fraud, abuse, neglect. The insane part of the socialistic ideal is that government, unlike large corporations, inherently doesn't have the problems of large corporations, or at least not to the extent of large corporations. Without getting into another topic, I would say that view is totally irrational and doesn't jive with reality at all. I am not saying large corporations don't engage in bad stuff. But there is nothing more dangerous than a monopoly over what large corporations have engaged in competitvely. People are in both corporations and government. It's a blinding insanity fed off of fear. That sort of thing can make a sane man or woman think things unimaginable, as all fear can do. To suggest Cuba is more efficent and humane than America is an incredible claim. However, when you control the content, editing and promotion, you can just about make anything seem reasonable, especially when you play off of their fears and anger.

Just as the Israelites commanded Samuel for a king, so they can look more like the other nations, we too have apparently called for a king and a country that looks more like all the other countries, out of the same mistrust and fear. Just like the Israelites, instead of sustaining a nation where we are can forge our own lives out of trust in Someone larger than our circumstances, even in the face of possible failure, we embrace another sort of nation that will provide us safety in exchange for it.

You see, failure does a couple of things to us. First, it lingers as a possibility that creates a motivating fear within us that can take our eyes off of God. Second, it causes indignation and jealousy for those that didn't fail, creating a seething anger that tends to eat away more at the person holding it than the ones that sort of wrath is supposed to be poured upon.

Our only answer is a rutheless trust in God who offers redemption for ourselves and our world, despite what is in front of us. You might suggest that your decision is based off of trust...maybe out of principle or righteous indignation. I personally doubt it. On just about either side of the arguments, I can't help but see anger, jealousy and indignation, stemming from fear of failure or realized failure.

What if I was to say that no matter what hand we are dealt right now, everything will truly be alright? What if I then told you I wasn't being hopelessly optimistic about that, but realistic? Well, you'd probably laugh at me or consider me naive.

Maybe I need to hang out with more people from Zimbabwe :-) I don't know.

But it will be. I have a trust in Him that grows deeper, not through meaninglessness of comfort and realized expectations, but in struggle and disappointment. We are just not naturally wired to trust Him. That's the essence of our sinful nature and it should be apparent to everyone who's honest with themselves. But we are. Sometimes, it takes an act of love to place us in a rocky boat on huge swells and wind, to get us to realize where trust is properly placed.

Maybe, despite the aims of Obama and his supporters, that is what God is doing for us now. We tended to replace our trust in God with our trust in America. As Schaeffer stated years ago, we began to wrap up Jesus in an American flag. So, it could be He is shaking America so we can see where our trust should be placed. To be honest, I was really getting sick of the Religious Right's banging trash can lids for all these years anyway. It got to the point where there was no Gospel. It was all about foriegn and domestic policy. So, in that sense, Obama and socialism has been good for us. What's even better about that is instead of a socialistic regime change being in control of everything, it is a mere pawn in God's plan to strip the old paint of mistrust off of His own people. In that case, bring it on! I would love to see revival under those terms....and I think I am seeing it. But, of all things, whether conservative or liberal, He will not accept our trust in anything other than Him. Think about how that trust works in your life, how it has changed and why.

I see it starting in the church. It's an opportunity for us to extend it to a really lost and hurting world. And, I think that healing is going on in countries we consider far less civilized and developed as our own. God has a way of doing just that, to humble the proud and, above all, show Who is God.

CHASING THE WIND: GOOD TIMES & SOME LAUGHS

2009-08-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

side note

I realize my stuff is lengthy so I decided to bust it up into smaller pieces. I also realize that my way of communicating may be strange and a little unorthodox. My apologies. I have tried being non-strange and very orthodox, only to feel whorish. I truly believe that 1) not every way I communicate is efficacious but 2)it's the real me and 3) so long as I am honest, rather than proud about my rough edges, you get me, rather than some imposter. Maybe you prefer the imposter, but there are minions of them that are much better at it than I am. My best advice, if you even bother reading, is to eat the fish and spit out the bones. What I have to say is placed heavily on my heart.

Ecclesiastes 2:1-3

1I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity. 2I said of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” 3I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life

I spent an entire day listening to an old man tell me about D Day, slipping across France and Germany and all the incredible things he saw....and how he internalized it. It seemed as if he was reliving it as he told it to me. It was amazing to hear how a rural French family ended up trying to kill him and his men, resulting in their deaths. I heard how he marched across Germany with worn shoes, his only meals coming from preservatives found in basements of homes owned by evacuated Germans. Amazing. Well, as incredible as those memories for him were for me to hear, I think Solomon has much more to say. And I think for all the flash, technological wizardry and mass efficiency we applaud so much of in our day, they are mainly window dressing and we'd would be fools....complete fools, to ignore the words of Solomon, regardless of where you stand with Jesus Christ.

"DID YOU SEE BILL MAHER RIP SARAH PALIN THE OTHER NIGHT?"

It's helpful to understand the meanings of these two words. Laughter, in this text, means a laughter associated with mocking, scorn and derision....humor at the expense of someone else. Bill Maher immediately comes to mind. His comedy is about 98% derision and mockery of other people. He has a following who enjoy it too. What's absurd about this sort of comedy is that it is funny to Bill and his audience but its like a series of upper-cuts and jabs to the rib cage, for those the material is directed. And it's intentional. It's verbal violence, meant to destroy and take down. I think it comes from frustration in life and the need to direct a lot of anger and frustration out on something or someone.

Many times, getting together with friends could mean this sort of 'good times'. There is a pleasure in verbally tearing apart people you don't care for, people who messed up royally, or just are difficult to get along with. It feels good to get those jabs in. But it doesn't last. It comes from indignance and anger and although it is expressed as laughter, its like kerosene to the indignance and anger, causing it to flare even more. It may feel like a release at the time, but if we're honest, we never really feel all that wonderful for more than a few minutes. We'll try to neurotically remember every word we said or a friend said....how their imitations were just so....all as an effort to do nothing more than to catapult us back in time so we might feel a little of the release we felt at that moment. But it never quite works out that way.

It turns out to be a pointless exercise to help us numb the pain of a pointless existence. But the type of humor or laughter points to something deeper in Solomon's text. Our job, relationships at home, finances, legal issues or whatever bear down on us through the week and we look forward to some good times this weekend. The frustration of life is brought with us to the bar, living room or backyard deck and our natural inclination is to take it out on someone or something else, therapeutically, of course. All as a means of relaxing, recharging the batteries. Since it's all jokes and laughter, what harm is there in it, and it seems to bring a little joy back, even for a moment. "What does pleasure accomplish?" Some of Solomon's friends would probably not understand what he was talking about. They were there too. It seemed like awesome times to them. But Solomon is just being honest. In the scheme of everything, it turns out to be pointless. Monday comes and reality, we find, never really left us. And it seems as if our despair has grown even more, as we face another week of insanity or unpredictable events. So, he turns to getting drunk to embrace all the folly. He just wanted to see if he did everything he could to 'lighten up' would he be able to find any point to it all or anything worthwhile, with the limited amount of air we get to take in before decaying in the ground. All meaningless.

I understand this all too well. My job involves lots of deadlines and pressure since it's connected to my client's cash flow. It's serious when its my cash flow. It's life or death when it's theirs. It's just how I have dealt with it since I began doing what I do over 20 years ago. Don't get me wrong. I do enjoy what I do and am very thankful for it. But many times I feel the need to find some outlet or deflate pressure or find just a little escape. And I realize lots of people have it much worse than I do. We can dress up work and career to make it look and sound very sexy, but in the end, it is toil. Toil in a fallen existence that's been going on for a long time. And we are just a tiny slice in the flow of history. Work is good. Toil is not the same thing as work. Yet seems to always be confused with work because they seem to be seen together so often.

SOMETHING'S MISSING

But this sort of pleasure isn't simply horse laughing jokes about somebody else over a brewsky. When I get together with friends, sometimes I try to reminisce about old times. Sometimes with a little hint of desperation. There is a desperation there to find a happy place in the absence of being able to travel in time to the same 15 minutes, over and over again. But even if I could, there's a necessary reality of diminishing returns. I saw a movie a couple of weeks ago that made me laugh so hard I felt I had a hangover the entire next day. I got to watch it again later on, hardly laughed at all. What a let down. It's like everything has a shelf life. According to Solomon, everything does and is going the same way, back to the dust.

So, if that is the case, what is it that makes us seek these good times out, relive them, make new ones, almost worship them? Jump ahead to chapter 3 verse 10-11:

"I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

In other words, the movie that changed your life, the song or CD that made you weep, the awestruck feeling you got at the Vegas show or the book you read that seemed to give incredible perspective....these things are clues. We consider them nuggets of finality....islands of joy in a sea of toil and worry. But they are only clues, because they never last in intensity for us. Diminishing returns of good things. The ability to recognize them is a clue, in that we have the concept of eternity furnished in our hearts. Sartre said the minute we can get rid of the concept of our eternity, life is meaningless. He's right. But we can't. If we could, we would all be robots. We're not and the fact life is a series of diversions and bittersweet endeavors for happiness testifies to this. The object we recognize....the beauty in a song, painting, date.....the laughter in a movie or book....that feeling or stab of joy as C.S. Lewis would call it, is testimony of the eternity in our hearts and testimony to God who put it there as well as all the things in this world we get to enjoy, even with diminishing returns. We just want that same feeling again and we can't seem to duplicate it. We can experience it again in something completely different. But we can never duplicate it like it was when we first experienced it.

Have you ever stepped out in the back yard late at night, all alone, and just looked at the sky and pondered just about everything? The eternity set in your heart will not allow mechanical duplication of those little nuggets of joy. The reason why, is that you were made for more than little happenings or events. But if you try to turn eternity inside out and try sucking out the marrow of a late night joint, night out at Chochskie's with your buds or get a pirated copy of the movie that changed your life but can't wait for it to come out on cable....it's hollow and unfulfilling because those things were to point to the hunger and the hunger to be properly placed where it can be satisfied, which is God. He's spoken verbally, propositionally and truly, even if not exhaustively in Scripture. Solomon made Elvis seem like Bobby Fisher so he could tell you and me what it all means.....chasing the wind, unless we find ourselves satisfied in the One who placed eternity on our hearts. Lastly, He revealed His incredible love for us through the giving of His only Son. Whatever power, force, unbending legal requirements the Old Testament seems to reveal, the love behind it all was perfectly expressed in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the inflection point between humanity and deity. Both are infused perfectly in Him. Everything I know about God, I know only through Jesus Christ. There is nothing I know about God outside of Jesus Christ. And life has meaning. It's not a nervous series of ingenious ways of trying to relive that stab of joy. No love is greater than the love revealed in His work on the cross and His work in my life.

DOODLE DOODLE DEE, WUBBA WUBBA WUBBA: MEANING IN A WORLD OF DIVERSIONS

2009-08-20T05:48:00.000-07:00

ECCLESIASTES CHAPTER 1 1The words of the Preacher,the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3What does man gain by all the toilat which he toils under the sun?
4A generation goes, and a generation comes,but the earth remains forever.
5The sun rises, and the sun goes down,and hastens to the place where it rises.
6The wind blows to the southand goes around to the north;around and around goes the wind,and on its circuits the wind returns.
7All streams run to the sea,but the sea is not full;to the place where the streams flow,there they flow again.
8All things are full of weariness;a man cannot utter it;the eye is not satisfied with seeing,nor the ear filled with hearing.
9What has been is what will be,and what has been done is what will be done,and there is nothing new under the sun.
10Is there a thing of which it is said,“See, this is new”?It has been alreadyin the ages before us.
11There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembranceof later things yet to beamong those who come after. 12I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
15What is crooked cannot be made straight,and what is lacking cannot be counted. 16I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” 17And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.
18For in much wisdom is much vexation,and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

FIND A HAPPY PLACE

For years, whether I wanted to admit it or not, I was easily entertained and diverted from delving too deep into things (still am to a large extent). I was sort of a pensive kid, but my thoughts weren't all that deep. I have always been one who brooded and thought to myself in the back seat of the car. But most of that was childhood fantasies and imaginary conversations that would never happen. I never probed reality. Why am I here? What's the point of me being here? Stuff like that....stayed away like mosquitos to deet spray. To be honest, I was scared to death what I might discover and decided to occupy my mind and time with daily stuff and when I spent time to myself, indulge in the fantasies and imaginary conversations. Music was always a passion from a very young age. It seemed as if you could find the artist as someone who was in the same situation as yourself, it made the music sound even better than it did before realizing what the lyrics were saying. At least that's how it was with me. No deep songs....just songs about....fantasies and imaginary conversations. As I grew, it was easier to avoid. You pick up all sorts of diversions the older you get. Pretty soon, you don't even realize you're doing that. It all seems natural and normal.

Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. I would say that most people would consider Socrates a tool and unrealistic for having said that. Being successful with diverting attention over the years results in us trivializing these probing questions. There's a smorgasbord of options for diversions....many of them tactical. Television now has over 100 options and with digital, you can multiscreen different programs. Cool. Broadband below 4 meg is considered slow today. We tend to pay attention to flesh tones on commercials and computers, almost unconsciously. But those are 'creature comforts'. Then there are the diversions that aren't provacotive or controversial, like work, family. These are wonderful things, but to be honest, they are too easily big diversions too. And we milk it until the children fly the coop, the spouse leaves, dies or the job turns into either an empty success or a horrifying failure.... or extreme boredom.

Somehow, lack of sleep at 3am is the worst time to avoid those questions. So, turn on the television and see what's on. Probably Big Brother After Dark or International House Hunters. Cool...at least for a little while...when will sleep come!

If anyone of you have no idea what I'm talking about, then you'd probably lie about other things as well. This seems to be a common human experience. In fact, a subtle and creeping disatisfaction with life, regardless of successes or failures, permeates our thoughts when things get quiet and points to a deeper issue. I think its meaning....you know...why am I here...what's the point...etc....the trival crap Socrates referred to :-)

In fact, I'd say that the root to drug and alcohol addictions, depression, anxiety disorders, phobias, broken marriages, dishonest business dealings, pretty much all sin, are either rooted in this or fed by it. We get too close to it and we desparately want to find a happy place, artificially induced or otherwise. Some of us are fortunate enough to supress it rather easily. With others, it takes more work and some help. I fall into the first category....doesn't take much to divert my attention.

The writer of this chapter was touted as being the smartest man in the world. If you read Scripture, he was also the most experienced. He had over 700 wives and 300 concubines. He started off an orthodox advocate of Mosaic law, handed down to him from David, his dad. But as the wives and concubines came in, as his successes expanded, so did many other religions and idealogies. He delved into them all. I would contend there is no contemporary comparison to Solomon...not even Elvis or the Beatles. Solomon probably represents the single most successful and intelligent person of all time. By the time he wrote this passage, he'd gotten to the end of it all....success, women, religion, wealth, power...and he concluded it was all vanity....all meaningless.

Here's the main idea:

There is nothing new under the sun.

Everything under the sun, absent some transcendent meaning beyond it, is completely pointless, regardless of how important we think it is.

You can choose to divert attention away from this reality, and most do. But it is an excersize in self-delusion.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, I PRESENT TO YOU...BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH, BLAAAAAHHHH

The Hebrew word used in this text for vanity literally means empty, transitory, unsatisfactory. The word gives images of an unquenchable thirst, hunger or an itch that just can't be properly scratched. He says that

all

is vanity....rather than some or most or a little bit or just the taboo things. All under the sun, which is everything we call life, is meaningless, empty, vaccuous, unsatisfactory and simply doesn't scratch the itch. Most would probably consider it dark and overly pessimistic. It's one thing if he's exagerating the situation, needlessly or has an axe to grind. But its an entirely different situation if its true, but we don't like the sound of it and reject it for no good reason other than we don't like the ring of it or the feelings it conjurs. He makes his case in several steps, going through work, then diversions, wisdom then success. Though these things seem to draw attention away, they ultimately never fulfill. His arguments for these things are encompassed in the opening statement, his main thesis, from one who definitely knows and is in a position to know.

Verses two through seven make me think of workaholics, like myself, and environmentalists. No matter what we do, the earth swallows us whole, and our work, in total. Generations come and go. Octavius Gaius Caesar would eventually become Augustus Caesar, rule the world, die and end up as a nameless statue in front of a large casino/resort in Las Vegas, amid taxis, drunk tourists and hookers. Sort of anticlimactic, especially for someone who, comparitavely, was one of the most significant people in history. Solomon understood this reality nearly 1,000 years before Octavius was born. Hard work, successful or not, doesn't last and ultimately gets blown away by the wind. The rest of these verses bring up an important point about environmentalism. It isn't about the environment. Never was. Environmentalists aren't protecting the environment. They are protecting themselves. It's about us and our neurotic fear of not having control over nature. Solomon is saying no matter what we do, the earth will swallow us up and leave no trace. The environment is durable and adaptable. We're not so much, and as George Carlin once said, earth will shake us off like a bad case of fleas, if carbon footprints turn out to be a problem after all. All is vanity.

The next three verses deal with the absurdity and meaninglessness of diversions, either important ones or insignificant. Both eye sees and ear hears, with almost an unnoticed axiety, yet none of it satisfies us. Again, this is in context to everything under the sun. No matter what exists in earth, no matter how much pleasure, immediate gratification, it never satisfies. In fact, the text seems to indicate that it leads to a larger need for satisfaction, stoking the coals, rather than quenching the fire. The Hebrew word for 'satisfy' in these verses reflect a lack of fulfillment, unquenched thirst, to the point of weariness or despair. You get the idea that disappointment is recycled a million times over and still hardly anyone finally embraces it. All things are full of weariness, a man cannot utter it. There's no way to even explain this despair in order to capture its power and intensity. It's simply too much to grasp without getting drunk.

Verses 9 and 10 talk about ingenuity that turns out to be a rehash of a rehash of a rehash. We get great ideas about anything and pat ourselves on the back for being original and innovative. That is, until we figure out our discovery is more of a recovery of older ideas, just tweeked a little. Did you realize the ideas of Jehovah's Witnesses is rehashed Arianism from the 4th century? Christian Science is really modernized gnosticism. Postmodernism is the old classical skepticism. All the atheistic arguments aren't really new. They've been around the block many times before. Remember when Jesus told Pilate those on the side of truth listen to him? Pilate's response was "What is truth, anyway?" Sounds almost like a line out of a Cohen Brothers movie. Nothing is new under the sun. According to Solomon, nothing is new. Things and ideas come and go. If anyone thinks something is innovative, someone has already said it or done it many times over. The idea of progress....onward and upward, in the macro view, according to Solomon, is more of a flat, sideways motion, if it can even be called motion.

He ends this chapter by saying he prayed for wisdom, got it, considered it a huge burden to deal with and concludes, once again, everything under the sun is totally meaningless. Nothing is new. It would seem Solomon is building a recipe for suicide or simply checking out. The arguments he outlays in the following chapters are compelling and without an answer, one would have to admit that suicide or checking out is just a viable an option as pushing the red button, building skyscrapers, conquering nations or sitting on the couch and eating Cheetos. In the macro view, it doesn't matter.

Some say knowledge is power, saves or enlightens. According to the smartest man, knowledge, outside of life in Christ, leads to sorrow.

It doesn't end that way with Solomon. It didn't end that way with me. It doesn't have to end that way for you either. When Solomon states 'everything under the sun' he means a life lived without recognition of anything except what is under the sun. Without a transcendent point to all we observe, all we observe is completely pointless. Sartre stated once that any finite point without an infinite reference point is absurd. If there is nothing transcendent to anchor meaning in this life, it is absurd. But Sartre was wrong and Solomon wasn't ending his teaching with despair. He was only trying to point us to the real meaning to everything under the sun...which is beyond it.

MY AWAKENING....TO UNBEARABLE DESPAIR, JUST IN TIME TO BE SAVED

My own wake up from diversions and self-delusion was when my son died. Part of it was from fatigue, but aside that, once you experience a child's death, particularly if that is your only one at the time, you all the sudden begin to wake up and realize it is all pointless. How could it be anything but? It seemed only that event was powerful enough to wake me up to the folly of everything I did. Everything I did, from work, to relationships to combing my hair, picking out clothes or mowing the lawn, my carefully chosen mannerisms, etc...all meaningless...and humiliatingly pointless. Why did I do it? Was it just to impress others and gain acceptance? If so, from whom? Was I catering acceptance from others doing the very same humiliating rituals? Life was a three ring circius. Pass or fail, it all ends and is forgotten. Everything I thought was of vital importance was destined to die and decay into dust. Now, if someone would have introduced me to a life coach, I have no idea what I would have done. The idea of someone trying to manipulate me away from this reality to a sort of "My Little Poney" view of reality, for adults, was nausiating and almost made me violent at the thought. "Kill the life coach now! Use any blunt instrument!" I had gone from being a relatively docile guy, easily diverted and on the treadmill to who the hell knows where, to someone that wanted out, or a real alternative. But no more humiliating dances. Status quo for 29 years had to end or be properly explained. No third rail.

Jesus showed up and I was changed instantly. It's a good thing too. I am sure I would be divorced, sired several orphans, picked up a nasty addiction to something destructive or maybe even considered suicide, if it was painless. I didn't like pain. I still don't care much for it. But a meaningless existence was painful too. It (suicide) could have been an option. I truly believe that my state then was the closest I had ever been to reality, absent Jesus Christ. I wasn't left there. Jesus said seek and you will find. I felt like at that moment, I honestly sought, probably for the very first time in my entire life. Jesus invaded these thoughts, showed me not only His sacrifice for me through my son, but also that He was that small voice I recognized but couldn't identify, till then. It was Him all along. He was meaning because, as Scripture states, all things were made by Him, through Him and for Him. A life with meaning outside of Him is a life without meaning. Anything touted as a substitute is counterfeit and an excersize in futility.

Look, haven't you ever recognized, even for a split second, what Solomon is saying? Surely there have been those moments....probably not so much in the midst of a lot of suffering, but more than likely just after purchasing a new automobile, house, promotion, special recognition....success, achievement....those are the times, I believe, where the emptiness seems more acute. Ravi Zacharias had stated it best that despair is at its worst when you achieve that, which you thought would deliver the ultimate, and it let you down. I heard the testimony of a basketball player. He worked like a Turk to be the best. At last, after the hard work, he ended up scoring a 52 point game. It was a record. In the locker room, after the team cleared out and the celebration ended, he began to realize that nothing had really changed, even after scoring 52 points. He was right.

But Jesus is the purpose for the cosmos, humanity and history in general. It's all here and continues to exist because of Him. He's the point to it all. And He came just for those who choose to place there confidence for living in Him alone, by grace, through faith. With regards to reality outside of Christ, this is why I can understand the nihilists and the more destructive ideas than I can liberal Christianity or emergent Christianity or even peitistic or pharisiaical Christianity. I have more respect for George Carlin or Marilyn Manson than I ever will Jeremiah Wright, Brian McLaren or Bono. Its because George and Marilyn are closer to the truth than the others, outside of Biblical Christianity. The others are on some weird, self-deluded trip or loud, violent activism toward louder and more violent meaninglessness. It's all, bottom line, a giant wank-a-thon. All is vanity, outside of Christ.

"I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD"

Here's the good news about Jesus. If He is the way, truth and the life. If all things are really made by, through and for Him, then even the death of my son is meaningful and, although painful and horrible, ultimately leads to something greater than the pain and horror itself. All things work for good of those that love God and are called according to His purpose. All things, rather than a few, some or many. And if it all made sense, then God is about as smart as I am, which isn't very smart and doesn't have that big a perspective. God, by definition should be more grandious, mysterious than a human personality. According to God's own words, through the prophet Isaiah, His thoughts are not ours, nor His ways ours. That's actually a good thing.
But since even good things are mysterious, they too are leading somewhere, rather than an empty feeling, even if I can't comprehend it yet. Also, no one suffered like Jesus. It's impossible to give a good representation of something earthly to compare His sacrifice. But maybe, if you are a parent, consider giving your child for someone else, watching them get brutalized, hear them call out for you to help, yet you have to turn your back, regardless of how shredded your insides feel and near insanity your mind approaches. What kind of concern would you have to have in order to allow such a thing to happen? Who is important enough to have your own child sacrificed in order for them to be reconciled to you somehow? It is inconcievable, to the point of it offending our senses, to think of a love so big, deep and powerful enough. Even if you had the power to completely heal your child from whatever brutality they suffered, could you still do it?

What kind of love is this?

You have the rest of your natural life to try grasping this mystery....or else keep dancing those humiliating dances and trying to keep enough diversions in your life to avoid dealing with the void that is always there and will not go away. In fact, I think all our advances in technology, entertainment and science itself has resulted from our desparate attempt to escape that void. God's only Son, the One He had to watch being brutilized, His call for help, yet turned His back on Him for the sole reason of providing a way for us to seek His face without condemnation. Through His Son's resurrection, to conquer death and become heir to all that is His, which is everything. A universe this vast is one that is for us to fill with the work of our hands and minds, all as a form of worship for the One who rescued idiots like me from a bitter end. If He can do that for me, He can certainly do it for you. It doesn't matter what you have or haven't done. It has been completely paid for. Do you want to merely exist or live? Sure, there will be pain, disappointment and some despair. But it will not be at your core. It will only be at the periphery. But it will all be unfused with rich meaning and purpose, whether comprehended or infused with the hope of comprehension at a later time. It requires nothing from you but your confidence and trust in Him....with empty hands. It's so easy.

By placing Him first, relationships have meaning and you can love them best. Outside of that, there is no anchor and relationships become 'it', dissapate eventually, and you are left with a big gaping hole to fill with something else.

By placing Him first, everything from work, social context, church...even down to the mundane things, like light bulbs, all seem to have a place that makes sense, regardless of the place we'd think they'd belong without placing Him first.

It can go hard or easy for us all. It went hard for Him, so that it doesn't have to be that way for us. His work is complete. Mere existence can turn into life and life eternal, now and hereafter. I will close with quotes from unbelievers who, I think, nailed the conclusion Solomon did years ago, then end with Jesus:

“… meaningless tragedies ... are exactly what we should expect, along with equally meaningless good fortune. Such a universe would be neither evil nor good in intention. It would manifest no intentions of any kind. In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” (emphasis added)- Richard Dawkins

“Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.”

"Hell is other people."

"People who live in society have learned to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends. Is that why my flesh is naked? You might say - yes you might say, nature without humanity… Things are bad! Things are very bad: I have it, the filth, the Nausea"

All three, above, by Jean Paul Sartre

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” - Jesus Christ

Another testimony of Jesus Christ - Priscilla Nicoara

2009-08-06T09:21:00.000-07:00

Climbing Jacob's Ladder

2009-08-03T04:43:00.000-07:00

Some of you who are friends on FB haven't seen or spoken with me in many years. I used to be a big skeptic of Christianity and some of you can remember this. And I suppose it begs the question as to what happened to make the big reversal. Well, alot of it has to do with Jamie. Instead of a guy with a southern drawl, Gidieons Bible and chick tracks in hand, it was Jamie who gave a testimony to me, without ever uttering a single word.

The handsome little man to the left is our son and Meredith's older brother, James Arthur Curtis. He was born January 14, 1996 and died October 25, 1996. He was born 16 1/2 weeks early because of pre-ecclampsia (sometimes referred to as toxemia). He was our first child.
The reason I put his picture on a note that is about him, is because he was part of a story that, although still makes little sense to me, transformed me. He was the one who showed me Jesus Christ. This is very hard for me to write and I have tried it dozens of times because it wasn't right, or I just wasn't sure. But it has nagged at me and I have tried my best at it in this note. Please accept my apologies if I offend anyone. It is the last thing I want to do.

I had been vocally skeptical of Christianity since I was about 13 years old. I went forward in a youth event and was baptized in the local Baptist church at 12 years old. But I had no idea what it was all about and questioned it for the first time, after the baptism. Between that point and October 1996, I became steadily more critical and hostile to Christianity in almost all forms, particularly evangelical Christianity. I would argue with cousins, friends from school, whoever wanted to spar with me, I was glad to let them know ‘how things were’. I remember at my first marriage counseling appointment, I showed up a bit inebriated, ready to teach the preacher a thing or two about how things were. What a patient man he was. In fact, I found some old photos taken about 23 years ago at a friend’s house. We stayed up late to do a spoof on the southern Baptist youth summer camp in Oklahoma, called Rock Creek. Even now, I smiled at a few of those pictures. But, suffice to say, there’s plenty of evidence and witnesses to my hostility to Christianity. Some of you are friends on Facebook.

Stephanie, my wife, had been a believer for some time….a true believer, when we met. I say that because she was from the south and in the south, everybody says they are believers and go to church, whether they are or aren’t. As someone once said, down south, it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. She was an authentic believer because of how she put up with me. She never made it an issue, but never gave up when it came to finding a local church or blunting some of my more caustic remarks about Christianity. I saw it as a wife trying to smooth out the rough edges of a man used to being a bachelor. It was much more than that.
We had Jamie January 14, 1996. We had no idea how sick Stephanie was. But she was near death, as was Jamie, before having to perform a C section to get him out of the womb, because PICU became a safer place than her body, as the womb became every increasingly harmful due to the disease Stephanie had. He was born a little over 1 pound. I held him in my hand in PICU as the doctor told me he had a 7% chance of surviving the night. He survived the night and many more after that. Most of it was in PICU. However, we were able to take him home with us once he got to 5 pounds and room air. That still meant going home on oxygen, alarms and heavy meds, but going home nonetheless. We were scared but excited to have our son with us in the one bedroom efficiency my parents help furnish for us, after the wedding.

But he would take turns for the worse and we’d have to take him to the doctor or the emergency room, even though getting him out and about was probably more risky than whatever was wrong with him. However, we followed doctor’s orders and got him where he needed to be for help.

For anyone that knows about BPD, you know that without hope for the lungs, the heart follows. It turned out his heart was over-working, swelled and began to fail him. By September, we were back in PICU, for who know how many times. But now, the doctors were saying that there was no more hope. His heart was failing. We talked about a transplant. His chances, they said, were better as he was, than to undergo a surgery of that magnitude with his conditions. Despite the dire diagnosis, they let us take him back home with home health, after he stabilized.

It was late October, and early in the morning the night nurse watching Jamie came into our bedroom and woke us up. Jamie’s heart stopped. My wife immediately jumped out of bed, went into his room and began CPR. She got his heart beating. We had called the ambulance and we ended up in the emergency room at University Hospital. His primary physician was called and spoke to me on the phone, after she was briefed from Jamie’s admittance. She did more listening than talking. I was frantic and can’t remember what I told her, but the gist of it was, ‘please help him.’ Her silence told me there was nothing anyone could do. After ten months, I began to realize he was at the end of his struggle to live. He was an infant, but the toughest person I ever met.

That night, Jamie was moved to PICU and watched constantly. We had already been briefed by the doctor on call and we had signed a DNR. After exploring all the options, it seemed his options were slim and we were all waiting for the inevitable. It came early the next morning. I had fallen asleep in the consolation room of PICU. Someone, I can’t remember who, came in and woke me up. “It’s time Charlie.” My heart pounded as I walked up to his room. There, crawled up on his bed, holding him tight in her arms, was Stephanie. She was singing to him. I came to them and held him and her close. I felt his body turn cold and his color leave. At this point, the pain was so overwhelming that I wanted death. I wanted to trade places, if he could live. My head turned upward and I remember using every bit of life I had in me to scream “WHY? GOD, WHY?” Everything seemed to be a blur except what was right in front of me and what was going on inside of me.

At that moment, everything I had ever done in my life seemed like shit and a complete waste of time. And I think that is the word Paul would use, if he were me. All the grades I tried to maintain; all the relationships and perceptions I tried to promote or control; all the circumstances I tried to master; all of the stupid personas of myself I desperately tried everyone to believe was really me. All the arguments I held and defended. All the times I tried so hard to impress others and win their approval, from the mannerisms, to the mundane things, like hair and clothes. Every bit of energy I put into life was a vain attempt at greater humiliation than had I not put any energy in life at all. It was a giant pile of steamy shit and it mattered about as much. My son had suffered incredible pain, only to die in our arms. What a completely bizarre and meaningless thing to live. You are caste forth into existence only to do a few totally humiliating dances in front of others and nature, then get a stroke or cancer, shit your underwear and decompose. All that energy….that desperation, from as early as I could remember till then…total waste of time. As I held him in my arms, I wanted no part of it anymore. I was ashamed to have taken part in it before. I wanted someone to shoot me. It was too much. I took a breath, looked at my wife, who seemed to be in her own hell too. I saw my parents and her parents, all helpless, broken and in tears. We were in our own hell, alone in it and untouchable in it, even though we were physically together.

A voice bellowed from deep from the recesses of all these thoughts, like oil bubbling out of the ground, spontaneously. “I know this hurts. I understand this pain far more than you will ever know. Look at Jamie. He’s your only son and you have had to watch him suffer and die a horrible death. You would give anything for him to be healthy and safe. I had to watch My Son die too. In fact, I had to turn my back on Him. There’s a pain you will never have to know because I know it and went through it. I did it for you, because I love you. My Son lives for you. And I have Jamie now. He’s safe with me. But you aren’t until you run to Me. Stop fighting me Charles. I love you so desperately.” I am paraphrasing. In fact, I have tried writing this over and over and even now, it doesn’t do service to what I heard. I don’t care to take care of all the theological nuances to make sure it is in line with the ancients. I know what I heard. I heard the Father and He showed me His Son in a way I never comprehended. I wouldn’t comprehend it. All of the sudden, this sort of love was bottomless….too deep for me to fathom.

It was far bigger than anything I could relate to with other people, even my own wife and parents. It was love, rather than a big example.

We stopped to eat breakfast at Marie Calendars at day break. The nurses, before we left, asked me if we wanted to donate his body parts and I told them he’d been through enough and to leave him alone. I am not sure at what point I did tell everyone. I do know it was gradual and awkward. I began with my wife, who had gone the other way for a while. She had tried to do all the right things and then He allowed this to happen. It wasn’t until 2004 that He showed up and healed a lot of that pain. I’ve been chided by my own family along the way. My parents are thrilled. My parents probably thought I was always saved. They tend to think far too much of me, as their son, than I really was and am. But that’s ok. My brother was indignant for a while. I remember him yelling at me in my office about the audacity of me considering he didn’t know God. And I understand that. It does sound arrogant on the surface. Plus the fact I haven’t been that great at communicating sensitive things in the first place. If I could go back, I would tell him that I don’t know why I knew God…in fact, He should have nabbed him before me. My sister is sort of the same. Family is hard. I think Jesus even said something about family and hometown being hard. I can understand that. Sometimes I think they are afraid to say too much, because they think this is my way to cope with the death of a child. Not sure and am speculating. I just know they are not on the same page with me. I just hope and pray that we only are on different sides of the parts where I am completely wrong. I can live with that. Sometimes the whole point can get buried in the details and mini disagreements and personality clashes. In any case, it seems that whether it is the circumstances surrounding my salvation or even how that related to my family and job, there was no explanation for it other than it being true. And it is.

He was with us through the rest of the hell. He walked with me through the maze of little caskets we had to pick out for Jamie. He was with us through the funeral.....when we fell apart and disappeared for a while...when we came back and tried to get back into life. He has never left. I still remember my cousins singing Jacob's Ladder at the funeral. It was the song Stephanie sang to Jamie more than most others. It will always have a special place in my heart. He was there, through it all. I just couldn't see it at the time.

How do you tell someone about this? Most folks get saved out from under drug addiction, sexual addiction, prison…whatever…..was lost then found. They were miserable, then they found Him and had something to shout about. It wasn’t that way with me. I loved Him and would follow Him. But He took my son. He could have gotten my attention any way He wanted and He chose this. I was loved Him and was incredibly angry with Him, at the same time. I was saved when my son died. How can you consider that a good, old fashioned ‘testimony’? To this day, my story of finding Jesus has been a stammered series of ADD moments all cut and paste together into a vague and foggy recount. Its only because I don’t know how to tell it. I am not sure how it would be taken or how it could be used. You hear stories of God providing, just at the last minute, bringing in folks or their loved ones from certain death. I found Jesus IN the death of my son, not through his skirting it or being pulled back from it. I found Jesus in the blackness of it. It’s not a happy story, even though I now have life.

For the first time, I decided to follow Him, wherever that led me. For a while, I thought it was seminary and a full-time vocational career as a minister. I’m not saying it won’t, but I found out when you begin to place your confidence in Jesus, you start off all excited, awkward and really annoying to others. I was no exception. I loved apologetics and philosophy and, by now, think I have probably read as much as a PhD….but without the PhD. I know of His love, His Kingdom, and see it as ultimate reality. Right now, its communicated through what I am writing here and through any opportunities I have to share Him in my work. Whatever I do, I do for Him. He’s my boss. And I love Him. And I talk to Him in ways I would never talk to anyone else. I say some of the most horrendous things that if I said them to someone else, I would be slapped, punched or committed. I have found He can take it. And I have found out that if I can’t come to Him with all of the mess, I have fooled myself in this entire ordeal, since 1996. I am not a good Baptist or a good Christian. I like my beer, my slang, myself, warts and all….not for the sake of the beer and slang and so forth…but because that is who I am, right or wrong. I am definitely better than I was, but only to the extent of my honesty, rather than my ‘goodness’ whatever that means, and it depends on your circles. To some, it’s usually two lists…one of taboos and another of virtues….avoid the ones and follow the other and you will do well. That’s also a steamy pile of shit. If I cannot TRULY become like Jesus without faking it, I cannot ever become like Jesus. And I am not faking it, as uncomfortable as that is in many church settings. I can’t complain though. I have great friends in my local church family. It’s taken me a while to realize they love me for who I am. But I have gone through quite a bit of embarrassment in getting to that point with many of them. The closer I am to Him and the more I recharge among His own, I can see the difference in my heart and my mind. And it is real, rather than contrived. As soon as I say that, I begin playing Super Christian again and go through another weird cycle of sin, repentance and new appreciation. But this is going somewhere. I just need to get used to the humiliation along the way. It’s all good.

So, that is how I went from skeptic to an unashamed follower of Jesus Christ. Some of you can’t understand any of this. I can relate. But if it all made perfect sense, then its probably all just me. Despite the conditions of how I got turned around, I do wish you knew Who I knew. I am nothing special. In fact, for a lot of you who are probably still skeptics, I can’t understand why He hasn’t already gotten to you before me. A lot of you are much better a person than I was or even am now. A lot of you have probably even been mistreated by me and find it hard to read anything I have to say, out of anger. I ask for you to forgive me, a sinner…chief among them all. Please accept my apologies for purposefully snubbing you, leading you down primrose paths, just to cut you lose at the last minute….for the abuse of my position….for the total disregard of respect. Please forgive me. I was wrong and can’t undo any of it. I want you to know that He has forgiven me and we are fine. But He wants me to make things right, because He loves you too….very much. Maybe if I tell you my story, some of the anger will subside enough to get only that part of my message. If not, I want you to know I am stubborn and will continue with the ‘Jesus stuff’, and if it doesn’t come that way for me, I pray every day that the message comes to you from someone else that may not have a history with you like I may have with you. He invaded my life, turned it around and I still wonder where He’s taking me. But it is exciting, especially since I have confidence in the ending. It makes it more exciting to experience.

He lives. He is life and life eternal. When He took my place on the cross, He took all my sin, past, present and future on Himself. When His Father turned His back on Him, that was a separation I will never have to face. And when He got up and walked out of the tomb, He has provided me a power no one on earth, below or above can equal or challenge. I am not much, but He is Holy One of God and He is quite fond of me. He’s the only way to the Father and if it weren’t for that one way, I would be lost and still doing the humiliating dances, pretending I was something else, on my way to destruction. And I still dearly miss my boy. But as King David said when his boy died, "If he can't come to me, I will go to him." And I surely will. I love Him more and more, with reckless abandon. I want you to know Him, in case you don’t already. If there is anything I can think of about my story, its that He is faithful and trustworthy, even when it all gets taken away. And when it does, He will be there and if you place confidence in His Son, He will always be there, even when nobody else will. God bless and thanks for reading.

Charles

Goiter on the Potomac: Misquotes and Lies I

2009-07-31T19:45:00.000-07:00

From time to time, I will try to post quotes from our wonderful political leaders and shed some light on their words:

"This has all cost some money to do, although I've got to admit, when I hear some of the critics talking about out-of-control spending, I can't help but remember those are the same critics who contributed to the $1.3 trillion deficit that I inherited when I walked in. They basically handed me a bill for $1.3 trillion and said, "Here, fix it," and now they're on TV saying, "Why haven't you fixed it yet?" in the middle of the greatest recession since the Great Depression." Barak Obama, Bristol, VA July 29, 2009

The deficit doesn't represent the nations debt, but the loss reflected in a year's spending over a year's income. The 2008 deficit was $458 billion prior to the bail out bill that Barak stopped campaigning to fly back to DC and vote "Yes".

In fact, the entire debt accumulated between 2001 and Barak's inauguration was $1.08 trillion, inclusive of the $458 billion deficit for 2008. THe following comes from the Office of Budget and Management, also found on the US Treasury Department website: (not very good with making tables in html)

YEAR REV. EXP. DEFICIT
2001 1,991.4 1,863.2 128.2
2002 1,853.4 2,011.2 –157.8
2003 1,782.5 2,160.1 –377.6
2004 1,880.3 2,293.0 –412.7
2005 2,153.9 2,472.2 -318.3
2006 2,407.3 2,655.4 -248.2
2007 2,568.2 2,728.9 -160.7
2008 2,524.3 2,982.9 -458.6

Total cumulative deficits since 2001 = $1,057,600,000

So, Obama inherited a $458 billion deficit, rather than a $1.3 trillion deficit. He did inhereit a $1 trillion debt. But lets go back to the OMB/Treasury numbers and see the forecasts from 2009 thru 2012:

YEAR REV EXP DEFICIT
2009 2,156.7 3,997.8 -1,841.2
2010 2,332.6 3,591.1 -1,258.4
2011 2,685.4 3,614.8 -929.4
2012 3,075.3 3,632.7 -557.4

Total cumulative deficits between 2009 and 2012 = $4,586,040,000

Remember, these are OMB/Treasury numbers, reflecting 3% GDP growth next year and spiralling up beyond. In other words, these are the rosy numbers. The optimistic growth numbers for 2009 have already become obsolete and adjusted downward. Notice how Barak took an inherited deficit of $458 billion and quadrupled it in just one year. Also notice how Barak inherited a debt of $1.057 trillion and has almost doubled it in 7 months. It took Bush and the Congress eight years to accumulate $1.057 trillion. He did that before he even got out of the car at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

So, his statement is false. But was it intentionally false? Yes. Because he is trying to sell you the idea that he is fixing the debt he inherited. "Why haven't you fixed it already?" But by fixing it, he exacurbated it, exponentially. He doesn't want you to see that. He wants you to think he's fixing Bush problems, while creating new ones that far eclipse anything Bush ever did, fiscally. Keep in mind, the $1 trillion debt includes the war in Iraq from beginning to 2009.
I truly believe he thinks the American public is really stupid and he could tell us pink elephants are crowding the sky and its Bush's fault.....and we'd buy it. He's an elitist...one bent on destroying our nation and creating a new one that looks more like that drempt by Saul Alynski. He will do that by pushing bills that no one knows wrote through too fast to read or digest. By the time we do, it will already be law. He wants to borrow from other nations, and push other central banks to print money to lend us, while we print money, in order to throw currencies off balance and push us to a global monetary system. But he can't trust your vote to get this done, because you will probably not go for it. So, he does it this way.

Wake up. Pay attention. And please read multiple sources and ask questions. The only chance we have of changing things by 2010 is an informed public that will not buy into stupid and arrogant statements like this. Check this post out as well. It's not immune.

The link for the quote is:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/29/AR2009072902644.html

The link for the numbers provided above is an excel spreadsheet at :http://www.ustreas.gov/

Don't ever say I am not transparent or self-deprecating

2009-07-24T09:37:00.001-07:00

"Soak it up....that's about as political as I will probably get on this blog."

~ Charles Curtis, September 29, 2008, Sarah Palin post

Ooops.

Ron Paul

2009-07-20T18:39:00.000-07:00

I was against Paul in the primary because of his radical stance of isolationism. But I regret that. I actually felt like I had no other choice than to vote for.....John McCain. I still am reeling from that. Could be worse. I could have voted for BHO Overdrive.

Paul is right on with his opinions on what is going on with the fed, our economy and our way of thinking in this country.

You can describe monetary policy with as many charts and graphs as you want, but bottom line is we have a bank helping the treasury department help congress spend more than God.....and tell us its saving us from disaster the entire time.

"Well, what alternative plan do you have?"

It's refreshing to hear someone say, "no plan" without flinching.

Sometimes not doing anything is the best course of action. Especially if you are congress or the fed. Their help is worse than our own harm. Complain about how we need more regulatory oversight all you want. We don't need a nanny to take care of us, especially since the nannie is far worse than we are, on our worst day. Do you really think the federal government is sober and moral enough to watch out for our indescretions? No, really?

And there used to be a time where we gutted through a recession, as painful as some of them were. It was pretty awful back in the early 1830's, and again in the latter 19th century. Even though we kept progressing economically through all these cycles, I think we started looking for some morphine at the turn of the century when the government turned to JP Morgan to bail us out then. It gave us the ingenius idea of the federal reserve bank in the first place. We were immediately addicted.

All this fed/treasury/stimulus crap is nothing more than our attempt at economic anesthesia, resulting in layer after layer of super important idiots creating super important long term catastrophes for short term pain management.

Republican or Democrat....if you think our current system of monetary and fiscal tinkering is actually something that is good for us, then you might want to hold off till you are taken off the slow drip before you begin to properly respond.

Folks, we are spending $4 trillion and taking in $2 trillion.....borrowing the rest or creating it out of nothing to fill in the gaps with what we fall short on debt raising. It's not helping us. Tacking on cap and trade as well as nationalized health care (it is nationalized....there will be no private insurance soon after the bill becomes enacted) is like taking a couple more hits of heroine as a plan to go cold turkey. Wake up. Turn off the Denise Richards reality show and The View...get into some good resources, find out what's going on and get plugged into stearing this country while we still have it to stear.

You wouldn't allow vandals to keep spray painting your house or car? Why let them drive the country in the ground? Wouldn't that be considered poor stewardship as well? What if it is God's will to let the US fall? Maybe. He is in control. And I am sure everything will be fine. But you and I can't guess His detailed plans anymore than the disciples could in Acts 1. In the meantime, we should stay involved, in principle. There is no contradiction in trusting God and being involved in the future of your country. There's also nothing contradictory about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and exercising your very blessed ability to have a say in how your government is working or not working.

There's nothing more dangerous to tyranny or total chaos than a truly informed and involved citizenry.

Time to Live for Something Bigger than US

2009-06-11T19:31:00.001-07:00

I was at a telecommunications summer conference this week. I heard lots of speeches and lots of advice on surviving the current economic and competitive landscape. I heard about getting your hands on stimulus money, retaining revenue streams, etc. I heard one speech by the CEO of the National Exchange Carrier Association, Bill Hegman. In the midst of all those speeches, his seemed so different. He was concerned about principles, rule of law, united front, etc. He was talking about something bigger than individual self-enlightened interest. As far as I know, it may have eventually been served by that purpose, but nonetheless, his speech was very inspiring to me. And it made me think why. Why would I follow him into hell after hearing that speech? Then it hit me. Simple! He was talking about something bigger than himself. He was appealing to something more than our own personal peace and affluence. And it was refreshing to hear. It made me think about the nation's state of affairs and the lack of a Bill Hegman on the national political scene. I'm not suggesting Hegman run for president nor do I believe he would survive that or even desire to do it. But I think people are hungry for principles over pragmatic answers. Obama won the election, for the most part, because of his idealistic speeches, although opportunistically insincere, as we now realize. We are hungry to live for something bigger than ourselves. But in our day and age, the trouble seems bigger than we are. In fact, it is paralyzing. Those we trusted seem scared and disorganized. Decisions are ad hoc. It almost can be akin to 6 year old kids operating track hoes and wrecking balls in an art museum. It's bad. It can either cause you to seek refuge in something innocuous or else leave us embittered. It doesn't have to be that way. But in order for us to see it, we need to think bigger than us, and U.S.

U.S. Decay - Economic

Here's some facts from the Treasury Department:

Our annual deficits have historically ran between $200 and $450 billion. There was an exception between 1998 and 2001 when the government operated under a surplus, due to the internet/dot.com economic explosion. However, that bubble popped and we were back at deficits that trend back to early to mid 1990 levels. However, for 2009, alone, the annual deficit is projected to be $1.8 trillion dollars, almost 5 times the high end of past deficits.

Currently, the Treasury has borrowed $7.5 trillion in publically traded debt and another $4 trillion in non-tradible debt. The total outstanding debt load is $11.4 trillion dollars. The average interest rate on publically traded debt is 4% and the interest expense per year equates to about 22% of total tax reciepts.

Speaking of tax receipts and government spending, we have been collecting about $ 2trillion dollars per fiscal year in revenue. For 2009, it is estimated to be $2.1 trillion, a drop from most current years due to the recession. However, spending has gone up one trillion dollars over 2008 spending, topping off just under $4 trillion dollars per year. We bring in half the tax revenue we spend in this fiscal year. The rest is borrowed.

Our debt as a percentage to total gross domestic product is about 45%. China, a communist nation's is around 20%.

When we borrow to fill in the gap, the Treasury department will sell bonds at coupon rates. Since January, the Federal Reserve has sold over $1.2 trillion dollars. However, because the market has been flooded with new US debt, the purchase price for these securities has dropped. Put simply, the value of one more treasury security isn't worth what it was in 2001 since there's trillions of dollars of outstanding securities floating around out there now. The more we sell, the more the price goes down. That causes the yeild to go up (the coupon interest earned compared to purchase price of the bond, rather than the face value). That causes all interest rates that are based on treasury yield to rise.

Some economists, including the Treasury Secretary, that the rising yields are a positive sign that investors are preferring private sector investments...a sign of economic recovery. Very cool story. However, the real reason is that we have flooded the market with debt securities and their value has dropped. It means that next year, if we need another $2 trillion, the Treasury, working with the Fed, will sell $2.7 trillion in order to compensate for this devaluation. But it is also interesting that at the same time as our trouble raising enough money, the fourth largest holder of publically traded securities are Carribean-based offshore banks, of which many cater to drug cartels. So, how much of our debt is actually financed with drug money? Who knows. But when extreme times call for extreme measure, coupled with the true human potential, rather than the potential touted by Oprah and Tim Robbins, we can probably be sure it is growing and significant.

If we miraculously stopped all debt financing today, we will still have almost $12 trillion in debt to pay when, on our best days, we spend about what we bring in, making debt retirement impossible. Most of it these days has been purchased by China. They are concerned about their investment (our debt). Why? Because we haven't issued enough debt to cover our costs (due to lower than expected reciepts, lower market prices on security sales, etc) and so the Fed makes up the difference in cash by buying up existing securities from banks and crediting their account with cash for lending purposes. That makes the value of existing debt, like the debt China holds, devalued even more.

In addition, the U.S. Government now has a say in the banking operations of Bank of America and Citibank, to name a few. Everything down to lending practices and compensation are now under government purview. Once more, they are also involved in the auto industry. The government now has a say in what kind of automobiles GM and Chrysler make. This summer, they are looking at nationalizing health care and getting into that business as well. Outside of providing defense, little else the government has gotten involved has been close to success.

As debt is devalued, so is our currency, since our currency is backed purely by the U.S. good faith and credit. As that good faith and credit becomes devalued, our currency has gone along with it. The dollar is already weaker than its prior comparisons with the Euro, Yen, Renmimbi, etc. We can see it in higher gas prices at the pump. In 2006, 2007 and 2008, we looked to speculators, oil companies or OPEC to place blame for skyrocketing prices at the pump. Today, those prices do not reflect anything more than the simple fact the dollar cannot buy as much oil as it once could. We will see fuel prices continue to rise, along with interest rates, as the dollar goes down and our debt balloons more.

China is getting queazy about investing in all our debt. They are especially queazy about our printing of money to make up for what cash we can't borrow from others, which makes the value of already issued securities, like those held by China, decline. It makes them a little upset and concerned. China's economy has slipped to 6% growth.....let me say that again....China's economy has SLIPPED to 6% growth. It was around 10% before the global crisis. China's nominal GDP was about $4 trillion in 2008. The U.S. real GDP was about $11 trillion. The exchange rate of the Chinese Renmimbi to the U.S. dollar has dropped from over $8 in 2006 to about $6 today. At this rate, the Chinese will surpass the U.S. as the primary economic power in 2030, with very conservative assumptions. It will more than likely come sooner.

With liberals in control, their answer will be higher taxes, not just for the rich but for the middle class since they will begin admitting to the fact that they could never balance the budget by taxing the rich. That will happen after the first round of further tax hikes to the 'rich occurs, and the defined bracket for 'rich slips from the definition of it in the Fall of 2008. There's simply not enough money to 'spread around' to fill the gap. Instead, the 'rich' will halt investment and creation of jobs since more and more operating cash flow goes to income taxes where it once went to payroll and capital investment. The economy will slag, tax receipts will go down as tax rates go up. We will spiral into a condition we have never seen in our entire history. In fact, we have already slipped into it while we were watching NCAA tournament last spring.

And just in case you think I consider Republicans the heroes, keep in mind that I truly believe liberal Democrats are in control because America was tired of Republicans acting irresponsible and ad hoc so we decided to trade out for the real thing, rather than get some song and dance from these people who are supposed to be different from liberal Democrats.

U.S. Decay - Political

Our foriegn policy abroad has shifted as well. We now appease everyone at odds with us, regardless of who they are or where they are. We are closing Gitmo, a first rate holding facility, so that people like Kaleed Sheik Mohamed will be able to get due process under the law. Mr. Mohamed, the architect for 911, has already laughed at our due process and committed to killing us all. But somehow, we think he'll have a 'come to Jesus' if we are able to get him a lawyer and a jury of 12....how shall I say....peers? Our president has apologized to the world for the work of men and women at Gitmo. He has apologized for our men and women's work in Iraq and Afghanistan. He promises that now we are going to behave in accordance with our core values.

What are those core values? No torture. Cool. But torture is defined as subjectively as 'rich' is defined for tax policy. It's clear that waterboarding is not the same thing as water torture or a cat of nine tails. But there is the argument that water boarding doesn't work. That may be. But that has nothing to do with 'core values', even if it may be a better argument. There's a disconnect between the actual arguments and what our president proclaims publically. It's because there's not much of a consistent line of thinking. We want to appease everyone. Everyone is more than willing to be appeased. Demand will meet supply. However, there will be enormous concessions in that appeasement. Anyone who complains about these concessions, assuming they become public while the public can do anything about them, will be met with familiar derision labelling them as 'going backwards to the Bush administration policies'. It seems as if any stupid move the Obama administration makes (and there are scads so far), all critics will be labeled as wanting to return to Bush. That way, they try to avoid any accountability.

ACORN: This group was founded to empower those without any power or influence. That sounds pretty cool. It turns out, they are exploiting those people in order to make money for the liberal party hacks who achieved power. People on the margins were recruited and paid slave wages based on performance....the more you registered, the more you were compensated. As a result, some registered 73 times and 14 states currently are investigating voter fraud from 2008. The State of Nevada alone has investigated ACORN for breaking Nevada election laws, let alone federal laws. The CEO was forced to resign last year upon his embezzling $1 million dollars of tax payer dollars became public.....about 6 years after the fact. The money is gone and no one has pressed charges. By the way, even though helping out those who cannot help themselves is a good thing, those who founded ACORN believed more than that simple virtue. They believed in pure socialism and by funnelling entitlements to the 'disenfranchised' it would put our current form of government in chaos, leading to an opportunity to gain power under a socialist agenda. The means used were bullying. Individuals would bust into an office and make threats unless entitlements were paid. Depending on who you talk to, it is bullying. To the bullies, it was coming to the rescue of the oppressed. I will let the current state of affairs with ACORN be evidence for you to decide which was the case.

Rodney Blogoyovich has started a reality television show with his wife, after being impeached for selling Obama's Senate seat to Roland Burris. Once the press got hold of this, Rahm Emmanuel threw Blog under the bus. Once Mr. Burris became skiddish and details came out about his tit-for-tat, he was thrown under the bus. When the ACORN employees were caught with votor fraud, ACORN threw them under the bus as 'rogue employees'. So much for empowering the disenfranchised.

And because we have been so taken with diversions, like sports, reality television and other things, we have considered our constitutional rights as 'politics', considered as either boring, non-relavent or met with such derision that no participation is an act of participation. We have adds pleading people to vote.....long after the entire vetting process has already been completed by party hacks.

We are the wealthiest nation in all of history. We live better than Louis XIV, Pope Pius XII, Elvis and almost anyone else in history. We have two refrigerators, two or three cars, a television in every room with over 100 channels of content (all of it crap). We eat better than any nation in history and struggle with eating disorders and weight....something that even 18th century France would be astounded. And then we wonder why health care is expensive, gas prices go up or the mortgage industry fails.

In essence, we have been wilfully lulled to sleep by our own success and blessings. Now, we are losing them and we don't know what to do about it, aside find escape in more entertainment or become embittered. As our resolve becomes more confused and ad hoc, other cultures are beginning to rise up in income growth and participation in the world economy. Many saw this coming back in the early 80's, and aside our own screw ups, it was still to be something to contend with. With our screw ups, it is probably something we are to hoplessly acquiesce. Some solace can be taken in that much of these new economic powerhouses have been influenced by us over the years, whether they liked or respected us.

U.S. Decay - Spiritual

The prevalent view of reality is purely physical. What do I mean by that? Anything....whether it is about behavior, morality or even science itself, is understood with one underlying assumption: nothing exists except the material...only that which can be reduced to an explanation through physics and chemistry. First of all, that view is clearly false. But for reasons of this note, I leave that for another time. What I want to discuss are the consequences of that worldview.

If everything is reducable to the material, then things we hold dear...the things that make life life, are illusions and are either abandoned or considered mere practical conventions. For example, we all feel awful when a child goes missing. However, under the materialistic rubric, the only explanation for that moral motion is an evolutionary phenomenon....we hurt for the missing child because we like survival rather than extinction. Anything more read into it is pure myth, under a materialistic view of reality.

It also reduces all goals, values and principles to the individual level, since there can be no real existence of these things since they are non-scientific. So, we try to live with two virtues....do whatever you want so long as you don't hurt anybody and be tolerant of everything. However, the definition of 'hurt' is as subjective as the ethics held and in the end, everybody walks around like raw nerves living to satisfy urges, desires and immediate needs. Paul used to call this living through our bellies. The reference dealt with hunger over all things but it also meant any bodily desire. Sex is no exception. In essence, since morality is a slippery set of non-scientific concepts, they are only important to the indivudal holding them. However, when they clash, things get a little sticky and no one seems to have an overarching solution, since we killed them off with the advent of modern scientific reality.

Morality is reduced to mere pragmatism. What is right is defined by what gets me what I want. What is wrong is what stands in the way of me getting what I want. It is as simple as that. Entire elections and businesses and cable channels are built around these sad virtues. We are a nation without an anchor. When Obama talks about core values, he hints toward somethin that no longer exists and he knows it. It's pragmatically referred to for political clout, rather than referring the world as a shepherd to a set of objective moral values. The Sura in the Quran he quoted in Cairo sounded neat. However, in context, it was a passage dealing with local apostates that abandoned Mohamed and the instructions on how to deal with such types, such as jihad. I don't think Obama called for jihad. I don't think he's a Muslim or a Christian. I just think he pulled that out and read it like a fortune cookie, just as he would the Bible in another speech. I think he's agnostic or atheist and believes religion is not a vehicle to pay homage to any god, but a political tool to overthrow those in power, in terms of liberal theology.

There is no clear consensus of what we are really all about unless we are viciously attacked. Then we find survival as the only common thread among us all. But that is never enough for a country to thrive. And once the attack begins to fade with other less pressing problems, we begin to become fragmented once again....probably even more than before.

Most of our forefathers were not believers. However, all of them lived within the consensus of a Judeo-Christian worldview. That has been replaced with the consensus of a worldview of matter plus time plus chance. Our personal desires are the new constitution and with that situation, truly, anything goes in a nation without any objectively spiritual health.

U.S. Decay - No Return...at least not in our time or our way.

Here's the bad news: the party is over. Our nation will probably never be what it once was (and that does not include an arctic sheild covered with ice). We will soon be eclipsed by the Chinese economy, never to return to our place in world affairs. In fact, the new economic powerhouse will be the Pacific Rim, in general. We can blame Republicans or Democrats, but in the end, we are to blame because we are a nation of self-determined citizens. We have determined it, not by choice, but by proxy. Our participation has become more and more limited because, just like remote controls for changing channels without having to get up out of our chair, we can allow the parties to run everything for us, let the government do everything for us, and just hope it all works out while we seek more and more diversions to fill the ever increasing hole in our hearts.

The election in 2010 will probably not be anything out of the ordinary compared to other elections. Party power may change, but the same yahoos doing the same things, all over again. That's because, now, if we understood what it takes to change everything given our constitution abilities, it would require enormous life changes in most of us right now, in order to make such a change by 2010. That probably won't happen.

Here's the good news: God is entirely in control. He probably ordained our fall. Why? Some would say it was because of our past sins....current sins....sins to come. Probably part of it. I think if it is ordained, it isn't simply a punishment-reward strategy. It's probably something much more interesting....and if we believe Paul's letter, something good for us who entrust ourselves in Jesus Christ. Read Acts 1. Keep in mind that Jesus' followers had seen much over the past 3 1/2 years. They even watched Him die an agonizing death, yet come back to life and teach them, culminating in this scene in chapter 1. After all of that, Jesus told them to wait.....which turns out to be a really big deal. What were they expecting?

"So, when they met together, they asked him, 'Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?'" Acts 1:6

To see your leader scourged and crucified was enough to make you forget about politics. To see that same leader show up after getting up and walking out of the tomb should make politics seem about as important your tire pressure. However, because we are creatures of familiarity, we like connecting the truth we discover with the familiar we like, even though the familiar we like may be deemed to parish. Not only did Jesus not restore the kingdom to Israel at that time, He allowed those in charge to persecute them and scatter them to the four corners of the world.

And it was a good thing He did. Otherwise, hardly anyone gentile would have any idea about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If you were to ask those people as Herod's people, Caiaphas' people or Roman governers imprisoned them, beat them, forced them from commerce, etc, they probably wondered where God was and when He was going to do something about it. He did. But it was antithetical to what they expected. Instead of defeating all the bad guys and restoring Jerusalem to Jesus, He purposefully permitted persecution from the bad guys. They ended up in Samaria. But they couldn't find peace there either. Some ended up in India. Others in Egypt. Others still in Greece, Rome and Spain. As they fled, they brought with them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Home churches sprung up all over the Roman Empire and beyond.

What lessons does Acts have for us today? I think we Christians are guilty of thinking Jesus was American and God loves democracy. But, if we are serious students of the Bible, we should be able to at least reference Romans 11:33-36. Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counsel? Those are rhetorical questions, by the way. The answer is 'no one'.

It could be that God deems the U.S. to decay and fade away into history. I know that sounds almost heretical. But I bet some might consider it heretical had Jesus said what was already known to Him at the time they asked Him about the kindgom and Israel too.

Let me give you another bit of advice from my good friend James:

"Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money'. Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you should say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'"

America wasn't great because Americans were geniuses. America was great because God permitted it to be great for a time. You don't have three cars or a cool sunroom because youi are one hell of a wage earner. You have more than you need because God permitted it. Had God not permitted it, it wouldn't matter how smart, innovative or clever you were. It would not happen. Period. That goes for those who follow Jesus as well as those who have nothing to do with Him.

For those who don't know Him, I want to talk to you a minute about this. What keeps you from the next physical showing cancer in your lymphnodes? What keeps the pilot from crashing your plane into the Atlantic? These are things you have no control. You can take vitamins, run 12 miles per day, lift weights and meditate like David Carradine. But none of that will stop those things that are completely outside your control from taking you out of the game and fast. You call that 'fate' or 'bad luck' but in all actuality, it isn't either. Whether you admit it or not, one thing you have to admit, you cannot say you can buy or sell, make money, spend money or even live tomorrow, no matter how well you have prepared to do it. Niether do I. In fact, the only difference between you and I is that I have an intimate relationship with the One who does determine the times, places and events for everyone. There's nothing special about me and, in fact, there is no excuse for you not to have the same thing, considering my past and my shortfalls.

Hell isn't a place for bad people. If it were, I would already be there. It's a place for those who refuse His grace and love. The doors are locked on the inside on 'our terms'. Why doesn't He make you desire His grace and love, rather than keep you in position of disrespect and disdain you live in now? I can confidently tell you that if you are asking that question, then He is already working on your heart and wonderful things are ahead of you. The only ones in serious trouble are those who don't give a damn. If you want to know more about what He offers or have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. It's my primary vocation to talk about His grace, love and the power of His Kingdom for your life right now. Everything else is a means to that end. Don't hesitate and do not worry about confidences either. I completely understand and have been there. Just don't delay.

For those of you who do know Him, I want to say this to you. We don't belong to this world. This world hated Him, it hates us too. Just watch the news or any program. Believers in Christ are not liked or respected. He told you that was the case. But He also offers you a peace the world could never offer. He offers something that is available to you now that the world searches for in vain. There is no reason for you to be concerned about your country. It has always been in His hands in the first place. If He deems it to go away, which He probably will, we need to remember we don't live for a nation or nations. We live for Him and Him alone. Once more, the One we serve isn't an elected official, but a King. We are citizens of a cosmic monarchy. Human institutions need Democracy and checks and balances because people are screwed up and capable of about anything. His Kingdom doesn't require these things, because what applies to us, doesn't apply to Him. And being plugged into His Kingdom makes us more and more like Him....and hence, very dangerous in this world.

I don't know about you, but dangerous, in this sense, sounds much better than any political revolution or economic domination.

It could be that He does the same thing with us that He did with those in Jerusalem. He may decide to scatter us too. We may not like it either. But I can garantee that it will be for the best and once we end up in a foreign land at an old age, looking back, we can see His fingerprints and glory all over our lives, even though we may have been scared and uncertain the entire time.

I'm not happy with the way things are going in the world and our nation. I think we have an opportunity to get involved and try to change it. We should get involved BEFORE the primaries and not let party hacks dictate the idiots we have to choose from in the general elections. We can do alot and you should not read anything in my words that state we should do nothing. On the contrary. But what you should understand that no matter how involved we get....no matter what we need to do to make changes for the better.....never should we be concerned that the rudder of this nation or the world is on our shoulders. It never was in the first place. It is all in His hands. It always has been. The cross and empty tomb doesn't just designate a new way of life. It reflects victory....complete victory. He wins. And we get to be co-heirs, if we want. In the end, what matters is what Jesus asks of us all....to go out into all nations, making disciples, baptising in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit....and remembering throughout it all, that we are never left orphaned....ever.

Here's another not-so-secret reality: nobody really has any answers or knows what to do about hardly anything. Using human ingenuity and accumen, we are hopeless. And those clowns that have the answers are clowns. They just also happen to be burning mountains of cash as well.

So, let the spilt milk rot. Let the interest rates bloom. Let oil prices sky rocket. Let our leaders continue to decay into the total deprived creatures they really are. No sweat. We belong to something much bigger that doesn't decay. In fact, it continues to unfold and grow, like a secret conspiracy, in the midst of all this decay. And we are a part of it. We all have incredible opportunity, work and good to spread, empowered by the One who controls all things. The entire cosmos is ours and eternity is our time line, as nations rise and fall.

Now, doesn't that sound good? It sure does to me.

Nonquam Solum

2009-05-05T19:59:00.001-07:00

To think that only yesterday
I was cheerful, bright and gay
Looking forward to
Well wouldn’t do
The role I was about to play
But as if to knock me down
Reality came around
And without so much,
As a mere touch
Cut me into little pieces
Leaving me to doubt
Talk about God and His mercy
Or if He really does exist
Why did He desert me
In my hour of need
I truly am indeed
Alone again, naturally

It seems to me that there are more hearts
broken in the world that can’t be mended
Left unattended
What do we do? What do we do?

Alone again, naturally

Now looking back over the years
And whatever else that appears
I remember I cried when my father died
Never wishing to hide the tears
And at sixty-five years old
My mother, God rest her soul,
Couldn’t understand why the only man
She had ever loved had been taken
Leaving her to start
With a heart so badly broken
Despite encouragement from me
No words were ever spoken
And when she passed away
I cried and cried all day
Alone again, naturally
Alone again, naturally

- except from Gilbert O'Sullivan's Alone Again, Naturally

Gilbert O'Sullivan's song came up in a movie the other day. I swear I hadn't heard it in years. It came out when I was a little kid and even at a young age, that song moved me. However, my recall of the song as an adult, seemed more like a song about self-loathing, until I heard these lyrics again when it was played in the movie I watched. I think I confused it with another sad song that came out about the same time as his. Those are some of the most poignant lyrics I have ever heard. You would have to be dead for those words not to resonate with you. Reality has a way of taking the steam out of young aspirations. And part of that reality involves loss and loneliness. And it makes you doubt God's existence. This is the only persuasive evidence against God's existence....and it is existential, not academic.

I'm not knocking academics. I have a deep interest in philosophy and apologetics. What I am talking about is more experiential. With regards to academics, there are great arguments that point to the truth of Christianity. Our universe came from something. Something doesn't come from nothing. Time and space can't cause themselves. Nature can't cause itself. It's far easier to believe the finely tuned conditions of the cosmos was designed, rather than it being mere luck. Consciousness doesn't emerge from mere matter. Some things are absolutely right or wrong, pointing beyond ourselves, and are not simply social conventions or evolutionary responses for survival. Historically speaking, Jesus' resurrection from the dead is the best documented event of all antiquity. So far, all criticisms against it aren't historical but philosophical (philosophical naturalism). The history is very good.

Yet all of these arguments are academic. Gilbert O'Sullivan wasn't singing about the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

If you were to pry into the heart of me, in say 1993 (or to a lessor extent, last week), or anyone else on this planet with doubts, you will find a person that has been deeply wounded. Perhaps we were rejected or humiliated by an individual or group. Maybe a child died. It could be a spouse of many years simply walks out without explanation. Or maybe the company went under, house foreclosed and find yourself at the local truckstop every morning to get the kids ready for school. Fathers, mothers, grandparents, husbands, wives.....all crying from their hearts, "Why is this happening? Where are You? Why have You abandaned me?"

In the song, the guy has dealt with being left at the alter, suffering an enormous setback professionally, the pain it caused and the fact it happens to so many that it seems overwhelming to be able to do anything about it. But even at a personal level, with his parents, is hopeless to do anything about the heart break of a lonely widowed mother, let alone a stranger. His tears aren't just the passing of all these unfortunate events, even though that is part of it. His tears are those of a deeper despair. His complete helplessness and hopelessness in an existence that seems more like a cruel joke than something underguirded by a good and loving God. He asks where God's love and mercy were, if He even does exist.

Where is God in the midst of this heartache? To be honest, Gilbert O'Sullivan, in this simple song, has provided so much more persuasiveness and power to an argument against God's existence than Richard Dawkins has in his entire curriculum vitae. I can only speak for myself, but having been a skeptic, I can tell you that although I was sort of familiar with all the arguments against Christianity and theism in general, my real doubts about God's existence were alot more in line with that song than a collection of arguments. Personal hurt, either caused by others or by natural events or both at once tend to be more persuasive to our immediate situation than any debate. I would go so far as to say that may be Dawkins real argument against Christianity and theism in general. All of the less than adequate philosophical meanderings about causes too complicated to explain complicated effects is really him lashing out at God in what seems to be a brutal world. It's just disguised so we can see, not a wounded man, but a confident and enlightened prophet of the times. Read this excerpt and judge for yourself:

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…

I realize its alot more prejorative than O'Sullivan, yet could concievably be tacked on as the 4th verse. I think the 'fictional' adjective was written with more viceral force than 'infanticidal'. Again, could be wrong, but seems that way to me.

Where Is God?

When we have experienced unexplainable despair and alienation, where is God? Does He understand? Why doesn't He intervene? The problem is existential, but any answer has to address both the mind and the heart. You can never take heartache lightly. And a simple theological theorem to explain it all is the most uncompassionate thing to do...akin to medical malpractice, but spiritual malpractice. People aren't algebra equations or products waiting to be stamped 'inspected'. Reality isn't a unbalanced equation. On the other hand, a response that is purely experiential has no content. And without content, any such response is totally worthless. Jim Beam is a much more useful response to pain and despair than one that doesn't at least appeal to the mind at all. Unfortunately, the church community is contaminated with both kinds of responses to wounded hearts.

Does that Bible provide any answers? The world has been warped and distorted with deviations from our ideals of how it should be, for a long, long time. Something tells us that death is really abnormal. It certainly hurts us to lose loved ones. Pain and suffering are no different. We know enough to instinctively know that things are not the way they were originally intended to be.

Have you read the entire book of Job? What a painful read. Here's a guy that is faithful and devoted to God, allowed to have his cattle destroyed, family killed off and his body covered in sores. From about chapter 3 to 38 we get to witness diatribe after diatribe of a man in pain and suffering, crying out to God for answers. We also get to witness Job's religious buddies and their diagnosis of Job's problems as well as their advice on how to deal with it. That is, until Job has enough of it. I am sure we all have some acquaintances like Job's friends that are always full of 'helpful' advice. It's a painful read. But out of nowhere, God breaks in and responds to Job. He never directly answers Job's questions, but asks Job to stand like a man and be ready to answer a few questions of his own. In essence, God tells Job that although he has suffered, he's in absolutely no position to form enough judgement on the circumstances to warrant any questions, but only continued trust. I don't do it justice, but it must have been scary enough for even a sore-covered man to sort of say, "I see. Never mind." Yet at the end, Job's health is restored, he owns cattle again and starts a new family. The book ends almost abruptly this way.

It seems that although Job's specific situation is remedied, the bigger issue of suffering, even for good people, goes unaddressed.

We have Abraham waiting for a child. God promised. None seems to come. He gets tired of waiting and sleeps with his wife's Egyptian made-servant, spawning his son Ishmael. God lets Abraham know that knocking up a sweet, young Egyptian maidservant was not going to work out as well as it would have had he simply trusted God and waited. And it didn't. Finally, beyond old age, God finally reveals its time and Sarah will give birth to a child. Sarah thinks it's funny and laughs. It's so far fetched and absurd. So, the child's Hebrew name was 'laughs' or Isaac. Before Isaac is even 16, God requests Abraham to take Isaac to the mountain and sacrifice him. After waiting till you are around 80 years old for a child, finally get the child you waited for, then to find out you are commanded to kill him, has to almost make you suicidal. Abraham's trust in God was really radical. The author of Hebrews tells us that Abraham probably thought if Isaac was killed, God would give him his life back, simply on the promise that God made Abraham that his seed would be through Isaac.

But an angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, 'Abraham! Abraham!'

'Here I am', he replied.

'Do not lay a hand on the boy', he said. 'Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.'

Abraham looked up and there in the thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, 'On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.'

Again, Abraham's specifics are what they are, but the name of that mountain refers to something not yet complete

The Hebrews were enslaved for nearly 300 years. They cried out to God to rescue them from the cruel slavery inflicted upon them by Egypt. No answer. For nearly 300 years they suffered and were casualties to a greater Egypt. They had about given up when God chose Moses, a renegade wanted for murder, with an embarrasing speech impediment, to lead His people out of Egypt. The least likely candidate, insecure enough to convince God to have his brother do most of the talking on his behalf, leads millions out of Egypt and into the desert. For forty years they wandered on a trip that should have taken 2 weeks. An entire generation had passed before they entered the land He promised them. From that time forward, the Hebrew people celebrated their deliverance with the Passover, slaying a Passover lamb for the meal.

Again, on a much larger scale a people has found specifics met, but a much larger issue emerges again.

The Hebrews choose a tall, strong and confident Saul as King. God chooses a 13 year old shephard boy as King. This shephard boy sparks a jeolousy in Saul that leads him to plot the boy's murder. God delivers the boy from Saul's hands, makes him King and promises him that through his line, there will be a king that rules forever. Although Israel and Judah rebel, fall into incredible deterioration leading up to military defeat and foreign captivity, the proimise was still remembered.

Prior to the destruction, one of their greatest prophets had this to say about the promised Messiah:

He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely, he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

About seven-hundred years later, John wrote that the Word, that was with God and was God, became flesh and dwelt among us. His own creation didn't recognize Him or accept Him.

Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour?' No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!

As Jesus drew His last breaths, He quoted the Psalmist by saying,

"My God, my God, why have you foresaken me?....

Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent....I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death. Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.

He was beaten, scourged and nailed to a tree, by the very ones He came to save. But the ultimate suffering He experienced was a spurning from the very Father He knew intimately and eternally; a suffering of such magnitude that no human being will ever know. Physical pain, to the point of death is something several human beings have unfortunately had to experience. However, complete and total alienation at this level and at this point of a cruel and painful death was the ultimate sacrifice. For what? For whom? It could be that God never directly answered Job because Job had no idea what God was going to do, Himself, for Job and everyone who reaches out. It seems pretty clear that the naming of that place where Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac was God's forshadowing Abraham, and all who read the text, what God would actually provide...His Son, His only Son. The blood of the first Passover Lamb was shed and painted above the entrance way of every Hebrew home, so that they would be spared from the coming wrath that shook Egypt and the house of Pharoah. It's no surprise that the prophet John, in the wilderness, would see Jesus and immediately recognize Him as the Lamb of God, to take away the sins of the world.

Jesus is on every page. Jesus is God's idea in every situation. The world is a very messy place and we are some messy people. I'm not talking about the persona we portray to anyone watching. I'm talking about the person we are when no one is around...the person in our thought world. To suggest that God Himself comes to provide our redemption and pay the entire penalty to obtain it is love on such a cosmic scale, now even suffering makes a little sense. It helps to know that even though I still hit rock bottom, He knows the feeling better than I do.

Jesus,

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have supremacy

We still experience death, but it has no power anymore. For those who place confidence in this momentus act of love, we suffer no real loss and any loss we experience right now is something that has first passed through nail-scarred hands. We believe in Him because He rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of all our wrongness, brokenness and despair.

Here's the existential reality for me. Before I entrusted my life to Him, I was fairly happy on the periphery, but completely full of despair at the core. In fact, all my energy was to seek as much diversions I could to generate as much consolation and contentment I could, to take my mind off of the core reality. After I entrusted my life to Him, I was essentially happy at the core, even if I was dealing with a lot of crap on the periphery. No longer nervously strategizing for diversions to avoid the emptiness, I simply fall on my knees and ask for His comfort, wisdom, confidence, patience....as much of His reality as He chooses to dispense. And because of what Jesus did, I can ask with total confidence. He provides a way for an imperfect and finite guy like me to approach the Almighty without any worry or concern from His part.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may recieve mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

The only way to verify the existential part of this response to our problem is to simply try. Believe in the work of His Son, on your behalf. Ask Him into your heart and to change your life. An existential reality is completely unverifiable unless you experience it yourself. There is no other way to test Jesus' teaching without trying them and finding out for yourself whether or not He's the One, or simply another guy speaking for himself. It's just something you have to do yourself. I can tell you about Him all day long, but in order to know....really know...you will have to haul off and place your life in His hands on your own. I still deal with the sadness of the O'Sullivan song and I still ask 'why?' to the pain I experience and what I see others dealing with. I have been a lay counselor for several years and the worst part of that job is hearing someone pour out their hearts with agony and you having no way to fix it or even provide anything other than two ears to listen. But at the very core, even at the worst of it, He is there and He is holding me together. He will hold you together too. And if you do that, He will bring you into His Kingdom now, so you can truly know for yourself and then extend that same Kingdom out to others and bring some light into the darkness.

Without this answer, alone again is natural. It is reality. All the friends and family in the world will not change that alienation. All the Party Pix photos, all the neighborhood block parties and all the Extreme Makeovers episodes in all the world cannot hide the reality that this world is full of darkness. And those things are not light. Although these things can be good in and of themselves, most of the time for us they are diversions. He is the light....that shines into darkness and the darkness can't comprehend it.

I can truly say, that no matter the circumstances, I am never alone. And I never will be. Although there is so much more to the Kingdom of God, that in and of itself is absolutely wonderful and something that needs to be shared. So, I am.

We Can Still Make the System Work

2009-04-16T12:36:00.000-07:00

I have been encouraged and excited about the recent Tea Party gatherings around the country. We had probably a dozen or so in North Carolina alone. There is no telling just how large this movement is. The day after the Tea Parties, I purposefully looked at Yahoo! News to find any stories.....locating only one, which states the Tea Parties are Republican in nature and another odd story about Sarah Palin....not really about anything that has happened to her, but just reminding us all of how debilitating her situation is, politically... just in case we forgot. They have apparently taken on the job of reminding us, in addition to reporting the news.

But notwithstanding, this is no longer a debate about conservatism or liberalism. The Tea Party people scan both sides of that coin. Those who say it is between conservatism and liberalism are living in the past and such positions are not relevant to the concerns we face now, regardless of where you stand politically.

The real division is now between those who wish for United States sovereignty against those in favor of trans-nationalism. What is trans-nationalism? It's the consent to give up economic, legal and administrative sovereignty and giving it to an international organizational collective. Proponents of trans-nationalism liken their position as 'working well with others' and criticize others as 'isolationists'. In fact, both are false assessments.

Wanting national sovereignty is not equivalent to being an isolationist. There are degrees of those out there that do believe in isolationism. However, identification of those who wish the U.S. to remain sovereign is not isolationism. Likewise, 'working well with others' does not equate to giving up economic and legal autonomy to an international authority. Those that use that in support of moving toward global currency or international law courts, regulatory oversight, etc., are masking the consent to relinquish national determination with the virtue of cooperation, when there is no equating them. For example, participation in a neighborhood association does not equate to relegating your bank account, children's school, extracurricular activities and vocation to them.

Replacing the dollar, yen, Euro and other currencies with the SDR, Bancor or other new global currency will take our national monetary policies out of our hands and into the hands of the World Bank.

Signing our names on the dotted lines of international legal documents make us answerable to a world law court and our citizens under the authority of the same.

Creating taxes that are payable directly to an international body, like carbon taxes, will take away representative taxation. Those in favor of such taxes and fees will say we are still represented but on a global basis, will have a difficult job defending that position to U.S. citizens...at least those who still have some focus on things outside of their immediate circle of sufficiency.

The above all entail relinquishing our legislative, judicial and executive branches to a global authority, or at least make them subservient to it.

If relinquishing our sovereignty is the right thing, no argument has been made for it, other than disingenuous catch phrases and horrific warnings if we don't. I still remember Paulson and Bush talking about 'systemic risk' just last fall, with regards to the financial crisis. Some even predicted the declaration of Marshall Law if bailout money wasn't doled out immediately. I hear it all the time from Geithner, Bernanki and Obama. If we don't agree to their course of action, all hell will break loose, our homes will burn down and our pets will die. And this has been used by both parties. It isn't a partisan habit. It's a ruse to get us to either 'go along to get along' or scare us into compliance.

How did we get here?

I have a theory....Improvements in technology have been so exponential, it has changed the way we think, work and live our lives. We now have cable and satellite, which provide us with hundreds of channels of content. We have several 24 hour news channels, internet access to millions of computers around the globe, cashless banking....even the concept of remote controls, alone,.....have been introduced to make our lives easier, more convenient and to help us do more with less work. There are remote controls for ceiling fans, light switches, computer access....even smart homes where everything can be controlled through remote access. These things have helped make us complacent about things beyond our immediate circle...and haven't made life easier for us but created even more distractions to deal with, again, in our immediate circle. Technology has allowed us to cram in more in the same amount of time. We have families, homes, work....our immediate concerns....which are now 100% of our concerns, for most of us.

As far as national and even local affairs, we trust talking heads with ties or dresses, beaming over our flat screens, to provide us news, without critical thought. We trust our entire democracy in the hands of the inner-rings of two political parties and all we have to do is simply show up and vote for the candidates they hand pick for us. In fact, now we don't even have to stand in line. We can vote at home. Everything is made for our convenience and personal peace....and our liberties, freedom and self-determination are outsourced in the hands of authorities we don't even know much about or critically examine.

This is a reality that spans boundaries. It represents the situation at the national level, all the way down to local city halls, chambers of commerce, school boards, etc. Without a bottom-up approach of our involvement in the process, it will be left to opportunists and they will probably not have your best interests at heart, unless you have a lot of what they are after. And after they get it from you, you are no longer an interested party. But unless we all start taking an interest again in the process that was given to us and described by people like John Adams as a project like the world has never seen, it will be co-opted by others without concern for it. And the gift will be taken from us with no recourse outside of a repeat at Bunker Hill, which will cost much more than sacrificing a dinner at home to attend a local meeting or two.

Our democracy requires more than bloviating in coffee shops, internet blogs, media outlets or voting from home, every two or four years. It requires involvement from the grass-roots level. Participation in local precincts, districts, counties and states, so that actual real people outside of political machines can help pick and support candidates, long before the primary begins. This will mean real choices by the time the electronic voting booths do get dispatched. Otherwise, we are only voting for insiders predetermined by party leaders and as it is now, those party leaders are ready to sign away our autonomy as a nation. It also requires our abilities to see past party lines and stop trying to stretch our interpretations of everything that happens to fit our party's limited categories. Our political parties have been watching the house for us and the house is a wreck.

I am as guilty as the next person when it comes to this. But I recognize this in myself and find it imperative to change. I find it imperative to write this to others, even with my own complacency.
And the reason I haven't participated before is because I had a hard time finding relevance of the process with my own life. I have a family, work, my own home.....hard to see past that, particularly when I watch people cannibalize themselves on television over political issues. Seems like a circus, rather than a system. I know that is why you haven't been involved either.

On the whole, I am positive about our country. I think our system will work, if we work at maintaining it. If we don't, we will lose it completely. But, on the whole, even if we relinquish our autonomy, lose our nation and become one state of many in a world alliance, I still have hope. Keep in mind, I trust Scripture and I know how this will all turn out. I also have trust in the sovereignty of a God that doesn't sweat any of this. For those of you who are followers of Christ, there is no reason to assume this sort of involvement in your country's government is a tacit lack of trust in God's sovereignty anymore than to assume your personal responsibility is the same. Your responsibility in taking care of an incredible gift given to you is not in defiance of His providence, but a part of it. Likewise, those of you who do not believe as I do....we still are part of the same nation that was founded on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (the classical definition of happiness contrasted to the understanding of that word today). There is no reason to reject what I have to say simply because I come from an evangelical Christian background. You are also a fellow citizen of the greatest country in the world and along with me, we can strive to keep it that way and respect each other, without having to respect each other's differences of opinions. That's what makes this country so awesome.

I just don't want to see it crumble. And I watch it crumble daily. Those Tea Parties gave me hope. Those were real people. Despite the news stories, they are not expressions of Republican agendas. There were all kinds of people out there and they all had one thing in common......love for our nation and our constitution, in that our nation is 'by the people, for the people and of the people.' If you are like minded (and I pray you are), let's keep it that way....and get busy right where we live in finding the right people for 2010.

Let me warn you now: from watching people actually having done this (and succeeding), be prepared to face great opposition from within your own political party. They are used to deciding all the names for you and won't like to hear from you. But sometimes a little inconvenience is a great thing. One more thing....if you insist on watching the local news or even cable news for information, PLEASE don't make it your sole source of information or give them more credit than what is due them. Look into what is going on through several sources yourself. Learn to distinguish between news and gossip. I think if you do that, you will find that most of it is gossip. I used to intern at an ABC affiliate and I can tell you from experience, those people know how to report, but that doesn't make them even close to being an authority on any topic outside of journalism....and even then, I think some are shaky in that area as well.

For those with the fortitude and time to get through all that ranting, thanks for reading.

How To Be A Good Person

2009-03-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

Man, that is about the boldest title I have ever come up with for anything I have ever written. Anyone who knows me well, realizes how bold that was. That's alright. I'm keeping the title anyway. It's difficult for me to imagine that I could be a reference point for a topic like this. But, my confidence is not in myself which, hopefully, will make more sense by the end of this article.

Are you a good person? It's a good question. Being a Christian, that question has an entirely different depth to it than it being asked by someone with another worldview. And, to dispell popular myths, the idea of Christian goodness is not reduced to avoiding beer, women and saying 'sh#%'. I know that sometimes that seems to be the long and short of it...coming from us alot of the time. But to embrace that as the biblical concept of goodness is to avoid what the Bible says. The Bible goes far deeper than simple list of things to avoid or things to do. It deals with our hearts...our very center. And the Bible is far more useful than Snopes.com when it comes to these things. Trust me with that.

I believe that Jesus Christ was not just savior, Lord and redeemer. He is also the smarted man that ever lived. If He had something to say on this matter, which He did, then it would seem logical to listen to His words, read about His actions and try to figure out His entire demeanor and perspective on everything. Anyone could agree with me on that point. The powerful part of my proposition is that by doing this....following Christ....there is a supernatural aspect for those who also place their confidence in Him as Lord and Savior, that will not happen to the average person pursuing His teachings for only the value and virtue of the teachings alone.

Jesus replied to them, “My teaching is not mine but comes from the one who sent me. If anyone wants to do his will, he will know whether this teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own.
John 7:16-17

The biblical concept of 'soul' is sort of a synonym for life. Our soul is our life. And our life/soul is comprised of a will, mind, body and social context. All work together to make our life/soul. Our will is the decision center of our being. I use spirit and will interchangeably. Our mind is what contains thoughts, emotions and desires. Our body is what acts within the physical world. Our social context is our interaction with other lives that provide our relation and purpose in life. Without any of these things, we have no life. If any of those components are neglected or harmed, our life is harmed or even destroyed.

Everyone's spirit or will has been formed. The only difference is whether or not its formation is malformed or transformed. Our spirit can be either formed by the world we live or by God. There is no other option. And because everyone's will is formed according to the world around us, everyone requires spiritual transformation. No one, outside of Jesus Christ, naturally has a will in line with the Kingdom of God.

What does a life conformed to this world look like? Outside of obvious things, like violence, perversions, etc....take a look at the subtleties....like pride, anger, jeoulosy, lustful desires, greed. Consider someone who's been insulted and how that insult is handled. A soul transformed to this world will withdraw and probably attack the one who insults. That same soul, depending on its sensitivity, could withdraw from everyone in general or learn to take advantage of everyone in general. Sound familiar? How about someone else getting the promotion or recognition you deserved? What is your natural reaction? Is it true gratitude or resentfulness? See what I mean? I should have hit everyone by now.

A life conformed to God looks just like Jesus. Look no further than Him.

Once more, in order to align ourselves with His Kingdom, we must entrust our very lives to Jesus Christ and intentionally follow Him. According to Jesus' own words, His teachings are self-validating and vindicate His claims of beiing Lord, God and Messiah. If there is another option (and there are many), then either He lied or else these options are counterfeit.

Because our will is influenced by the world around us and because the world around us can be impacted by our decisions, there is an interaction between our spirit and our world, that work together for good or evil.

There are two ways to try to be a good person....work at it or entrust yourself to Someone who will help you become a good person. Listen to Paul's words in Romans 9:

What can we say, then? Gentiles, who were not pursuing righteousness, have attained righteousness, a righteousness that comes through faith.But Israel, who did pursue the righteousness that is based on the law, did not arrive at that law. Why not? Because they did not pursue it on the basis of faith, but as if it were based on works.
Romans 9:30-32

Here is one of many stark contrasts in Scripture between the two options. Works or faith? By works, Paul refers to the externalities and appearances. It goes far with other people, but has no value with God. The Jews observed all the feasts, festivals, holy days, rules and regulations....but their approach to righteousness (as well as all us, naturally) was to work hard at it. But success was not true righteousness but great acting. That sort of righteousness, according to Paul, was who could do a better job at disquising thier mess. Meanwhile, the gentile believers , who were alot more ignorant about Scripture or even serious religious dedication (considered religious peons), had obtained righteousness through confidence in Christ. Many Christians consider this text to mean that this righteousness was 'imputed' to them through their faith in Christ. I agree. But that is not all of it entirely. It also means this:

Place your trust in Christ and not only will you no longer be condemned by the law of God, but you will be given the freedom to cooperate with Him, knowing He will help you get better, without fear of what failure could bring during the process.

Either trust in your efforts at great acting and cover up a malformed soul, or place your confidence entirely in Him, uncover all the mess with a confidence that the mess no longer has the power to condemn and confidence that by cooperating with Him, you will be transformed into a person you never could become on your own.

Jesus' parable about the prodigal son raises this issue too. Remember the story? A rich man had two sons. One of the sons wanted his father to give him his inheritence before he died, so that he could run off and live like hell, which he did. The other son stayed behind and helped out his father. The son nearly destroys himself with wine, women and whatever else...decides he had it better at home and returns to see if he can simply be a servant, rather than an heir.

The father in the story runs up to him and embraces him as soon as the son makes it within view. There is a huge party on his behalf....fatted cow is butchered for good steaks and lots of celebration.

The other son is extremely indignant.

He approaches his father and in his anger, lets him know how he feels about treating the prodigal son with such gratitude when he never left his father's side the entire time.

The father tells him that he should be happy his brother returned, rather than worrying about what everybody deserves. It was never about how good either son was...as evidenced by both the one son's depravity and the other son's pride. It was about coming home to the father.

One thought his righteousness was based on his track record (appearances only). The other had righteousness through returning to his father and placing his entire life in his hands (humiliating but thoroughly transforming).

The externally righteous will always feel indignant towards those who obtain righteousness by faith. Consider Paul's words in Galatians:

So you, brothers, are children of the promise, like Isaac. But just as then the son who was conceived according to the flesh persecuted the son who was conceived according to the Spirit, so it is now."
Galatians 4:28-29.

The flesh is synonymous in the Greek with our natural inclinations, which is a works-based righteousness in conformance with the world, which is no righteousness at all. And this counterfeit righteousness is not only at enmity with righteousness through confidence in Christ. This sort of 'righteousness' provides alot of outward persecution against the 'children of promise', who are those whose righeousness is in Christ and through Christ by intentionally learning from Him.

The pressures of this world will hammer on your will, mind, body and social context until you look just like this world. And this world is also a very outwardly religious world. Just watch the Daily Show and see how morally outraged Jon Stewart can get or watch The View and hear all sorts of moral proclamations around a table. How about reactions in politics? The world is full of very outwardly morally motivated people. Problem is, outside of spiritual transformation through an apprenticeship in Jesus Christ, we are simply spraying Lemon-Fresh Joy on a pile of fresh dog poo.

Sorry for the analogy...but I don't know how else to communicate the facts of the matter. Maybe Isaiah says it better (not much better). "All of our righteous deeds are as filthy rags (used toilet paper in Hebrew)."

True spiritual transformation requires a clear vision of what we need, real intention to take steps in that direction, and the motivation to do it. God's grace supplies all three of these things. What we can do in this process is study Jesus and contemplate on it. We can spend time without any noise or diversions focusing on Him through study and prayer/meditation. We can also try to purposefully not have our way in things, whether that is food, drink or simply having the last word. It teaches us that we don't have to have our way. These things help us to learn how to recognize where He is working, when He is speaking and how to discern things better. Lastly, by placing confidence in Him, we can expect (confidence/belief/faith) that He will be doing things from the inside out to make us into something that resembles Jesus....an authentically good person.

But because of our condition and formation, it will probably be somewhat painful, humiliating and scary at times. There will be voices that try to make that pain, humiliation and fear magnified so that we quit. But be keeping in mind wonderful words such as "Great is He who is in you than he who is in the world", as well as others help us keep those voices at bay...and they will be many and often.

This is not a good world. That's pretty uncontroversial. And outside of what He teaches for our good, we resemble our world, whether we like it or not. That is controversial. Always has been. And until everything comes into conformity with His intentions, always will.

But His way brings forth His Kingdom into this realm like a little yeast in a large lump of dough. Heaven doesn't have to only be something we go to when we die. Heaven is also something we can have now and extend here, but only through faith. Likewise, hell is not only a place reserved for those who prefer it after death. It is also here and now too.

The closest places in our lives can be heaven or hell. We can choose self-protection, engage in attacks and withdrawals to and from others and by doing so, extend hell, rather than heaven. Or we can pick up our cross and follow Him, relax that our own lives are in good hands, enough to be able to serve others without fear or hesitation...thereby extending heaven here and now. Your confidence is in Him, not in your own efforts. And your confidence in getting better doesn't depend on your successes, but your confidence in Him finishing a work He started in you.

And as the song goes....'the world, will be a better place for you and me. You just wait and see.' (John 7:16-17)

Renovating the Heart & Our Surroundings - Heaven on Earth

2009-03-01T13:53:00.001-08:00

Search For Alternatives to Authentic Contentment
From the time of Constantine, 300 years into church history, up to the 30 Year's War, the church had control and constantly abused Christianity through cruelty and non-compassion equating Church positions to God's will out of neurotic need to control everyone and everything. Instead of listening to Jeremiah's cry that the human heart is desparately wicked and deceitful, whether ordained or lay person, we decided to look under other rocks for answers, considering Christianity itself, rather than the unrenovated human heart, as unacceptable and the source of discontent. The frantic search for an adequate alternative on a cultural level began. The Scottish philosopher David Hume and German Immanuel Kant provided the revolution that changed thinking so that everything else would follow....and it did. But instead of improving our lot, Europe produced Napolean, the Terror and endless revolutions that reflected more blood and chaos than the religious wars just 200 years earlier.

In the United States, the highest bastions of our culture rejected a Christian consensus around the late 1800's. The roots of our rejection of Christianity as a culture goes farther back...into the 18th century. Princeston, for example, once a bastion of Christian education, at one time led by Jonathon Edwards, had turned away from biblical Christianity in favor of Kantian-Hegelian revolution in Europe and embraced the dichotomy between sacred and secular, then emphasized the latter, holding to a strict empericism, at the expense of the former. Before long, universities all over the United States, which started as religious organizations, became secular. Theology moved from being the Queen of Sciences, to a discipline of study under the Department of Humanities. Like good city planners designing sewage systems clearly know, things tend to flow downstream and our culture is no exception. By the early 20th century, philosophy had embraced logical positivism and reduced reality to language and science, with science being a specialized language of study. A young Ludwig Wittgenstein, brilliant thinker, had published his Tractictus and started a movement that would eventually be rejected in philosophical circles, even though still embraced by modern science in terms of cosmology, biology and chemistry.

The Armory Art Exhibit of 1913 began to prepare the hoi poloi in the United States for the impact of Kantian-Hegelian revolution in artistic expression. Da Da, Duchamp and others had introduced modern art to America. I am not being critical of the art and actually am intrigued by much of it. Regardless, Duchamp's ready-mades almost feel like visual representations Wittgenstien's Tractictus displayed before me. Jackson Pollock's random art is interesting but is based on his rejection of any rhyme or reason, preferring pure randomness over design. Music began to embrace it too. The music of John Cage in the early 20th century reminds me of alot of Brian Eno's music in the 1980's. Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus were key in bridging philosophy with arts, through literature. Their existentialism is the authority and basis for almost all of Hollywood's movies. If you want to know where Robert Zemekis was going when he ended Castaway with Tom Hanks standing in the middle of an intersection somewhere in rural Texas, or the conversation between mother and son at the end of Pleasantville, read Sartre's Being and Nothingness or Camus' The Stranger. Rock and Roll was born out of existentialism, and now uses the the absolute teaching of an untethered free will of choice to tether us to more than chains. Art appeals to our pain and our sentimentality. Its lyrics and music finds resonance with our own personal experience and without any authority in our lives outside of our own will, we end up worshipping that feeling and fuelling the entire process. Our children learn from us that our decisions are based on our feelings and the reasons for our decisions. Art, in many respects, reinforces this message. Not always, but the undercurrent of much art, regardless of its manifestation, comes from this energy.

But most folks are too busy surviving and raising families during this time and still have a Christian understanding of reality in the 1930's and 1940's to even know much about Da Da, analytical philosophy or reductionism. However, the next step down is politics. When the same thinking moves into politics, everyone registered to vote is fair game. FDR provided the face and voice of comfort for a desparate nation. Even though all of his efforts failed to provide recovery for us, the timing of a second world war and the end of a downward economic cycle started by speculation of the 1920's, had all of us looking for a new Savior and new Church to pick us back up and get us going again. That new savior was the President and the that new Church was the federal government. By the 1970's, political movements for just about any area of life sprang up, all vying to contribute as ministries to the new church. The idea of government replacing more traditional institutions began to grow. The government was now our school master. The government was now our social engineer. The greed for money was the fuel that helped this idea take off. I still believe the reason liberalism triumphed last November is because a large portion of American voters are too young to remember the malaise and hopelessness of the 1970's. But even on the conservative side, the answer is still government, just less government. The only advantage conservatives have politically is that it's more economically atuned than the old liberal model that we have embraced of recent. But despite that advantage, it is still looking for another Reagan and reflecting the deeper problem in our culture.

The last stage is sports and reality entertainment. With the advent of cable television, satellite, computer gaming and other technological advances, we have now added another absorption into another venue. The university chapel has been replaced by the grid iron. Self-improvement has been replaced with an XBOX high score. And news has become gossip with interests more in American Idol or Brittany Spears than with human slave trade around the world, abuse within orphanages in eastern Europe or mercy killings in the Middle East. The latter topics seem to big and dark for us to handle, so we ignore them for distractions.

And the biggest argument against Christianity has unwittingly turned out to be Christians. Take away the religious talk, religious activities, we look just no different than the rest of the world, much of the time...myself included. We consent to certain truths and then pretend that we live them out when in fact, we are only trying to manage them with others. Even the SBC, of which I belong, decided to fight for biblical inerrency in the denomination, which is a good thing, ended up with victors strutting and preening in pridefulness and self-righteousness....not knowing how to do ministry unless there was a controversy to get embroiled. But that is the good side of evangelicalism in America. Much of the other denominations went the way of the do do bird and became not much more than political organizations, accepting a godliness but denying it's power, as Paul stated long ago. Today, we either get a political stump speech from the pulpit or a ministry on the right that is solely defined by its differences with other ministries.

By the way, I represent much of these characterizations. So don't consider this one more self-righteous diatribe against the decay of Western Civilization. I find it much easier to bury myself into work than to work on my relationships with family and friends. I would rather lose myself in a Coldplay album or Cohen Brother's movie than deal with my inner-demons. I find it easier to condemn than to forgive. But I recognize all my failures and frailties in those around me too and because I am a nerd, I happen to know how we all got here. And art, sports and politics are not bad things. I am more artistically inclined, than mathematically inclined (even though not very talented in either area) and enjoy these things. I am not suggesting these things are bad, but our search for some sort of ease of a deep discontent ends up with us taking a thing or concept that is good in and of itself, and making it into a shiny golden calf.

Renovating the Heart Through Intentional Apprenticeship in Jesus

We live from our heart. Whether we admit it or not, that is our center. That is where our discontent, satisfaction, aspirations and fears come from. Because science now rejects any non-physical entities, we are 'educated' in believing we have no spirit or soul. We are merely DNA and as Richard Dawkins has written, DNA doesn't care, it just is. But teaching that doesn't make it so, and our souls began to search in vane for anything to help ease our discontent with life, in the wake of bankrupt alternatives. Even if we reject Jesus as our Lord and Savior, our souls require us to pour our existence into something until it becomes our identity. And because we are told to deny the soul's existence, we are left to reaching into non-rational, fringe outlets to find some sort of answers...whether it is infatuation with ghost trackers, human potential, or even politics, art and sports, whatever we decide to love, we pour everything we are into it and become it. Our spirits are formed one way or the other.

Romans 12:1 talks of transforming our minds through the renovation of our hearts....to no longer be conformed to the structure of our age. What does he mean by that? How do you do such a thing? I was not a very consistent non-believer and after coming to Christ in 1996, have seemed to find more emphasis on my inconsistencies and failures now, than the improvements. As a result, any talk of spiritual formation, disciplines, etc., made me wince as a Christian. If the Gospel was not about the A+ I have been given in Christ, despite my actual performance on the exam, then I am doomed. But through trying to wrestle with grace, biblical texts and teachings of others even when I balked or discounted it out of a fear of legalism, I think I am finally beginning to see endless possibilities with me by being His apprentice, and therefore endless possibilites for our culture as a whole, through clear biblical teachings.

I have a bench press and weights in my garage. I realized after my initial attempts at getting healthy back a few years ago, that I couldn't walk in to a gym after 15 years and bench 200 lbs. In fact, even though it was light, I had to begin with an empty bar, then add more, then add more, then add more. I had to work at it and I had to be intentional about it. Likewise, I am a consultant, but I wasn't born one. I didn't simply go out after graduation and became a resource for issues within the industry in which I work. I had to work at it...practice, read, step out...and sometimes fail at it. These examples reflect a larger reality regarding my spirit or heart. My circumstances and choices have determined my soul. And that has not ended up a good thing. But I represent the entire human race. We are all spiritually formed people. But just as sewage goes downhill, natural human abilities do not automatically migrate towards the good. Two ways of seeing human nature is to say that humans are basically good people, at heart, as Anne Frank wrote before her execution. But if we are naturally good, how come we have created thousands of institutions to protect us from one another? If we are good, why have laws, signed and notarized contracts or even mundane things like ticket stubs? We migrate naturally towards the bad and have to work to be good. The other way of seeing human nature is to take the scientific naturalism approach or postmodern approach and say there is no such thing as a human nature. But if that is true, then why live and act as if there is a nature to us and one that needs to be either fostered, guarded, encouraged or discouraged? It's an important question with regards to character.

Speaking of character...it is not walking through 12 feet of mud to fight off the bad guys and save the village. Character is what you do without thinking. It's what flows from your center without managing it at all, just as determining what a glass is filled with when you bump into it, our hearts reveal our character. And our character, without Jesus Christ, is either explicitly self-oriented or implicitely self-oriented....we either admit to our living for ourselves or we pretend to be selfless when we are not, and that usually is telling by the same person's flight towards self-righteousness and condemnation. This is the heart of Jesus' teaching...'from out of the heart, the mouth speaks..." When pressure is applied, what kind of person am I? What sort of character do I have when the heat gets turned up? Do I resemble Christ? And if I don't (and many times I do not), this brings up a scary proposition...are my choices becoming explicitly evil or faking goodness? If so, what hope do I have?

Without Jesus, none. That's why He is the way, truth and life. Only through accepting His atoning sacrifice can I have the grace for forgiveness of all my mess, past, present and future. But only through taking His yoke, intentionally learning from Him and becoming an apprentice of Jesus Christ, can I move forward with where I am with my mind, soul and body, and step forward in His power and grace, knowing that failure is a part of the process. I can intentionally follow Him, learn from Him and intentionally try to think, speak and act the way He would if He were me and not worry about falling down. That is the only way I can truly get better without faking it or simply abandoning the project. Grace is more than what provides unconditional acceptance no matter what you have done. Grace is also the resource He gives in His power to actually change you from the inside out. How?

What Spiritual Transformation Is Not And Is...

Well, I have learned the hard way that Jesus' yoke is not trying to pull myself up with my own bootstraps. One pastor was quoted as saying that sometimes you deny yourself food to teach your body that it is not in control. That's not going to work, regardless of all its bravado, because the reference of power is the pastor saying it. No. I can't do that. No one can, without falling into the self-deception of faking it all. The things I can do are simple...pray....constantly. Seeking His face in every moment of my life...reading His word and asking Him to change my mind on everything we disagree...and denying myself of things my body or mind desires...whether it is food or having the last word...these things I can do. What happens next is the part that isn't me. What happens next is that His Spirit, cooperating with mine, changes me...changes my character, bit by bit, so that I actually form a character that is more like Him. Sometimes that is done through intentional means like the ones I mentioned. Sometimes it is through soveriengly orchestrated events and circumstances used to bring up things way down deep that otherwise would not be dealt with. And sometimes the process is no fun. But I will tell you this...nothing beats the comfort of knowing He is at work in me, even when everything else around me is blowing apart at the seams.

When focusing on the invisible activities going on deep within my heart, I begin to see more of what He is doing around me. And instead of a gloom and doom, I begin to get excited about the possibilities. He replaces even my composure with joy, even in the midst of alot of what appears to be chaos. I can see His possibilities instead of only focusing on our impossibilities. This is His Kingdom. And the exciting part is that since the first century, the revolution has begun, mercifully involves me and you, and will end up where everything will be under His dominion. Every glimpse of joy, excitement and contentment I may have brushed up against 25 years ago or even last week, is nothing more than a clue to an eternal existence with a joy and contentment that goes beyond explanation.

And what happens next is that we become agents of change. Forget Obama. Christ's followers are the true agents of change and always have been. The church's abuses exist, but usually at the expense of hiding all the incredible transformations our world has experienced having Christ and His Bride within our midst. Our nation will find no hope in Obama. He has no idea what he is doing. Our nation will find no hope in a republican presidential candidate in 2012. Our only hope is a society of people, changed one person at a time, until our numbers are great enough to create a nation where, as the prophet Amos stated, 'justice roles down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.' Corrupted souls...those that have not placed confidence in the Son and intentionally took up apprenticeship, will stand in the way of that stream and those who have engaged in the project of spiritual transformation will stand in the way of the sewage that naturally flows downstream of the untransformed human heart...and will either fight it or die trying. And, contrary to the perception I have had of the church, and sometimes even promoted by the church, being a follower of Christ is not a lifeless, colorless, boring and stale existence. It is full of drama, excitement and anticipation of what happens next.

A Real Stimulus Package For Our Times

Maybe then, we can search ourselves and truly find the reasons for our economic stress, rather than ignorantly transferring blame on Bush or Congress. We will finally admit that we acted foolishly over the past 20 years, lived beyond our means in order to fill a hole that wouldn't be filled, and we have ended up leverageing our great-great-great grandchildren in order to try to sustain a feeling we experienced in a song, or a trip to the beach with friends. Rather than expecting an instantaneous change or faking our success, we will actively engage on seeking His wisdom and grace to begin the project of changing our character. Just like we can't naturally walk out onto a clay court and beat Andre Aggassi, we can't naturally walk out and expect good character or believe our genes inherently contain our good character or that our characters will automatically become like that of all our religious friends (sometimes not a good idea in the first place)....in fact, it will reveal our intentional self-deception of trying to save our lives only to lose them, rather than laying them down to Him, in order to discover it in full.

I have not made it to the mountaintop. In fact, I am still in the muck. But I know now...the good news is that we can try, fail and try again and not get discouraged because our focus is not so much on the results as it is on Him and He is in the result business...not us. Our hurts, despair and restless desires to fill our lives with some alternative, when what we really need is Him, all will fade when we want Him, ask for His help and then hear the soft sound of sandled feet bring us to Him and as He embraces us, we might shed tears, but His love and grace will change us and life will never be the same. Politics, sports, philosophy and art cannot do this. Neither can our works and righteous deeds (Isaiah told us God considers our righteous deeds as used toilet paper, in the Hebrew). He offers life and life to the fullest....not just a home in heaven, but heaven here, in the midst of a broken world so that instead of managing all our relationships with others out of a realization of being damaged goods...we get excited about how He will use us as agents of change to watch this broken world conform more and more to His Kingdom. I can bank on this. You can bank on this. This is real confidence. Drop all the expectations, results and control issues at His feet and begin a new, full life in His rest and comfort. You'll not only see our lives change, but is probably the only economic policy that exists to get us out of the circumstances we brought on ourselves in our restless efforts to fill a bottomless pit. He is calling you right now. What are you waiting for?

What You Really Need This Christmas

2008-12-22T18:29:00.000-08:00

Let's face it. According to the wisdom of men and women, Jesus Christ is a religious option, at best, or a delusional opiate for the weak-minded, at worst. But according to Jesus' own words, He is life, rather than a life-boost. Is He wrong? Or maybe a tad over-exagerated? What if, after all is considered, we are the ones over-exagerated? What if we are filling our lives with our diversions trying to feed the vast emptiness that only He could possibly fill? In our daily desperation to leave a mark, make a dent or difference, we have forgotten that these things were originally latched on to create diversions for something much deeper within us. It's a troubling place that usually hits us when things quiet down, lights go off and everyone goes home. Something that is at the core of our being that consistently creeps into our psyche queuing us to quell it...push it way back down...with diversions of our choosing, to keep from getting consumed with it. When it creeps in, it follows with questions like "What is the point to anything?", "What am I really here for?", "Where am I going?", "Is this all there really is?"

Granted, many diversions are commonly considered destructive and taboo, like drugs, reckless permiscuity or violent tendencies. But our diversions aren't always taboos. Sometimes our diversions are good, in and of themselves, but diversions used in the same way as drugs, reckless permescuity or violence. I know that whether or not you admit it, you know that dark void that seems to always threaten to invade in the quiet hours of the night or during desperate times. We all recognize it. We also, whether we admit it or not, divert ourselves away from it with whatever we can use within our grasp. I want to list some of those diversions....not the sorded ones, but the ones most of us identify with. Only after calling into the light, what we whisper to ourselves in the dark, can we deal with the void.

Diversions

Power & Influence
One diversion type is the pursuit of accumulation of power and influence, whether it is to bring thriving commerce to a sleepy suburb or export a worldview halfway across the globe. Immortality is the myth that fuels this diversion. Two of the most successful people in world history, in terms of power and influence, were Alexander of Macedonia and Gaius Octavian Caesar. The first exported his version of sophisticated Mediteranean culture worldwide and the latter, international civility, peace, law and order. Today, their names are hardly recognized by many. Their influence may still be felt today, but in a more anonymous fashion than either ever contemplated. They are peppered throughout history texts and Wikipedia servers, but have become more associated with salad dressing, a less-than-mediocre Oliver Stone movie or the nameless statue in Las Vegas, pointing oblivioulsy at the Boingo Wireless billboard above the boulevard. Their empires are now ruins, advertised in colorful cruise ship excersion brochures browsed by vacationing consultants, paralegals and dental hygenists, not to pay homage to the gods, but to find something completely different than the familiar and mundane of Atlanta, Cincinatti or Dallas. The pursuit of immortality ends in death and memories long forgotten, swallowed up by time and Outlook calendar reminders. With great power comes great responsibility and the position and infuence in and of itself isn't bad. It's our fuel behind gaining the position and influence to manipulate and control that takes a neutral thing and makes it clinical.

Societal Prestige
What is this? It's the membership to the Petroleum Club, New York Athletic Club, officer of the Neighborhood Association, Chamber of Commerce, membership in SBC voting delegation or simply being close friends with Bono. We pine for these things to give our life significance by comparison to other lives. We do that to disguise our bankruptcy and we know it. The fact we all do it is our excuse for not having a problem with any of this, as insane as it all really is. The myth this diversion provides a false sense of importance and being a member of a group also provides the comradery of others in the same boat to aid in the diversion. I wrote about this in a previous post entitled Inner Rings and it doesn't just include our desire to be in those rings, but also our desire to fight against them....or keep them in our psyche, regardless of whether we are in or out of them. One potential argument in favor of membership in these rings could be the good things the rings themselves provide to society. But, outside of church and possibly the Kiwanis or Masons, much of the 'good' is really window dressing for a much more selfish desire, that of being noticed. When the doors to the Petroleum Club are locked, lights go out, and we all head back home, the addictions, hang-ups, neglect, manipulative and abusive relationships are back within sight, assuring us they never really left us...have always been there...just dimmed a bit by the photo ops and mingling around the champaign fountain. Maybe you get up in the night, fix a numbing drink, turn on the television or step outside the garage and smoke a joint, trying to sort things out, waiting for day to come. Depending on how well we have diverted our attention away from reality of the grit and heart of life with the memberships and status, will determine just how desperate we become. There is nothing wrong with the Inner Rings or the memberships, in and of themselves. Our use of these things to hide, deny and divert ourselves from our true condition and from Him is wrong and will catch up with us sooner or later.

Profession
How many times have you said that you work 18 hour days for your family? Do you? How many family members have been sacrificed on the alter of the business or profession? In many homes, the blood may not run as red as the steps to Mayan pyramids in days of old, but the daily sacrifice is probably more efficient and magnified as home computing, PDA's and broadband allow us to ignore the most important people in our lives in the comfort of our living rooms. Of all the diversions I write about, this one strikes me the most. And for many of you reading this, it strikes you as well. Worry about making ends meet is almost always a cop out. We work to keep our minds and schedules busy so we can avoid the questions, the relationships that might force us to adjust our lives or have us deal with things that really need to be dealt with.

Work is an ethic. Even before human beings fell from grace, we were given work. When His Kingdom is consumated, we who have decided to follow Him, will have an entire universe and eternity to fill with creativity and work of our hands and minds to glorify Him. But our popular definition of work is nothing more or less than a form of diversion to keep us away from dealing with ourselves in a proper way. We can justify it, like we think we can justify deifying our families. But what is worse, is that at least family is a higher priority. It makes this diversion almost as clinical as the others.

Family
This is a touchy one. I love my wife and daughter more than anyone else, outside of Jesus Christ. But it's unavoidable to see two strong and sometimes subtle diversions regarding family: 1) Staging or masking happy lives with wide smiles, pretending to be alot more content than you really are, at the expense of your children and 2) Worshipping your children or spouse and the inevitable dissapointment that follows sooner or later. With regards to the first issue, it is almost normal and natural to portray our family as perfect or carefree. We have bought into the myth that disguising our pain and problems with fake smiles and manipulative busy schedules is no different a diversion as the others. It's actually worse because the fact it is family can make us never question it....because it is family and family comes first. Actually, family will not fill the void either. Our children don't need to push their questions, disappointment and pain deep down underneath saccarine smiles. It will become a boiling cauldron and eventually burst forth because life is filled with great things and awful things. Our marriages need to be seen by our children as authentic, rather than contrived, especially when stress is put on the mother and father. How your children deal with real life will be heavily influenced by how well you dealth with it in their youg presence.

Speaking of deifying family, let's take our kids, which leads me to the second problem. They are precious and a huge responsibility for us to raise them as best we can. But even if they never fall into drugs and alcohol or something of the like, they will eventually grow up and leave us. They will start their own lives and families and we will be left and pushed back into a further priority. That is the way it should be. But because that is the way things are, we can't make our children the 'be all end all' for our lives. It has to be even bigger than our children, or else even our decision to pour our life's meaning into our own offspring will bring us to despair. I would imagine the first day of college for such parents would either bring stress on the marriage and lead to divorce, or else a nervous energy to find something big enough to keep things together in the midst of an empty nest. Deifying a spouse isn't any better. If you place your very existence, meaning and purpose into your spouse and they die or leave you, all of your existence, meaning and purpose die or leave with them and then where are you? If you remarry, how does that work out for your new wife or husband? You need something bigger than family and spouse to deal with your emptiness. Otherwise, things that are good in their proper perspective, get perverted and misused.

Politics/Justice
If this isn't a postmodern shibboleth, I don't know what is. It doesn't matter if you are liberal or conservative. Everything is about empowerment, justice, and equality but....without any foundation at all. In fact, any foundation for whatever cause smells so much of a metanarrative or absolute, universal truth, that we almost slap ourselves in the face to keep from falling back on them and then ignore the fact we never have abandoned those things in the first place. We live in an age where we walk around like intellectual schitzophrenics, tipping back and forth between reason and madness in order to keep walking an impossibly fine line between the good life and no objective truth that overarches all our lives. I've read about the progressive humanist movement that culminated in 1919 with it's own Manifesto, only to have it re-written years later, after another world war and holocaust reflecting progression that turned out to be inverted and very deceptive. I read about the third world revolutionaries that fought against oppresive imperialism only to install a madness and cruelty that hasn't been seen since Ghengis Khan. In the wake of Imperial French reign and an American occupation to follow, the likes of Pol Pot arise as an answer, which left millions of bodies rotting on roads, fields and farmland. Even Jean Paul Sartre, who was considered a much cherished father to many of these movements, recanted his own philosophy upon the tragedy that ensued.

But what really gets me, especially after this last election, is that without Jesus Christ, we have no other choice but to bet on the next huge disappointment. We kid ourselves into thinking we have finally chosen hope, vision and progress knowing. But, really, we prefer the risks that have shown us more incompetence, corruption and malice than to face objective truth, real justice from a power transcendent from ourselves and, most importantly, salvation that provides us the grace and power to actualize alot of the rightly placed judgment we have of the mess we are in. Our private definitions of justice and our campaign to empower our brand of justice over others, is the same thing the Nazi's pursued. We haven't re-heated any ovens yet, but we have already begun to tinker and legally redefine quality of life in terms of how much trouble we are on those who would have to take care of us, whether infant or aged. Our sense of justice was originally intrinsic part of our evidence for God. But, as Paul apply stated in Romans 1, instead of giving credit where credit is due, we decided to become stupid, seek our own self-interest and in the process, God has given us exactly what we desired. Our sense of political justice has not filled a void, but has revealed our foolishness.

On the other hand, conservatives wish to use the church to forward their political agenda. It doesn't matter which side I am on. The church is not a means to a political end. And I can promise that if you treat her that way, the worm will turn on you. Just ask Ralph Reed. There is nothing more sad and pathetic than someone who is staunchly conservative yet happens to be Christian. When you replace the eternal spring of life from a committed relationship with Jesus Christ with a political agenda as the main course, then life becomes vaccuous and stale. And when life gets that way, the urge to hide it behind saccarine smiles false contentment and puritanical tendencies kicks up a notch. Any criticism will be met with resistance that comes from a manipulative urge to control what was ultimately in His hands and never controlable by you in the first place. I am a huge fan of Francis Schaeffer, and his work in the late 70's and early 80's using his films and books to promote biblical Christian worldview and principles was awesome and probably added to the huge wave that knocked out a liberal president and congress in 1980. But within a few short years, those who won the battle had begun a slow decent in losing the war by placing the political cart before the horse and using the pulpit as a political means, rather than a source of Good News and reason for a hurting world.

Our Bankrupt Alternatives
Blaise Pascal stated that we all have a God-shaped hole in our center that can only be filled by Him and until we do, we are restless. Augustine of Hippo stated that our hearts are restless until we find rest in Him. Jesus told us that in Him we have rest for our souls, in the midst of living our lives no matter how hard they may be. But we are far too clever for that. I tried to find out how much money Cornell, the US government and private industry and philanthropists have spent on SETI (search for extra-terrestrial intelligence) since it started. I still don't know, but I assume billions is not too big a word for it. The task of SETI was stated by one of it's prophets, Carl Sagan, when he was teaching at Cornell, when he said that all they needed was one single message from outside of our world....just one message. Then we will have the answer to the vexing question of intelligence outside of humanity in our universe. Yet, all the while, Watson and Crick's discovery nearly 25 years earlier had spawned research into DNA in which we have discovered that a single strand of this complex structure contains over 600,000 pages of coded information. Yet SETI waits for pulses from Andromeda....so we can find some evidence of extra-human intelligence. Like Paul called us years ago...fools, with our hearts darkened and dead to the things of God.

Science hasn't disproven the existence of God. It hasn't even made a dent in the argument for God, as can be witnessed in debate after debate. Within the past 40 years, major universities have seen, not the death of God, but a rise in numbers of extraordinary minds forging new fields in Christian thought, whether it be Dallas Willard at USC, Alvin Plantinga at Notre Dame or Richard Swinburne at Cambridge. These men will tell you they stand on the shoulders of giants....those cast aside at the advent of Kant and Darwin, but recently re-earthed and presented again as an alternative to the philosophically bankrupt pursuit of modern naturalism and scientism, resting on both Kant's agnosticism and Darwin's theory of natural selection. And their work has spawned new interest in Christian philosophy, Christian thought in all professional areas.

In the meantime, Discovery Channel, et al, still think the underlying philosophy of verificationism...the theory that even finds itself as the basic, fundamental assumption in Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, is still viable even though it has been debunked and considered shelved for almost 60 years (Einstein's Theory is remarkable and useful in understanding time-space dynamics, but denies the existence of absolute space and time for no other reason than because Einstein was a fan of Ernst Mach and Mach was prophet for empericism/verificationism, which denies anything that isn't verified. It turns out that maybe Lorentz had a better handle on these things after all).

Even the theory of evolution has been retained as superior over intelligent design, even though it's own rationality is undermined by the very theory (no scientific explanation guaranteeing or even improving probabilities of correlation between accurate beliefs and behavior). But the general public (fans of Good Morning America, Oprah and People Magazine) believe this debate has been over for years and the only good Christians are those that don't seriously believe in God as a real knowledge claim.

And yet...violence in schools...political and corporate corruption on unimaginable scales...redefining quality of life at the margins of human development...farming of body parts for profit...divorce, abuse, neglect at all time highs. As technology improves each year, our depravation reaches new heights and technology has turned its attention to hiding our shame than improving our lives. Great minds in research and business come together and cure....baldness and a limp weinee. Homosexuality is being forced on a public that constantly votes against measures to make it equal to hetersexuality...but the broken and torn up lives of spouses, children, mothers and fathers, in the wake of a loved one 'coming out' is totally ignored. And as candidates drone on about nothing, their accumen is weighed in terms of delivery, rather than content. We are adrift on a sea towards nowhere but nowhere gets darker each year. And as it gets darker, our voyeristic interest in famous people's private lives gets more and more accelerated. Someone may know that Madonna and A-Rod say they are just friends, that Jennifer Aniston's year is 2009 or that little Suri Cruise is turning heads in Europe. But that same person may be unaware that their son has tried meth for the first time...that their spouse has been entrusting themselves to a co-worker instead of them or that their daughter's depression is causing her self-mutilation to spiral.

His Kingdom Hasn't Been Slowed

Jesus Christ isn't just the best answer for life. He's the only answer out there. Everything we have come up with has either slowly turned on us or fizzled into oblivion. It all looks clean, happy and together for public consumption. But we all hurt. We all have our secrets that, if they were revealed, we'd be suicidal. We are all hiding behind a mask to keep up appearances. But those broken with nothing left to lose and who have recklessly abandoned themselves to Jesus Christ seem crazy or weak or stupid to us. But they are the heirs of His Kingdom. They know His voice and they follow Him. They don't have it together. They are probably not going to attend the inaugural parties. Many are simply forgotten shadows in a world drunk with ambition and desire. But He knows them, calls them and will make them co-heirs with Jesus. The unwanted, undesirable and hopeless who realize it and have turned over everything they are to Him....whether they be homeless or the CEO...recognize that outside of Him, there is no meaning, no purpose and no value, even to things that should have them.

That's because He created the show, allowed us to stray, then sacrificed more than we will ever know to give us a way back to Him, if we so choose. And once we do that, we can have life....real life, not the facade. And we can begin to truly make a dent in this ugly place. It is happening now. Did you know that last year in Pakistan, more Muslims accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior than ever before? Did you know that churches are exploding in places like Korea, China, Southeast Asia and Africa....and that most of them are preceded by miracles? The Kingdom of God is more active and vibrant in our world now, than it was when the events that took place in the book of Acts. We can't see it because it is too fantastic for our consideration. We have educated ourselves and entertained ourselves into a drunken stupor. The UK, Germany and France have seen Christianity marginalized. But in Bhutan, Pakistan and Thailand Jesus is afoot and taking this world by storm. I realize that this probably will never happen, but mathematically, if you take the rate of conversions to Jesus Christ from 1970 to now and then extend it another 30 years, every living person will be a believer in Jesus Christ as Lord? We live in astounding times, well hidden by our own diversions and foolish thinking.

My Own Conversion

The day I gave everything I was to Jesus Christ, was also the worst day of my entire life. The minute I gave my life to Him, my own son's life slipped through our fingers. For me, I had to be brought to my absolute bare minimum in order to give up my well thought out strategies for survival, desires to become famous or infamous...all my diversions...I gave up what I began working on since I was a little boy when I first experienced the coldness of this life for the first time....laid it down and cried out to Him. But unlike testimonies you hear from many, it was not a day that I mark down as one of gladness. I had new life in Christ and a son to bury. He was born premature and remained very sick for over 9 months. We were in and out of the hospital and the amount of poking, prodding, medicating and cutting they had to do on Jamie was too much for him and he died October 25, 1996. Prior to Jamie's death, I had been reading alot and delving more into Christianity and the Bible. But it was pretty much a veiled mystery to me...far out of reach. It wasn't until early morning of the 25th of October, that He invaded my life, turned on the light switch and became my friend, my teacher and my savior. It was the best day and the worst day. And, yes, as David said, if my son can't come to me, I will go to him. In the meantime, I experience a lifetime of growing and learning from the One who salvaged me 12 years ago and I have never looked back, through thick and flush.

Ever since that day, I have struggled to communicate what He has done for me since then, all the while realizing that unless He invades your life, He will remain a veiled mystery hidden behind all of your diversions, hangups and masks. You have no idea how clever you are. It takes an enormous amount of thinking, strategy and energy to plan out everything from how to keep yourself from getting hurt by others, how to protect what you have, get more and continue to appear content for a watching public. It doesn't matter if your story begins in kindergarten when the bully teased you for the first time, or if you were abandoned by Mom and Dad completely or if the neighborhood kids excluded you from fun and games. At some point, the ugly of this world hits a very young person and the project for protection and significance begins, built entirely on mistrust and self interest. And until we find Jesus Christ at the end of our rope, we continue into the grave.

He told us that He knocks at the door and is ready to enter, if we let Him in. I don't know what you are going through. How could I? But I know you are going through a mess, whether it is of your own making, of someone else's making in which you inheret it or something in between. I want you to know that I understand how hard it is to accept Jesus Christ's message. But after October 25, 1996, I know why it is so hard....and it isn't because it is impossible to believe. It's because it costs too much for us. But after October 25, 1996, I can also tell you that the real cost is in not running to Him now. What may seem to you as a reasonable way of life...is actually a cleverly disguised way to hide pain, disappointment and destructiveness. He offers you real rest....real peace....not the kind you are accustomed to, but peace that is beyond understanding. When you see some of us praising God in the middle of horrible circumstances...we aren't being pollyanish or naive. We recognize that whatever has been taken from us will grow us closer to the One who calls us every day and give us the strength to withstand whatever He has for us to deal with. There is nothing we want more than to be closer to Him and to adjust our lives where He wants us to adjust.

He knocks, just like He has every Christmas before. Open the door, give all you have to Him and realize that this holiday isn't just a religious observance. It is celebration of when God came in human flesh to dwell among men. In Luke 4 He introduces Himself by quoting Isaiah:

"He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

If He hadn't come, we would all be a hopeless bunch.

He loves you more than you will ever know or understand.

He patiently waits for you to open your heart and let Him in.

There is no safer place in this universe, regardless of what your circumstances are.

Merry Christmas!

Ravi Zacharias on God and Science

2008-12-19T09:41:00.000-08:00

this is good...but pay close attention to the story of the Vietnamese interpreter who found Ravi in the US 17 years after their ministry together in Vietnam.

Intermission - Camile Paglia on Obama & Palin

2008-11-18T07:10:00.000-08:00

Given that Obama had served on a Chicago board with Ayers and approved funding of a leftist educational project sponsored by Ayers, one might think that the unrepentant Ayers-Dohrn couple might be of some interest to the national media. But no, reporters have been too busy playing mini-badminton with every random spitball about Sarah Palin, who has been subjected to an atrocious and at times delusional level of defamation merely because she has the temerity to hold pro-life views.

How dare Palin not embrace abortion as the ultimate civilized ideal of modern culture? How tacky that she speaks in a vivacious regional accent indistinguishable from that of Western Canada! How risible that she graduated from the University of Idaho and not one of those plush, pampered commodes of received opinion whose graduates, in their rush to believe the worst about her, have demonstrated that, when it comes to sifting evidence, they don't know their asses from their elbows.

Liberal Democrats are going to wake up from their sadomasochistic, anti-Palin orgy with a very big hangover. The evil genie released during this sorry episode will not so easily go back into its bottle. A shocking level of irrational emotionalism and at times infantile rage was exposed at the heart of current Democratic ideology -- contradicting Democratic core principles of compassion, tolerance and independent thought. One would have to look back to the Eisenhower 1950s for parallels to this grotesque lock-step parade of bourgeois provincialism, shallow groupthink and blind prejudice.

I like Sarah Palin, and I've heartily enjoyed her arrival on the national stage. As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is -- and quite frankly, I think the people who don't see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn't speak the King's English -- big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist. I stand on what I said (as a staunch pro-choice advocate) in my last two columns -- that Palin as a pro-life wife, mother and ambitious professional represents the next big shift in feminism. Pro-life women will save feminism by expanding it, particularly into the more traditional Third World.

As for the Democrats who sneered and howled that Palin was unprepared to be a vice-presidential nominee -- what navel-gazing hypocrisy! What protests were raised in the party or mainstream media when John Edwards, with vastly less political experience than Palin, got John Kerry's nod for veep four years ago? And Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, for whom I lobbied to be Obama's pick and who was on everyone's short list for months, has a record indistinguishable from Palin's. Whatever knowledge deficit Palin has about the federal bureaucracy or international affairs (outside the normal purview of governors) will hopefully be remedied during the next eight years of the Obama presidencies.

The U.S. Senate as a career option? What a claustrophobic, nitpicking comedown for an energetic Alaskan -- nothing but droning committees and incestuous back-scratching. No, Sarah Palin should stick to her governorship and just hit the rubber-chicken circuit, as Richard Nixon did in his long haul back from political limbo following his California gubernatorial defeat in 1962. Step by step, the mainstream media will come around, wipe its own mud out of its eyes, and see Palin for the populist phenomenon that she is.

The entire article can be found here:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/11/12/palin/index.html

Postmodernism: A Sentence Rather than a Foundation - Part 3

2008-10-30T05:04:00.000-07:00

Proverbs 28:26:
Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered

"You can change your beliefs so they empower your dreams and desires. Create a strong belief in yourself and what you want." - Marcia Wieder

Either Proverbs is wrong and Marcia is right, or its the other way around, but they cannot both be right. If you are committed to postmodernism, you might consider both of them right, in order to either avoid conflict or further your cause. In either case, it is all boiled down to power struggles. Postmodernism is such a dry term and bantered around like it was a satellite channel or an expensive magazine periodical. In fact, instead of treating it like I did scientific naturalism, I'll just stick with the familiar and see if I can make my point. But we are all taking it in and breathing it out, so my goal is to at least point it out, what it means, and then you can agree or disagree.

Before I do, I have to summarize where we are with modern science. All modern science is guided by Principle of Verification and Falsification. But that has to exclude an enormous portion of life, including both principles, since they fail their own test. It leads to a reductionism that sometimes also leads to dehumanization. When human beings are reduced to animals, minds to brains, etc., the value is drained and a door is opened to alot of very scary stuff. But because the philosophy that underguirds modern science is too restrictive to live out, in addition to being self refuting, hardly any scientifically minded people live it out too consistently, with few exceptional cases like B.F. Skinner, as one example.

Most others turn to postmodernism to escape this reductionism without having to consider Jesus Christ's Gospel. In some cases, Christians turn to postmodernism, as a means to avoid rejection as well as respond against abusive Christians. In fact, because of postmodernisms advent into alot of the church, an entire political reshaping of our country is taking place as I type this. It is basically a return to the democratic party and liberalism but is touted as a change we have never experienced. I am very skeptical, but time will tell.

Postmodernism has actually provided some good things in that it has fought against scientific reductionism and tried to induce a value system of some sort, as a stop gap means of keeping us all civil and happy. Politically, it has tried to keep other people from manipulating and forcing themselves onto others. Literararily, it has tried to encourage and empower people to think and apply rather than to blindly submit without question. Artistically, it has given us some great music, architecture and cinema...alot of which I am a huge junkie. But just because postmodernism has good points, the bad far outweigh the good. Naziism provided a strong education system, employment and national pride, but should anyone conclude it was anything other than a horrific political movement? Of course not! That is, unless you are a consistent moral relativist, in which case, who's to say?

What Does It Mean?
Postmodernism is hard to define because there are so many offshoots, tributaries and different academic disciplines that fall under it. A good way to look at it is this: postmodernism believes:

1) If there is a reality out there, we can't get to it because of our bias.
2) Rationality is simply sentences. Where there is no language, there is no truth.
3) Truth is relative to other truths in your social setting. So long as it coheres to them, it is true.
4) Like modern science, there are no universals, like redness, roundness.
5) If there is a "reality" it is really reduced to a social construct that can be deconstructed.
6) There are no absolute truths, only relative truths, based on social considerations.
7) Scientific naturalism is correct, in that the only actual knowledge is emperical knowledge.
8) By changing language, individuals, groups, societies can be empowered.

I am sure alot of these things have a ring of familiarity or are even things we hold dear. But they are false. Not only that, by holding to them, we throw out the baby with the bathwater and exchange fears of what we want to avoid with greater evils that were unintended. Alot of the 20th century is a historical case in point.

Regarding personal bias and getting to reality: postmodern folks deny that it is possible for a person to make an objective judgement discerning between good and bad information. Every decision is hopelessly clouded by personal bias and restrictions of sense perception that keeps us from ever getting to 'the thing in itself'. Postmodernists get confused between psychological objectivity (being emotionally committed to something) and rational objectivity (being able to objectively discern something). You can be psychologically biased and make an objectively rational decision. It's usually called making a decision even though you may not like it. Once more, psychological objectivity isn't necessarily a good thing either. How good would it be to maintain psychological objectivity for Naziism or cancer? Of course it wouldn't be good at all. Can you make objective decisions without psychological objectivity? You sure can, despite postmodern theory. That means reality is out there and we can know something about it, despite any bias, and the fact that sometimes we do that begrudglingly is a sign that psychological bias isn't too high a wall to scale.

Postmodernists also are big into language....so much that truth is really language...sentences, actually. They believe that truth is comprised of sentences that obey arbitrary cultural linguistic rules. What that means is that unless someone speaks it, writes it or reads it, there is no such thing as truth. What's wrong with this? Can you hold to a truth or fact in your mind without associating language with it? Sure you can. I could give several examples. First of all, when you show an apple to a baby, then point to a picture of an apple in a book, that baby associates the thing with the picture, absent language. It isn't an apple because the baby said it was....the baby can't speak any language yet, but she can know what an apple is. Truth is not bound by language.

They also believe that if you want to talk about truth, the only way you can, in meaningful terms, is in the context of how well one belief or proposition coheres with all other beliefs or propositions in your social context. For example, if you are a Buddhist and believe that there is no soul, that would cohere to other Buddhist believes about suffering, self discipline as defined by the Eight Fold Path, etc. It would cohere and since it coheres, it would be true....for you. However, it would not cohere for a Christian since Christians beliefs would not cohere to a 'no soul' theory and so it wouldn't be true for them. But there is a problem with coherence theory for truth...if all truth is defined by how well it coheres with my other beliefs, how can one know if the coherence theory of truth is true? Especially, how can it be true if it doesn't cohere to my other core beliefs and does it end up trying to be a transcendent, absolute truth above all other belief systems, against basic postmodern principles? You see how faulty coherence as a primary truth test becomes? You can believe something false and it will cohere with other beliefs. For example, say John believes he is a Ninja Turtle and that he further believes that everyone who says he is not is conspiring against him. John would have consistent beliefs that were false. Coherence just doesn't work as a truth test.

They also reject universals. They hold to what is known as nominalism or extreme nominalism. All that means is that they believe there is really no such thing as redness, for example. They believe that what we call 'redness' is having something appear to us a certain way we describe with a word 'red' and nothing more. They also reject essentialism. Essentialism means that something is essentially what it is, regardless of how many changes it goes through. Francis Magnolia Nowlin was the same person in 1918 as she was in 1996 as my grandmother, even though she aged, her hair color changed, all her cells had been replaced many times over, etc. Postmodernists would reject essentialism and say that my idea of Francis Magnolia Nowlin was defined in my mind and that as she changed, there was no surviving 'essence' of that woman. It is basic and self evident that substances, like self and other people, endure through change. It makes no sense and goes against basic understanding to reject essentialism. But this is a postmodern commitment.

They believe that reality is reduced to a social construction. Your reality as an American Democrat is different from the reality from a Sudanese farmer. It's true that these two examples have vastly different cultures, experiences and backgrounds. However, the 24 hour day, changing weather, birth, death, aspirations, etc., are common and transcend all local experiences, cultures and backgrounds. There is an over-arching reality that contains us all and it is also self evident, contrary to the belief of social construction of reality. There are absolute truths, despite postmodern relativism, because simply asserting there are no absolute truths is itself an absolute, universal truth. I can't really see why I need to address that much further because it is so self evident. If someone ever tells you there is no absolute truth, ask them if they are absolutely sure. But make sure you buy their lunch for them, because they may get agitated. Sometimes truth hurts.

They side with scientific naturalism in that the only possible experts out there are those that deal with emperical knowledge. You can have experts on the topic of physics, biology or chemistry. But there can be no experts on God, theology, morality, politics, etc. That's because all those things are not based on emperical knowledge. That is why Oprah can be just as much of an expert on Jesus' teachings as Louis Berkoff. Peter Jennings can provide just as much of a detailed trace of the historical Jesus as the Apostle John. It's also why political programs are like a food fight. It's not a matter of facts and knowledge, but opinion and perception of things that cannot be emperically verified or falsified.

The last item is something I will deal with in the next section, because all these philosophical ideas and beliefs the postmodernist accepts and proposes is, to a great measure, to obtain to the last item, self empowerment and/or the goal to keep other dominant individuals or groups from manipulating or dominating non-dominant groups. There is an ethic to it, but without a proper grounding in truth and knowledge, it will end up in chaos. With the empowerment movement in this country, it can already be seen.

What it looks like in your life...
If you try to consistently live as if objective truth about reality was unattainable, then what is left is raw power. Power in politics, power in vocation, power in...everything. It is winner take all. However, the postmodern goal is to make sure people don't use language and societal constructs to run over anybody and that through changing language and subsequently our thinking, we can empower the weak and protect them from the strong. But that hasn't happened. It has turned all of life into the Orange Bowl. You end up with billions of vested interests competing in the market place of ideas, each one vying to overturn the prevailing view. You have postmodern thinkers who deny dichotomous thinking (right/wrong, good/bad, protagonist/antagonist) living out dichotomous strategies of claiming power and control. You have Republicans dodging truth to place themselves in a better light. You have Democrats dodging the truth and placing Republicans in the worst possible light. In the end, what matters is who wins. Whoever wins is right and whoever loses is wrong.

The idea of protecting those who can't protect themselves, without realizing who is doing the protecting, turns into granular bedlem and as the pressure of the contest and the pressure of reality begins to tighten, the gloves come off and pretty soon, more damage is caused than what was originally the concern. That's because Jesus was absolutely correct about the human heart:

"But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person." Matthew 15:18-20

What naturally comes out of the human heart? Place human beings under extreme pressure and you can easily tell our nature. It isn't to protect the weak, extole the good and empower the exploited. It's to protect our own butts and how hard and nasty we protect ourselves depends on the pressure placed on us. All the while, we try to do it as if we were innocent and well-meaning people, which means we're habitual liars as well. We recognize what is right and good and even pretend to desire it for others as well as ourselves. However, once the warp and woof of reality set in, we fall off the wagon and begin to excuse ourselves. Postmodernism begins by breaking all its own rules and making sweeping generalizations about human nature....that end up clashing with the evidence.

So, you try to empower the weak to offset the exploiter, and all the sudden, it is you who are the exploiter. You want to end abusive manipulation of the system, by abusively manipulating it yourself. You want to end the reign of tyrants by becoming the worst of their kind. You wish to rescue the company, nation or community from what is considered abusive neglect only to install an abusive neglect of your own and anyone who gets in the way will be demonized. The intentions may have been initially noble ones. But it just never turns out that way, because human nature is not conducive to achiveing those goals, without each individual having a radical change in within their hearts. Only God can do that. No social construct, deconstructed narrative or politically correct legislation can make a dent.

In short, postmodernism seems to have figured out the problem of scientific naturalism, but is far from being a sufficient answer to the problem scientific naturalism brings about (dispassionate reductionism). In fact, it ends up exascurbating it, rather than resolving it. Recognizing what ought to be and our inability to naturally achieve it should cause us a problem...a rather big problem. Only biblical Christianity can provide sufficient answers to the problems postmodernism unwittingly brings about. It provides an answer up against the self-refuting and restrictiveness of scientific naturalism. It also provides condemnation for the original abuses within historical Christendom that were condemned by both scientific naturalists and postmodernists. It is simply left untried because it requires relinquishing autonomy, and we would rather face hell than give that up.

Postmodernism and Emergent/Emerging Church
Because of the recent popularity and political impact, I want to say something about postmodernism within the church. Since 2000, the emergent/emerging church has risen to great success within evangelical Christendom. It's unofficial titular head, Brian McLaren has taken the lead in writing his trilogy prodding a deconstruction and reconstruction of biblical Christianity. Brian McLaren is no philosopher, but has a precommitment to postmodern thought. In his books, McLaren asks Christians to abandon dichotomous thinking, even to the point of no longer distinguishing between absolute truth and relativism, which is impossible to do even if it is easy to write. Needless to say, his ideas are not that great. But there is something in McLaren's work that seems to 'emerge' that is relavent to the emergent/emerging church in general...its precommitment to politics and power as its essential message, with reconstructed biblical Christianity as an aid to that political idealogy.

Because the religious right has been associated with the Republican Party, the emergent/emerging church has taken great effort to disassociate the church with the party. I am actually glad to see that. But what concerns me is the commitment to postmodern ideas, which is manifest in the emergent/emerging church's bottom line, which is political power. Power, because of an abandonment of objective truth, is McLaren's gospel, which is no gospel at all. He defines Jesus as a political liberator, which he certainly was not...He was much more...making politics in general a side bar to what His real purpose is. But this is nothing new. It is the picture painted of Jesus by Liberation Theology, which has Marxist roots. Liberation Theology is interested, primarily, with political empowerment of minorities and exploited peoples, and using Jesus, rather incidentally, as the vehicle of choice to help obtain that political power. Truth, particularly the truth of the Gospel, is not even incidental, but an arbitrary vehicle.

I hope the reader can understand where I am going with this. When it comes to style of worship or the casual encouragement of many of these churches, I am in full favor. I am actually a proponent of localized worship styles, individuality in preaching and to be as comfortable in church as possible. The idea of starched shirts and hard pews is sort of sadistic to me. I also like the disdain of marrying politics to Jesus. Politics are the matters of men and pass away through time. Jesus' Kingdom reigns forever. Rather, my problem is the content of the message and the philosophical foundations that underguird it. Jesus is a person and His Gospel is a personal relationship with that person, living in His Kingdom now, through accepting His finished work on the cross, done on behalf of those who accept that work and Him personally. Politics is incidental to that, not the foundation and goal behind it. When you get that backwards, you are no longer a follower of Christ but a follower of man. And we can see history littered with those results.

Because of their recent power, I attribute the outcome of the election to their work. They will be the reason the religious right has lost alot of steam. Maybe that is a good thing. The religious right tended to worship conservative politics over Jesus, just as the emergent/emerging church has worshiped liberal politics over Jesus. They have taken all the worst aspects of conservative Christianity, adopted it for themselves, to fight conservative Christianity and have exchanged the frying pan for fire. There has never been a political season more charged with contentless language. Nothing is defined and presentation is all that matters. We will see if reseating liberal politics in power is really a change that is unfamiliar to the people of the United States, rather than just another stab at power lost in 1980. Time will tell. But because of the postmodern state of mind, we can see power as the remaining factor when the baby and the bathwater are thrown out.

In Part 4, I will conclude with this series by presenting the Biblical foundation as not the best alternative to scientific naturalism and postmodernism, but the only alternative that exists.