After some recent political rants, I want to return to some theology. What is my theology of providence? What about suffering? The million dollar question is why do good people suffer? The most consistent challenge to belief in God has been the problem of evil and human suffering. The essential beliefs Christians hold about the nature of God seem incompatible with the evil that is so prevalent in the world. We believe that God is good (omnibenevolent), all knowing (omniscient), and powerful (omnipotent). The difficulties are, therefore, if God is good, and loves humans beings, why doesn’t He always act to deliver those He loves from suffering? And, if God is all-powerful, is it not reasonable to expect Him to deliver His people from suffering? Without dismissing these concerns, a better question for people of faith might be, what can God accomplish by allowing suffering? Human survival is one answer. For example, pain exists as a biological warning system. If I place my hand into a fire, I will recoil, but imagine the horrific result if my hand felt no pain! Pain and suffering often lead to growth in knowledge and power. Athletes know that temporary pain will lead to a stronger body. The world needs a system of ordered regularities – the “laws of nature.” Pain is the price of an ordered universe and human free will. Also, is it true that a good person must necessarily always stop pain when they have the power to do so? For example, when my mother first took me for immunizations, the needle being jabbed into my arm hurt! I was suffering, and my mother did nothing to stop it. So, was she a good mother or a bad mother?
Here are some central questions. Can God be in control of some things without constantly being in control of everything? Do humans have free will in a created order governed by God? What is the nature of divine sovereignty? Is it to alleviate personal suffering on an individual basis, or is there a higher purpose? Scripture provides some answers to these questions. When God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac in Genesis 22, it was to teach Abraham that freedom from suffering is less important than God’s covenant. The story of Joseph, and his rationale to his brothers is Genesis 50, teaches that the suffering of individual people sometimes brings about good for God’s collective people. Job teaches that we are God’s, to do with as He pleases. “Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me” (Job 41:11). God is our Creator. He graciously gives us life, and every breath is a gift from Him. I have no “right” to expect one more breath! In the New Testament, the example of Christ teaches us that freedom from suffering is less important than God’s redemption of the world. In John 9 Jesus’ disciples ask him why a certain man was born blind. Did he sin, or did his parents sin? “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (John 9:3).
Can we make deals with God? This question is not often asked as bluntly, but it is asked implicitly. The belief that good people should not suffer because of their own righteousness is rampant in both Jewish and Christian life. Many people of faith believe that they should be able to avoid the calamities that afflict the less pious. This, in essence, is attempting to make a “deal” with God – “I’ll do what you want so that you will do what I want.” Believers, as well as non-believers, seek to reconcile the existence of God with the fact that good people suffer. But an equally appropriate question is, “Why shouldn’t good people suffer?” Rabbi Harold Kushner once asked, in this regard, “Should a pious person be able to go out on a freezing night without a jacket and not get sick?” And yet many Jews and Christians believe that if one observes God’s laws it is therefore unjust for the righteous to suffer. But unjust according to who’s definition of justice? This attitude may help to explain why unjust suffering can be so devastating to people’s faith. For many religious people, the problem of how a just, loving, and powerful Creator can allow terrible injustices is compounded by their belief that if they suffer while doing good, God has reneged on a “deal” with them. But the purpose of religion is to change the behavior of the believer, not God’s behavior. God will reward good and punish evil in the afterlife, not necessarily in this life. If God always rewards the righteous in this life, then the opposite must also be true – suffering is punishment from God. This belief is as prevalent as it is wrongheaded and cruel. I have heard Christians tell people who are suffering that if they prayed more and got closer to God their suffering would be alleviated! This belief renders the question, “Why do good people suffer?” self-contradictory. Those who believe that being righteous will protect them from suffering have already answered the question – if you suffer, you’re not a good person! The answer is not to make deals, but to understand God’s providence. Divine providence is rooted in the character of God, particularly His love. God’s desire to love and to be loved caused Him to create, and His continual desire to love causes Him to interact with that creation. Out of His love, God created humans as moral free agents because virtue cannot be coerced. Divine providence does not imply a tyrannical God who controls the universe at every level. In His great love, God has granted to humanity the power to choose its own destiny through choices. For me, a “puppetmaster” God negates the concept of love (for further guidance watch “Bruce Almighty”). Our understanding of providence provides answers to the tragedies of life by informing the Christian community that love is central to the nature and character of God, and love implies risk since refusal to control another being is a demonstration of love for that being. The outcome of God’s work in the world is not a foregone conclusion since God’s actions are predicated on human decisions. Even His plan for the redemption of humanity had the potential for failure because it depended on choice. In a Christian sense, providence means that God is more concerned with the eternal state of humanity than our temporal level of comfort. This understanding of divine providence is inextricably intertwined with the theology of creation. If God refuses to act as a universal tyrant, determining through foreknowledge, the course of every event, then the world He created necessarily has the potential to evolve freely. In such a system, humans have the intrinsic capacity to commit evil. The dialectic of good and evil is built into creation from the beginning. In a sense, God’s great love makes Him subject to His own creation. He is grieved when evil is committed, He changes His mind when pressed, and He is moved to act when we approach Him in prayer. Believing that God is tied to His creation because of love has implications for how we interact with creation. Any view of providence must dismiss the Deistic view that God has created, and then moved on, never interacting with His creation, but rather watching from afar. On the other end of the theological spectrum, determinism also tends to negate the love of God. In a word, I believe in free will because of LOVE.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
The Internet is in Danger
I won't go into too much depth here, but you need to know that the machinery is in motion to turn the operational control of the Internet over to the United Nations. It's "unfair" for the U.S. to control all this information and technology. Where can this go? Let's consider for just a moment the document that Bill Clinton called the greatest document ever written by man in support of human rights and freedom. That would the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document is supposed to be the great international blueprint for human rights around the world. The document says that it represents “a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations.” Does the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights protect free speech? Well, in a word, yes it does. Article 19 says that everyone has a right to freedom of opinion and expression. So far, so good. The declaration also says that everyone has a right to rest and leisure and a right to a standard of living. Interesting. It also says that all mothers and children are entitled to “special care and assistance.” Problematic to say the least, but let's go to Article 29 Paragraph 3. “These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.”
Do you need to read that again? This one clause negates every single right recognized in this so-called “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” You have no freedom of speech. You have no freedom of expression. You have no right to property. You have no right to your precious “standard of living” - you have nothing if your exercise of those rights interferes with the goals of the United Nations.
Now, back to the Internet. When the United Nations gains control just how far will it go? Will it start censoring the Internet to make sure that nobody posts any information or opinions that might interfere with the “purposes and principles” of the United Nations? There is talk, for instance, of a world-wide income tax to fund U.N. operations. Would I be allowed to post an opinion in opposition to this scheme? Are you worried? You should be, especially when you consider that more Americans are concerned about Tom Cruise impregnating Katie Holmes!
Do you need to read that again? This one clause negates every single right recognized in this so-called “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” You have no freedom of speech. You have no freedom of expression. You have no right to property. You have no right to your precious “standard of living” - you have nothing if your exercise of those rights interferes with the goals of the United Nations.
Now, back to the Internet. When the United Nations gains control just how far will it go? Will it start censoring the Internet to make sure that nobody posts any information or opinions that might interfere with the “purposes and principles” of the United Nations? There is talk, for instance, of a world-wide income tax to fund U.N. operations. Would I be allowed to post an opinion in opposition to this scheme? Are you worried? You should be, especially when you consider that more Americans are concerned about Tom Cruise impregnating Katie Holmes!
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
American Myths – for the Thinking Person
In keeping with the theme of this blog – “hostility toward every form of tyranny over the mind of man,” I would like to correct what, in my opinion, are three American myths. Let’s work backwards.
Myth # 1: George W. Bush is a conservative.
Don’t get me wrong. I like George Bush. Sure, he’s an evangelical Christian, and he has an “R” next to his name, but conservative? By what definition of conservative? Radical leftists and socialists call him conservative, but this only serves to demonstrate that anyone can be “conservative” or “liberal,” depending on what they believe in relation to you. So what non-conservative things is “W” guilty of?
Cozying up to the Clintons.
Support for moderate rather than conservative Republicans in state primaries.
Allowing Ted Kennedy to write the education bill.
Throwing obscene amounts of money at education – something the imperial federal government has no business in.
The Medicare prescription drug benefit – an unnecessary and bloated entitlement.
Too few tax cuts.
Micromanaging an armchair war in Iraq – and making a mess of it.
Throwing Israel under the bus with the “road map” to peace, including pressuring the Gaza pullout.
Throwing vast amounts of money at Katrina relief.
Being the biggest spender in all of U.S. history – he has not vetoed a single spending bill, including the pork-laden highway bill.
Being AWOL on border security.
Signing the Campaign Finance Reform bill – a brutal assault on the 1st Amendment.
Myth # 2: Republicans are racist while Democrats care for blacks.
Going way back, the Republicans (Lincoln) freed the slaves, and 100 years later Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act despite severe Democratic opposition in the Senate. The Democratic Party had a stranglehold on the south during the 50’s and 60’s – they (Gov. Wallace) were the ones blocking the school door, while Republicans (Eisenhower) forced integration. Today, Democrats still keep blacks on the plantation of dependency, and the results are disastrous – see recent events in New Orleans. Affirmative action, likewise, smacks of the bigotry of low expectations.
I could go on, but due to all the banter about Bush’s Supreme Court nominees, the next myth is the real issue I want to get to.
Myth # 3: The Dred Scott Supreme Court decision of 1857 prolonged slavery and declared the intrinsic worth of blacks to be less than that of whites by way of the infamous two-fifths clause.
Please, I beg you, continue to read! Why? Because George W. Bush has already appointed 2 justices to the Supreme Court – people who will profoundly affect our lives for decades. Bush said, in one of the 2004 presidential debates, that he would never appoint someone who would rule the same as the Dred Scott decision. I understand that was code language to pro-life evangelicals, but Dred Scott was a GOOD decision. “How?” you ask. “How, by declaring a black person to be the equivalent of only two-fifths of a white person, was that a good decision?” This does not mean, as modern school textbooks assert, that a black person, as an individual, was thought to be intrinsically worth less than a white person. It had to do with a fight between the northern and the southern states over the issue of political representation in Congress. The south wanted to count its blacks as whole persons to increase its power because representation in Congress is apportioned on the basis of population. The northern states wanted blacks to count for nothing - not for the purpose of rejecting their humanity, but to maintain an anti-slavery northern majority in the Congress. It was a Pennsylvania abolitionist, James Wilson, who proposed the three-fifths compromise. The effect was to limit the south’s political representation and its ability to protect the institution of slavery. Even Frederick Douglass called the three-fifths clause “a downright disability laid upon the slaveholding states which deprived them of two-fifths of their natural basis for representation.”
Just remember, you really have to ask hard questions and dig a little deeper to understand history.
Myth # 1: George W. Bush is a conservative.
Don’t get me wrong. I like George Bush. Sure, he’s an evangelical Christian, and he has an “R” next to his name, but conservative? By what definition of conservative? Radical leftists and socialists call him conservative, but this only serves to demonstrate that anyone can be “conservative” or “liberal,” depending on what they believe in relation to you. So what non-conservative things is “W” guilty of?
Cozying up to the Clintons.
Support for moderate rather than conservative Republicans in state primaries.
Allowing Ted Kennedy to write the education bill.
Throwing obscene amounts of money at education – something the imperial federal government has no business in.
The Medicare prescription drug benefit – an unnecessary and bloated entitlement.
Too few tax cuts.
Micromanaging an armchair war in Iraq – and making a mess of it.
Throwing Israel under the bus with the “road map” to peace, including pressuring the Gaza pullout.
Throwing vast amounts of money at Katrina relief.
Being the biggest spender in all of U.S. history – he has not vetoed a single spending bill, including the pork-laden highway bill.
Being AWOL on border security.
Signing the Campaign Finance Reform bill – a brutal assault on the 1st Amendment.
Myth # 2: Republicans are racist while Democrats care for blacks.
Going way back, the Republicans (Lincoln) freed the slaves, and 100 years later Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act despite severe Democratic opposition in the Senate. The Democratic Party had a stranglehold on the south during the 50’s and 60’s – they (Gov. Wallace) were the ones blocking the school door, while Republicans (Eisenhower) forced integration. Today, Democrats still keep blacks on the plantation of dependency, and the results are disastrous – see recent events in New Orleans. Affirmative action, likewise, smacks of the bigotry of low expectations.
I could go on, but due to all the banter about Bush’s Supreme Court nominees, the next myth is the real issue I want to get to.
Myth # 3: The Dred Scott Supreme Court decision of 1857 prolonged slavery and declared the intrinsic worth of blacks to be less than that of whites by way of the infamous two-fifths clause.
Please, I beg you, continue to read! Why? Because George W. Bush has already appointed 2 justices to the Supreme Court – people who will profoundly affect our lives for decades. Bush said, in one of the 2004 presidential debates, that he would never appoint someone who would rule the same as the Dred Scott decision. I understand that was code language to pro-life evangelicals, but Dred Scott was a GOOD decision. “How?” you ask. “How, by declaring a black person to be the equivalent of only two-fifths of a white person, was that a good decision?” This does not mean, as modern school textbooks assert, that a black person, as an individual, was thought to be intrinsically worth less than a white person. It had to do with a fight between the northern and the southern states over the issue of political representation in Congress. The south wanted to count its blacks as whole persons to increase its power because representation in Congress is apportioned on the basis of population. The northern states wanted blacks to count for nothing - not for the purpose of rejecting their humanity, but to maintain an anti-slavery northern majority in the Congress. It was a Pennsylvania abolitionist, James Wilson, who proposed the three-fifths compromise. The effect was to limit the south’s political representation and its ability to protect the institution of slavery. Even Frederick Douglass called the three-fifths clause “a downright disability laid upon the slaveholding states which deprived them of two-fifths of their natural basis for representation.”
Just remember, you really have to ask hard questions and dig a little deeper to understand history.
Friday, September 23, 2005
Are All Sins Equal in God's Eyes?
Most Christians, particularly Evangelicals, instinctively believe that all sins are equally bad in God's eyes. This, no doubt, stems from our understanding of sin as something that separates one from God. Any sin, no matter how small, separates us from God. In terms of sin and salvation, that is sound Christian doctrine, but still, the belief that all sins are equal in God’s eyes makes little sense. If they were, that would make us humans more just and more intelligent than God. After all, our legal system differentiates between petty theft, speeding, and murder. We even have gradations of murder – 1st and 2nd degree murders. We don’t believe that all crime is equal in the eyes of the law. So, do Catholics who believe it is a sin to use birth control believe that God considers birth control as wrong as murder? Do Jews who believe it is a sin to eat non-kosher food equate doing so with committing rape? Do Evangelicals who believe it is a sin to gamble believe that God views a night at the blackjack table as sinful as abusing a child? For me it is sad when religious people depict God in a way that renders him less intelligent than his creations. Sure, we humans think that murdering a family is worse than taking a stapler home from the office, but God doesn't! The Bible seems to be clear when it comes to the hierarchy of sin. God abhors the deliberate infliction of unjust suffering on fellow human beings. There are some legal differences between the Old and New Testaments (e.g. divorce), but they agree that God hates evil and loves goodness. “Love your neighbor” is the great rule in Judaism and along with love of God (also from the Old Testament) is the central rule of Christianity. God did not destroy Noah's generation because they ate forbidden foods or took home cheap objects from the workplace. He did so because it was violently evil. So to discern what the greatest sin is, we begin with it having to do with evil actions. But that is not the end of it. Even among identical acts of evil, there is one category that I believe is worse than any other: evil committed in God's name. In John 19:11 Jesus told Pilate that those who had delivered him up (the Jewish religious leaders) were “guilty of the greater sin.” It is laughable that Evangelical Christians would continue to believe all sins are equal after Jesus used the phrase, “the GREATER sin.” It betrays a lack of clear thinking.
Friday, September 16, 2005
"I Pledge Allegiance . . ."
If you are a conservative, evangelical Christian and fellow Republican you are probably about to get angry. So, read the quote by Jefferson at the top of this blog. Okay, now read it again. We now have another federal judge who has said that it is a violation of our constitution for a school operated by government to require the students attending that school to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I happen to agree! Why? Because our constitution makes it clear that the government should not engage in a coercive exercise where people, in this case children, who are essentially under the control of government employees must acknowledge God. From 1892 to 1954 the words “under God” were not part of the Pledge. Back then we were not atheist and we were not “kicking God out” of anything as those currently going into irrational convulsions assert.
Here's some history: The pledge was written in 1892 by the socialist Francis Bellamy. He devised it on the occasion of the nation's first celebration of Columbus Day. Its wording omitted reference not only to God but also, interestingly, to the “United States.” It said, "I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” The key words for Bellamy were "indivisible," which recalled the Civil War and the triumph of the Union over states' rights, and "liberty and justice for all," which was supposed to strike a balance between equality and individual freedom. By the 1920s, reciting the pledge had become a ritual in many public schools. The campaign to add "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance was part of the flood of religiosity of the early 1950’s. It's unclear precisely where the idea originated, but one driving force was the Catholic fraternal society the Knights of Columbus. In April 1953, Rep. Louis Rabaut, D-Mich., formally proposed the alteration of the pledge in a bill he introduced to Congress. The "under God" movement didn't take off, however, until the next year, when it was endorsed by George M. Docherty, the minister of the Presbyterian Church in Washington that Eisenhower attended. In February 1954, Docherty gave a sermon - with the president in the pew before him - arguing that apart from "the United States of America," the pledge "could be the pledge of any country." He added, "I could hear little Moscovites repeat a similar pledge to their hammer-and-sickle flag with equal solemnity." Perhaps forgetting that "liberty and justice for all" was not the norm in Moscow, Docherty urged the inclusion of "under God" in the pledge to denote what he felt was special about the United States. The ensuing congressional speeches offered more proof that the point of the bill was to promote religion. The legislative intent of the 1954 act stated that the hope was to "acknowledge the dependence of our people and our government upon the Creator,” and to “deny the atheistic and materialistic concept of communism." In signing the bill on June 14, 1954, Flag Day, Eisenhower delighted in the fact that from then on, "millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty."
This had not always been the case, however. In 1943 Chief Justice Robert Jackson wrote the following when the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to force school children to recite the Pledge: “Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard. There is no mysticism in the American concept of the State or of the nature or origin of its authority. We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
Look, the First Amendment isn’t rocket science. The balance between the Establishment clause and the Free Exercise clause depends on government neutrality. Government, and public schools ARE government, cannot be hostile to religion, and they cannot endorse religion. Agree or disagree, as least you have some facts and historical perspective.
And, one more thing. Should Christians pledge allegiance to any earthly flag or government or nation anyway? Jesus said, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." Caesar (government) may have your money, but only God is entitled to your allegiance and full devotion.
Here's some history: The pledge was written in 1892 by the socialist Francis Bellamy. He devised it on the occasion of the nation's first celebration of Columbus Day. Its wording omitted reference not only to God but also, interestingly, to the “United States.” It said, "I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” The key words for Bellamy were "indivisible," which recalled the Civil War and the triumph of the Union over states' rights, and "liberty and justice for all," which was supposed to strike a balance between equality and individual freedom. By the 1920s, reciting the pledge had become a ritual in many public schools. The campaign to add "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance was part of the flood of religiosity of the early 1950’s. It's unclear precisely where the idea originated, but one driving force was the Catholic fraternal society the Knights of Columbus. In April 1953, Rep. Louis Rabaut, D-Mich., formally proposed the alteration of the pledge in a bill he introduced to Congress. The "under God" movement didn't take off, however, until the next year, when it was endorsed by George M. Docherty, the minister of the Presbyterian Church in Washington that Eisenhower attended. In February 1954, Docherty gave a sermon - with the president in the pew before him - arguing that apart from "the United States of America," the pledge "could be the pledge of any country." He added, "I could hear little Moscovites repeat a similar pledge to their hammer-and-sickle flag with equal solemnity." Perhaps forgetting that "liberty and justice for all" was not the norm in Moscow, Docherty urged the inclusion of "under God" in the pledge to denote what he felt was special about the United States. The ensuing congressional speeches offered more proof that the point of the bill was to promote religion. The legislative intent of the 1954 act stated that the hope was to "acknowledge the dependence of our people and our government upon the Creator,” and to “deny the atheistic and materialistic concept of communism." In signing the bill on June 14, 1954, Flag Day, Eisenhower delighted in the fact that from then on, "millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty."
This had not always been the case, however. In 1943 Chief Justice Robert Jackson wrote the following when the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to force school children to recite the Pledge: “Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard. There is no mysticism in the American concept of the State or of the nature or origin of its authority. We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
Look, the First Amendment isn’t rocket science. The balance between the Establishment clause and the Free Exercise clause depends on government neutrality. Government, and public schools ARE government, cannot be hostile to religion, and they cannot endorse religion. Agree or disagree, as least you have some facts and historical perspective.
And, one more thing. Should Christians pledge allegiance to any earthly flag or government or nation anyway? Jesus said, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." Caesar (government) may have your money, but only God is entitled to your allegiance and full devotion.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
The "Religion of Peace" - at it Again.
For a brief moment today the news media got off the New Orleans story to show us pictures out of Gaza. The last Jew left last night, and turned the lights out, apparantly. The Palestinians looted the Jewish "settlements," and destroyed the synagogues. They ripped the Jewish holy places to pieces by hand! I was overcome, again, with an overwhelming sense of sadness, and then anger. We can't enter mosques because we're dirty, inferior "infidels." British police have to remove their shoes before entering a Muslim home - to arrest suspected bombers! Our soldiers have to wear gloves when handling Korans at Gitmo. Mosques are used as holdouts for insurgents in Iraq, and we dare not bomb them. Has the world gone mad? God help us!
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Church History - What's the Point?
Hello. My name is Charles North, and I am a historian! Wow! I feel so good with that off my chest. Why study church history? Because we are not disconnected from the past, despite the need that every generation has to reinvent the wheel. People a lot smarter than you and I have already given answers to all the questions we are faced with today. “There is nothing new under the Sun.” For us to be purposefully ignorant of history, particularly the people and forces that have shaped the church over the past 2000 years, is just like self-inflicted amnesia or Alzheimer’s. I have just started teaching a Wednesday night series called "Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity." Here are my thoughts from the opening class.
There is a broad cultural shift that is taking place before our eyes. My parents were born in 1952. By the time my kids are adults, that world will have vanished forever. Culture, and technology, and politics, and communication, and travel, and religion have changed more rapidly than we can comprehend, and it aint slowing down. The world we were born into has already vanished, and it is not coming back! There have only been two other times in human history that this has happened – when Rome fell in the 5th century, and the period of Reformation in the 16th century. The world changed in one generation, and we are now living through the same kind of cataclysmic change – and it’s not just technology, it’s the way people think and believe because of the tension between modernism and postmodernism. Modern thinking recognizes that we no longer live in the Dark Ages. We no longer live in a time when magic and superstition make sense. We are a people of logic and reason. We believe that if there is a problem we can solve it through investigation, reason, and science. This is the foundation of American thought – progress toward a better life through science and technology, understanding and knowledge. Newtonian physics gave us the tools to make sense of the world. And then the 20th century happened – WWI, WWII, communism, terrorism, genocide. In the world of science, the theory of relativity unraveled our sense of certainty, and now quantum theory has shown that there can be effect without cause. Human cloning and stem cell research has given us more problems than solutions. So, has the world gotten better through progress? Think of what we’ve seen in New Orleans the past week – human civilization is a precariously thin veneer. Now that we understand so much about diseases, people don’t die anymore? But they do, don’t they? Now that we understand so much about psychology, we don’t have crime anymore? But we do, don’t we? Now that we have science and technology, and people are better educated, our world is more moral, right? No! And the postmoderns say, “Now you’re gettin it.”
The postmodern mindset says life is not about getting smarter, or being more right in this world of rational thinking that has not delivered what it has promised. But we have even gone beyond a postmodern world – we live in a post-Christian world. Christian thinking, and Christian values, and Christian morality are no longer the default mode of western civilization. Think of secular western Europe. People don’t visit those magnificent cathedrals to worship, they go to look at art and architecture. Closer to home, think of when most of you were children. There was nothing to do on Sunday but go to church. Everything was closed. Decent people observed the Sabbath and removed all temptation from those who did not. You prayed in school as routinely as you pledged allegiance to the flag. You memorized the 10 Commandments alongside your multiplication tables. And today? Look around. A few weeks ago Holly and I were talking with her grandmother, and she asked us what we were doing on Sunday evening, and I said, “I’m taking Holly to see a movie.” She stared at me with a blank look, and asked, “a movie -- on a Sunday?” Did you see that just yesterday the California legislature passed a bill allowing homosexuals to marry? I’ve got some bad news for those of you who are politically active in this regard. I’m with you all the way. I think that gay marriage is one of the stupidest and most ungodly ideas around, but we have lost that fight. Gay marriage all across the U.S. is inevitable. That snowball has gotten too big and gained too much momentum – it cannot be stopped. Why? Because we live in a post-Christian world. Christianity is no longer the solo voice, it is one of many voices making up a chorus of confusion.
This is not all bad news. The sooner we can admit that we are no longer under the warm and cozy protection of culture and government, the sooner we can engage the world as a counter-cultural force and practice real evangelism and discipleship the way God intended for us to, and the way the early church did. Right now, most of us are disoriented. Builders, in Medieval Europe, as they prepared to build a cathedral, made elaborate plans to lay out the foundation with the front facing east – towards Jerusalem, the orient. Before sun up, they would drive a stake into the ground that looked like a giant sewing needle, and the builder would peer through the “eye,” waiting for the sun to rise. As the sun peered over the horizen he would move that stake until it faced east. He oriented the foundation. To be disoriented is to be confused about which direction is east. It is to be off balance, unsure of ourselves, unclear over where we have been and where we are going.
To reorient ourselves, we need to return to Jesus’ parting words in Matthew 28:
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" – nothing that happens to us is ever outside the reach of his sovereignty. The good, the bad, the ugly, the ups and the downs – Christ rules!
"Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations" – Our purpose is to convert the world. It is to take the name of Jesus to every corner of the world.
"Surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age" – However we deviate from God’s plan, however we sin, however many times we mess up, we are sustained not by our wisdom, but by the presence of Christ.
But above all, here’s why we ought to study the history of Christianity: Alongside all the noble examples of heroism and faithfulness and discipleship, we also see a full accounting of human wrongdoing. We could respond with despair, or we could say that for 2000 years weak elders and weak deacons and weak preachers have ministered inadequately to weak and broken churches, because though the church is God’s idea and creation, it is made up of people, and people always mess up. But, the past 2000 years proves one thing – the promise of our Saviour has been fulfilled: “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
There is a broad cultural shift that is taking place before our eyes. My parents were born in 1952. By the time my kids are adults, that world will have vanished forever. Culture, and technology, and politics, and communication, and travel, and religion have changed more rapidly than we can comprehend, and it aint slowing down. The world we were born into has already vanished, and it is not coming back! There have only been two other times in human history that this has happened – when Rome fell in the 5th century, and the period of Reformation in the 16th century. The world changed in one generation, and we are now living through the same kind of cataclysmic change – and it’s not just technology, it’s the way people think and believe because of the tension between modernism and postmodernism. Modern thinking recognizes that we no longer live in the Dark Ages. We no longer live in a time when magic and superstition make sense. We are a people of logic and reason. We believe that if there is a problem we can solve it through investigation, reason, and science. This is the foundation of American thought – progress toward a better life through science and technology, understanding and knowledge. Newtonian physics gave us the tools to make sense of the world. And then the 20th century happened – WWI, WWII, communism, terrorism, genocide. In the world of science, the theory of relativity unraveled our sense of certainty, and now quantum theory has shown that there can be effect without cause. Human cloning and stem cell research has given us more problems than solutions. So, has the world gotten better through progress? Think of what we’ve seen in New Orleans the past week – human civilization is a precariously thin veneer. Now that we understand so much about diseases, people don’t die anymore? But they do, don’t they? Now that we understand so much about psychology, we don’t have crime anymore? But we do, don’t we? Now that we have science and technology, and people are better educated, our world is more moral, right? No! And the postmoderns say, “Now you’re gettin it.”
The postmodern mindset says life is not about getting smarter, or being more right in this world of rational thinking that has not delivered what it has promised. But we have even gone beyond a postmodern world – we live in a post-Christian world. Christian thinking, and Christian values, and Christian morality are no longer the default mode of western civilization. Think of secular western Europe. People don’t visit those magnificent cathedrals to worship, they go to look at art and architecture. Closer to home, think of when most of you were children. There was nothing to do on Sunday but go to church. Everything was closed. Decent people observed the Sabbath and removed all temptation from those who did not. You prayed in school as routinely as you pledged allegiance to the flag. You memorized the 10 Commandments alongside your multiplication tables. And today? Look around. A few weeks ago Holly and I were talking with her grandmother, and she asked us what we were doing on Sunday evening, and I said, “I’m taking Holly to see a movie.” She stared at me with a blank look, and asked, “a movie -- on a Sunday?” Did you see that just yesterday the California legislature passed a bill allowing homosexuals to marry? I’ve got some bad news for those of you who are politically active in this regard. I’m with you all the way. I think that gay marriage is one of the stupidest and most ungodly ideas around, but we have lost that fight. Gay marriage all across the U.S. is inevitable. That snowball has gotten too big and gained too much momentum – it cannot be stopped. Why? Because we live in a post-Christian world. Christianity is no longer the solo voice, it is one of many voices making up a chorus of confusion.
This is not all bad news. The sooner we can admit that we are no longer under the warm and cozy protection of culture and government, the sooner we can engage the world as a counter-cultural force and practice real evangelism and discipleship the way God intended for us to, and the way the early church did. Right now, most of us are disoriented. Builders, in Medieval Europe, as they prepared to build a cathedral, made elaborate plans to lay out the foundation with the front facing east – towards Jerusalem, the orient. Before sun up, they would drive a stake into the ground that looked like a giant sewing needle, and the builder would peer through the “eye,” waiting for the sun to rise. As the sun peered over the horizen he would move that stake until it faced east. He oriented the foundation. To be disoriented is to be confused about which direction is east. It is to be off balance, unsure of ourselves, unclear over where we have been and where we are going.
To reorient ourselves, we need to return to Jesus’ parting words in Matthew 28:
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" – nothing that happens to us is ever outside the reach of his sovereignty. The good, the bad, the ugly, the ups and the downs – Christ rules!
"Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations" – Our purpose is to convert the world. It is to take the name of Jesus to every corner of the world.
"Surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age" – However we deviate from God’s plan, however we sin, however many times we mess up, we are sustained not by our wisdom, but by the presence of Christ.
But above all, here’s why we ought to study the history of Christianity: Alongside all the noble examples of heroism and faithfulness and discipleship, we also see a full accounting of human wrongdoing. We could respond with despair, or we could say that for 2000 years weak elders and weak deacons and weak preachers have ministered inadequately to weak and broken churches, because though the church is God’s idea and creation, it is made up of people, and people always mess up. But, the past 2000 years proves one thing – the promise of our Saviour has been fulfilled: “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
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