Today, during pre-marital counseling, the male half of my mentor couple was asking about blogging, and how it's set up, and I explained to him about free online sites like blogger.com and how some blogs were just desultory expositions on what people did during the day ("Today I walked around the Rice village and ran into an old friend") and some are centralized around a specific theme ("Sarah's Southern Cooking Journey" or "Fred's Foray Through Med School" or "Paul's Political Profferings").
He asked, "So why would people read your blog?" (in a general sense) and I said, "Um, because it's awesome?"
Of course, an old friend once told me, "I always thought of you more as a wise ass than a smart ass."
MLIA.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Double Hockey Sticks
In general, people are too quick to distill the Christian faith into a dichotomy of going to heaven or going to hell, and the point of believing in Jesus is to avoid burning for all eternity. That summary builds a religion motivated by fear and misses the central concept of falling in love and pursuing a personal relationship with a mysterious and wonderful God. There's a lot of imagery around heaven and hell that derives more from Dante and Jonathan Edwards than from any biblical text.
But as undesirable as that dichotomy feels, our notions of heaven and hell are very difficult to dismiss, especially in light of the scattered, but dramatic biblical passages about what happens after physical death. In Matthew 13, Jesus describes what He calls "the end of the age": "The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."
There's so much scattered and arcane Scripture that makes reference to "the end times" that Christian eschatologists fill books compiling interpretations of the clues: what the 1299 days from the removal of "the daily sacrifice" to the establishment of "the abomination of desolation" might really mean, or what the number 666 really entails. And what comes of that is a fragmented, piecemeal, and usually terrifying perspective on the afterlife: the sort that spawns novels like the Left Behind series or sermons like "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
In the book Searching For a God to Love, Chris Blake makes a compelling case that the whole "burning in hell" concept espoused by popular Christianity is "the worst lie ever told." He makes the point that a lot of our conception of hell comes from the ancient Jewish mythology of Sheol, the dark underworld, and that a Christian paradigm built on fear is irrational, since the most frequently given biblical command given by God to people is "do not fear" or "be not afraid." Also included is an illustrative story about a man who meets an angel walking down the road. The angel carries a bucket of water in one hand and a torch in the other and when asked, explains that the water is to put out the flames of hell and the torch is to burn down the castles of heaven -- "Then we'll see who really loves God."
There's an artificial contrast here set up between wanting to believe in a desirable God and wanting to believe in a real God, where real is defined by Scriptural inferences. The former mindset says, of course God is good and loving and merciful -- what kind of God would be cruel enough to send your parents or grandparents or best friend to eternal damnation? What kind of God would be impotent or uncaring to save them from a horrible fate? What kind of God do you believe in? And the latter mindset says, well, the Bible objectively mentions heaven and hell, so what kind of idealized, indulgent contrivance of a God are you hoping for, when the Scriptural evidence of judgment is before you? The artifice comes from the fact that our conceptions of heaven and hell are scattered notions at best; we know some things, but not all things, and we know what many Scriptures say, but not what they mean. I had a youth pastor who said he was once convinced that the Apocalypse was coming in the 80's because the winged demons that scoured the earth were clearly the UH-1 Huey helicopters in Vietnam. So to say that our popular paradigm of heaven and hell is objectively Scriptural is a narrowly focused perspective at best: it's like reading the parts of an automobile tech manual about the warning indicators and concluding that the car is inherently a death trap. And the truth that has to come to bear is that God is loving and God is incomprehensible to us: surely in those two truths, we can allow that there may be a truth that satisfies both the Scriptures we read and the God we want to follow.
I think about these things because my grandparents are not believers in Jesus Christ and because they're aging all-too rapidly. I wonder why this circumstance doesn't seem like a pressing issue for people, especially my parents. Why nobody worries about the prospect of old people, our loved ones, perishing eternally. Is it that we think that there are other ways to the Father besides Jesus? Because (with allowances for Romans 1) most of us think there aren't. Is it that we really don't believe in the reality of heaven and hell? Because most of us say that we do. Is it that we don't think we have an integral role to play in the advance of the gospel? Because most of us say we have. Is it that we don't care about our grandparents, our relatives, our friends who have not found salvation in the One we claim to be the only source of salvation?
I know it's bad salesmanship, and worse relationship for that matter, to be pushy about things, but you'd think more people would be showing more concern about their grandparents getting older or even their friends approaching death day by day. You'd think we would be like Paul, who so desired the salvation of the Jewish people that he claimed he would give up his own salvation if it would guarantee theirs. I don't see that most of us are like that. We have a lot of thinking to do to reconcile what we believe about heaven and hell and whether that adds up with any Scriptural basis and how we want to think God would treat our loved ones who are at once sinners in the hands of an angry God and beloved children of a kind Creator and people who mean the world to us. I know in my head that we are all sinners who deserve what we get and that the redemption of Jesus Christ and our promised eternal bliss is an unwarranted mercy, so it's missing the point to blame God; but I think in my heart that my grandparents are good people who shouldn't go to hell and that if they die unsaved, I'll probably be asking God why He didn't make a more foolproof system. Does hell, as we think of it, even exist? If Satan is to be eternally punished, would God really give him his own eternal sovereignty? Either we haven't given it enough thought, we've found resolution for our questions on the matter, or we're desperate and dying on the inside from the encroaching crisis.
And if we're wrapped up about the issue, I think that brings us back to what kind of God we believe in. And the reminder that God is loving and that God is incomprehensible helps me think nothing so specific as, maybe unrepentant sinners won't go to hell, but something more broad and true: that God is loving and God is incomprehensible to us. Surely in those two truths, we can allow that there may be a truth that satisfies both the Scriptures we read and the God we want to follow.
But as undesirable as that dichotomy feels, our notions of heaven and hell are very difficult to dismiss, especially in light of the scattered, but dramatic biblical passages about what happens after physical death. In Matthew 13, Jesus describes what He calls "the end of the age": "The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."
There's so much scattered and arcane Scripture that makes reference to "the end times" that Christian eschatologists fill books compiling interpretations of the clues: what the 1299 days from the removal of "the daily sacrifice" to the establishment of "the abomination of desolation" might really mean, or what the number 666 really entails. And what comes of that is a fragmented, piecemeal, and usually terrifying perspective on the afterlife: the sort that spawns novels like the Left Behind series or sermons like "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
In the book Searching For a God to Love, Chris Blake makes a compelling case that the whole "burning in hell" concept espoused by popular Christianity is "the worst lie ever told." He makes the point that a lot of our conception of hell comes from the ancient Jewish mythology of Sheol, the dark underworld, and that a Christian paradigm built on fear is irrational, since the most frequently given biblical command given by God to people is "do not fear" or "be not afraid." Also included is an illustrative story about a man who meets an angel walking down the road. The angel carries a bucket of water in one hand and a torch in the other and when asked, explains that the water is to put out the flames of hell and the torch is to burn down the castles of heaven -- "Then we'll see who really loves God."
There's an artificial contrast here set up between wanting to believe in a desirable God and wanting to believe in a real God, where real is defined by Scriptural inferences. The former mindset says, of course God is good and loving and merciful -- what kind of God would be cruel enough to send your parents or grandparents or best friend to eternal damnation? What kind of God would be impotent or uncaring to save them from a horrible fate? What kind of God do you believe in? And the latter mindset says, well, the Bible objectively mentions heaven and hell, so what kind of idealized, indulgent contrivance of a God are you hoping for, when the Scriptural evidence of judgment is before you? The artifice comes from the fact that our conceptions of heaven and hell are scattered notions at best; we know some things, but not all things, and we know what many Scriptures say, but not what they mean. I had a youth pastor who said he was once convinced that the Apocalypse was coming in the 80's because the winged demons that scoured the earth were clearly the UH-1 Huey helicopters in Vietnam. So to say that our popular paradigm of heaven and hell is objectively Scriptural is a narrowly focused perspective at best: it's like reading the parts of an automobile tech manual about the warning indicators and concluding that the car is inherently a death trap. And the truth that has to come to bear is that God is loving and God is incomprehensible to us: surely in those two truths, we can allow that there may be a truth that satisfies both the Scriptures we read and the God we want to follow.
I think about these things because my grandparents are not believers in Jesus Christ and because they're aging all-too rapidly. I wonder why this circumstance doesn't seem like a pressing issue for people, especially my parents. Why nobody worries about the prospect of old people, our loved ones, perishing eternally. Is it that we think that there are other ways to the Father besides Jesus? Because (with allowances for Romans 1) most of us think there aren't. Is it that we really don't believe in the reality of heaven and hell? Because most of us say that we do. Is it that we don't think we have an integral role to play in the advance of the gospel? Because most of us say we have. Is it that we don't care about our grandparents, our relatives, our friends who have not found salvation in the One we claim to be the only source of salvation?
I know it's bad salesmanship, and worse relationship for that matter, to be pushy about things, but you'd think more people would be showing more concern about their grandparents getting older or even their friends approaching death day by day. You'd think we would be like Paul, who so desired the salvation of the Jewish people that he claimed he would give up his own salvation if it would guarantee theirs. I don't see that most of us are like that. We have a lot of thinking to do to reconcile what we believe about heaven and hell and whether that adds up with any Scriptural basis and how we want to think God would treat our loved ones who are at once sinners in the hands of an angry God and beloved children of a kind Creator and people who mean the world to us. I know in my head that we are all sinners who deserve what we get and that the redemption of Jesus Christ and our promised eternal bliss is an unwarranted mercy, so it's missing the point to blame God; but I think in my heart that my grandparents are good people who shouldn't go to hell and that if they die unsaved, I'll probably be asking God why He didn't make a more foolproof system. Does hell, as we think of it, even exist? If Satan is to be eternally punished, would God really give him his own eternal sovereignty? Either we haven't given it enough thought, we've found resolution for our questions on the matter, or we're desperate and dying on the inside from the encroaching crisis.
And if we're wrapped up about the issue, I think that brings us back to what kind of God we believe in. And the reminder that God is loving and that God is incomprehensible helps me think nothing so specific as, maybe unrepentant sinners won't go to hell, but something more broad and true: that God is loving and God is incomprehensible to us. Surely in those two truths, we can allow that there may be a truth that satisfies both the Scriptures we read and the God we want to follow.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
A Large Debt is a Great Opportunity to Put Your Money Where Your Money Used to Be.
I think most of us want very much to love and follow Jesus faithfully. Especially when the matter comes to money and material possessions, we endeavor to say what He would want us to say because He Himself had a lot to say on the matter: Jesus lived a nomadic lifestyle, derided rich Pharisees and tax collectors, and ate with beggars and prostitutes. We admire that He was so willing to be poor because He was so aware of what true wealth is. Theologians debate back and forth about what it could mean that the Beatitudes in Matthew say "Blessed are the poor in spirit," and the equivalent verses in Luke read simply, "Blessed are the poor." Sermons tell and re-tell the story of the poor widow who, in giving her last mite to the church, gave a bigger contribution than the other more prosperous donors. And so on.
There are also many who tend to temper this profligate dismissal of the value of money with arguments for good stewardship and counterarguments on the side of material pursuits. These people are the people who would say, "Well, if you really believed that, then what's to stop you (or everyone) from donating all their money away and living a happily ascetic homeless existence?" They would continue with that thought, "See, you don't really believe that Christians shouldn't have money. It would be poor stewardship and horribly irresponsible if you didn't take care of your family and their future. Plus, you have to earn money to give it away. Also, the whole Bible talks about taking care of the poor and destitute among us. If having no money isn't a significant thing, why make such a huge deal about them being poor and us not being poor?" Some such arguments may be motivated by a desire to preserve a comfortable status quo, but a lot of it is well-intentioned and well-thought-out.
So if tomorrow, you suddenly and unexpectedly incurred a $100,000 dollar debt, how would you react? It would be a wonderfully pragmatic test to see what you really thought about the matter of money.
I suspect many Christians would interpret such circumstance as exactly that: a test. Either they need to pray and believe harder, or it's one of those karmic what-goes-around-comes-around phenomena, but if they wait it out in faith, then eventually God will bless them, and probably (although never voiced aloud) financially. Either that, or there's some lesson hidden in the circumstance that they have to figure out, some revelation about how they're living their life, and if they figure it out, God will restore normality. It's how our common interpretation of the book of Job and Chicken Soup for the Soul resolve: no one just dies poor and alone without the closure of either a belated reward or a valuable life lesson.
"The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the earth produced its fruit." -- James 5:16-18
"And the Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed, the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before." -- Job 42:10
The other extreme is also pretty conceivable. Many people simply divorce the issue of money from any sort of spiritual application. Money is one of those necessary tangibles, the currency of this temporal existence, and something that won't exist in heaven, so why bother placing all this spiritual value on who has it and who doesn't, and how you spend it?
"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." -- Job 1:21
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moths nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." -- Matthew 6:19-21
"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit,' whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.'" -- James 4:13-15
Those people are like the people who are quick to point out the Biblical distinction that the love of money, vice money itself, is the root of all evil. There's a lot of Scripture out there that would suggest that distinction is simply splitting hairs: that to seek or have lots of wealth is to keep a Pandora's Box on top of a gasoline tank next to a live, plugged-in arc welder. What I'm saying is, a lot of Scripture almost makes you uncomfortable to be on the side of the rich.
"Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of the Sabbath." -- James 5:1-4
"Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself,' you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors." -- James 2:5-9
"Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and gentleness." -- 1 Timothy 6:6-11
The funny aspect of being $100,000 in debt is that there are a million Christian books and solutions for how to manage the money you have in a Christ-honoring way, but few satisfactory answers to the issues of having no money. And probably the best way to think about that one is to do what Paul said in his final letter to Timothy: remember Jesus Christ.
"Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." -- Matthew 8:20
"You were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold [...] but with the precious blood of Christ." -- 1 Peter 1:18-19
"For you were bought at a price." -- 1 Corinthians 6:20
If you had suddenly and unexpectedly incurred a $100,000 debt, and you had to pick among a myriad of Christian perspectives, my hope would be that the circumstance would draw you closer to the mind of Christ, and that it would tangibly remind you that once you were in grave and inescapable debt, and that God paid it for you at great personal cost. And that oh, to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be.
There are also many who tend to temper this profligate dismissal of the value of money with arguments for good stewardship and counterarguments on the side of material pursuits. These people are the people who would say, "Well, if you really believed that, then what's to stop you (or everyone) from donating all their money away and living a happily ascetic homeless existence?" They would continue with that thought, "See, you don't really believe that Christians shouldn't have money. It would be poor stewardship and horribly irresponsible if you didn't take care of your family and their future. Plus, you have to earn money to give it away. Also, the whole Bible talks about taking care of the poor and destitute among us. If having no money isn't a significant thing, why make such a huge deal about them being poor and us not being poor?" Some such arguments may be motivated by a desire to preserve a comfortable status quo, but a lot of it is well-intentioned and well-thought-out.
So if tomorrow, you suddenly and unexpectedly incurred a $100,000 dollar debt, how would you react? It would be a wonderfully pragmatic test to see what you really thought about the matter of money.
I suspect many Christians would interpret such circumstance as exactly that: a test. Either they need to pray and believe harder, or it's one of those karmic what-goes-around-comes-around phenomena, but if they wait it out in faith, then eventually God will bless them, and probably (although never voiced aloud) financially. Either that, or there's some lesson hidden in the circumstance that they have to figure out, some revelation about how they're living their life, and if they figure it out, God will restore normality. It's how our common interpretation of the book of Job and Chicken Soup for the Soul resolve: no one just dies poor and alone without the closure of either a belated reward or a valuable life lesson.
"The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the earth produced its fruit." -- James 5:16-18
"And the Lord restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed, the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before." -- Job 42:10
The other extreme is also pretty conceivable. Many people simply divorce the issue of money from any sort of spiritual application. Money is one of those necessary tangibles, the currency of this temporal existence, and something that won't exist in heaven, so why bother placing all this spiritual value on who has it and who doesn't, and how you spend it?
"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." -- Job 1:21
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moths nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." -- Matthew 6:19-21
"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit,' whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.'" -- James 4:13-15
Those people are like the people who are quick to point out the Biblical distinction that the love of money, vice money itself, is the root of all evil. There's a lot of Scripture out there that would suggest that distinction is simply splitting hairs: that to seek or have lots of wealth is to keep a Pandora's Box on top of a gasoline tank next to a live, plugged-in arc welder. What I'm saying is, a lot of Scripture almost makes you uncomfortable to be on the side of the rich.
"Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of the Sabbath." -- James 5:1-4
"Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself,' you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors." -- James 2:5-9
"Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and gentleness." -- 1 Timothy 6:6-11
The funny aspect of being $100,000 in debt is that there are a million Christian books and solutions for how to manage the money you have in a Christ-honoring way, but few satisfactory answers to the issues of having no money. And probably the best way to think about that one is to do what Paul said in his final letter to Timothy: remember Jesus Christ.
"Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." -- Matthew 8:20
"You were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold [...] but with the precious blood of Christ." -- 1 Peter 1:18-19
"For you were bought at a price." -- 1 Corinthians 6:20
If you had suddenly and unexpectedly incurred a $100,000 debt, and you had to pick among a myriad of Christian perspectives, my hope would be that the circumstance would draw you closer to the mind of Christ, and that it would tangibly remind you that once you were in grave and inescapable debt, and that God paid it for you at great personal cost. And that oh, to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be.
Job Satisfaction and Other Shorts
Job Satisfaction IN THE NAVY!
(Binary Scale)
Find pleasure: 1
Search the world for treasure: 0
Learn science technology: 1
Begin to make my dreams all come true, on the land or on the sea: 0
Learn to fly: 0
Play in sports: 0
Skin dive: 0
Study oceanography: 1
Sign up for the big band: 0
Sit in the grandstand when your team and others meet: 0
Sail the seven seas: 0
Put my mind at ease: 0
Make a stand: 1
Protect the motherland: 0 (training commands to date)
Join your fellow man: 1
The perks of my job are apparently highly exaggerated.
This next generation of Americans will be one of selectively excellent spellers. Specifically, every female will be able to spell the words "bananas," "delicious," "tastey" (sic), "Fergie," and "glamorous." This phenomenon recalls an earlier generation that was able to spell the words "some," "pig," "terrific," "radiant," and "humble." If the wisdom of the ages were collated, the sentence "Some terrific, delicious, tastey, glamorous, radiant, bananas, humble pig Fergie" would be flawless except for want of a predicate.
Seriously, did no one think to spell out "laodicean" in a pop song? The Scripps spelling bee could've gone so much further.
(Binary Scale)
Find pleasure: 1
Search the world for treasure: 0
Learn science technology: 1
Begin to make my dreams all come true, on the land or on the sea: 0
Learn to fly: 0
Play in sports: 0
Skin dive: 0
Study oceanography: 1
Sign up for the big band: 0
Sit in the grandstand when your team and others meet: 0
Sail the seven seas: 0
Put my mind at ease: 0
Make a stand: 1
Protect the motherland: 0 (training commands to date)
Join your fellow man: 1
The perks of my job are apparently highly exaggerated.
This next generation of Americans will be one of selectively excellent spellers. Specifically, every female will be able to spell the words "bananas," "delicious," "tastey" (sic), "Fergie," and "glamorous." This phenomenon recalls an earlier generation that was able to spell the words "some," "pig," "terrific," "radiant," and "humble." If the wisdom of the ages were collated, the sentence "Some terrific, delicious, tastey, glamorous, radiant, bananas, humble pig Fergie" would be flawless except for want of a predicate.
Seriously, did no one think to spell out "laodicean" in a pop song? The Scripps spelling bee could've gone so much further.
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