Tentpegs

Here is the question:

In recent years, I have learned that there are two schools of thoughts about the age of the earth from a creationist point of view.  Truthfully, I had heard about this earlier, but avoided exploring it until recently due to spiritual immaturity.  I still feel spiritually immature in many ways, but I also feel that I am now ready to explore these details a little deeper without the fear it could “shake” my faith.  While I understand this topic is not a salvation issue in itself, it does appear to serve as a barrier to others who have little or no faith at all which is why I deem it important for me to understand as a Christian.   I have a basic understanding about the fundamental beliefs of both views, but find myself unconvinced that either side has really “figured” it out.

  Question for Tentpegs blog:

What is young earth vs old earth theories, where do you stand in the debate (if at all) and why?

I visited Sea World Orlando this week and loved it. It was my fourth trip to Sea World and I never tire of seeing the wonderful animals they have gathered. They are very involved in rescue and conservation and that appeals to me. After watching boats speeding up and down the Intercoastal Waterway right past "No Wake" signs, it angered me to see the scars on the backs of the manatees in the rescue exhibit but it also made me appreciate the good folk at Sea World and their dedication to these fascinating beasts.

Before the Shamu show, there was a film about the need to conserve and save the planet. It stressed that we are all connected to everything and finished by showing different animals, under which would be a term such as "father," "sister", "brother" and ending with a picture of our beautiful blue planet with the word "mother" underneath. I sighed. The name of the Shamu show then flashed up in huge letters: "Believe!"

Atheism is as much a religion as any faith that has churches and clergy. Even most atheists admit that — at least most that I meet (and I meet a ton of them since I travel in scientific circles at various universities). One of the things that atheists need is time… lots and lots of time. Francis Crick, David Berlinski, Chandra Wickramasinghe and other scientific giants insist that mathematics proves that time is an enemy of undirected evolution, not its friend (see interesting related article at http://universitypress.info/MythologiesOfScience.pdf).

Look at it this way: our DNA is far more complex than a thousand page book, but assume it isn’t for a moment. You have a thousand pages — loose, unbound — of a novel. You drop it from six feet. What are the odds that it stays in order? Not very good, right? What if you say "it needed more time to organize!" so you drop it from ten thousand feet? Time is not your friend. When we look at complex systems, time leads to disorganization. Some claim the second law of thermodynamics doesn’t apply here, that chaos can randomly organize into workable systems but such has never been demonstrated to have occurred and, if it did, it would then immediately begin to disorganize. Such is the nature of the universe in which we find ourselves.

I agree with the questioner — this is not a salvation issue. If you believe that Hugh Ross or the Intelligent Design people are right, or if you follow Greg Boyd (who teaches that this is a planet that has been destroyed by God in the past and then repopulated), I understand your thinking and appreciate your hard work. I, however, have no problem with the idea that this planet could be as young as 10,000 years or so. I don’t know how old it actually is, but a young earth makes a certain amount of scientific sense.

Everything eats and everything depends on everything else (yes, this is overstated, but Sea World says it so who am I to disagree???). That means that we need everything in place. It makes more sense, then, to assume that it was created with its systems in place. One of my favorite authors was the late Douglas Adams, an atheist whose only god was Dawkins. His writings were full of humor that relied on placing things outside of their system and mining the resulting hilarity (a whale appearing high above the earth, falling, and thinking "not again" for example). He failed to see the irony: his nonbelief in God would require that things appeared randomly, outside of systems, and that systems themselves were entirely random. That would result in a lot of whale splatter…

God said that everything was created full grown, ready to reproduce after its kind. The answer to the question: which came first, the chicken or the egg? would be — a chicken with an egg in it, in other words. Yes, there are aspects of the world that look ancient, but let’s ask another question first: how old was Adam two minutes after he was born? The answer would be "two minutes" but he looked fully grown, in his sexual, physical, and mental prime. So how old is the earth? I will NOT fight my brothers who believe otherwise, but it may look a lot older than it actually is due to the way it was designed to be fully functional, able to supply all we need for life’s continuance.

Jesus seemed to believe the Old Testament stories. The New Testament quotes or refers to the first 11 chapters of Genesis around 100 times. Jesus told the men on the road to Emmaus that they were to believe what Moses wrote. He demanded that we believe Moses’ writings (John 5:46,47). Jesus showed absolute control over nature, multiplying matter as he fed the 5000, walking on water, etc. indicating that immediate creative power was something he was comfortable wielding. He said that "from the beginning" God had made us male and female (Matthew 19:4-6; literally "AT the beginning"). In the same context, he quotes from Genesis 1:27 and 2:24, indicating that he didn’t think they were contradictory creation accounts.

He believed that Abel was a real person (Matthew 23:25) and he believed that the flood of Noah was a real event (Matthew 24:37-39). Luke runs Jesus’ genealogy back to Adam "who was the son of God." Jesus refers to Abel as the first of the martyrs (Luke 11:50,51) and said that the blood of the martyrs was spilled "from the foundation of the world." Hmmm.

I don’t believe the earth is really my mother. My mother is a cute Irish lady. My earthly father is Bill, but the Father who made all — and who was wise enough to make it right — is God. If I get to heaven and find out that He made it over millions of years, I won’t feel cheated… but I have no problem in believing in a quick creation. Yes, Sea World, after seeing all those animals and seeing the wonder of the universe, I believe… but not in Mother Earth. I believe in the One Who made it.

While we may differ on this and numerous other bits and pieces, I remind all of us that it is our faith in Jesus that saves us. One day, he will make it all plain. 

[We are on vacation with limited access to the internet. While questions can continue to come in, chances are we won’t see them until after the 15th. Thanks for understanding]

Why do the heathen rage?

My minimal exposure to atheism recently leads me to believe there are a lot
of nonbelievers who are really ticked off at believers and blame religion
(especially Christianity) for virtually evil they perceive on the planet.

Maybe the vast majority of nonbelievers are quiet, happy, normal people
living out lives of vague contentment, but they don’t seem to be writing
books or blogs about it.

Why are so many nonbelievers so angry and accusative and belligerent these
days?

For the last two years there have been very few weeks without at least one anti-god, pro-atheist book on the New York Times bestsellers list. Most of these books aren’t the gentle "here is why I am where I am" type books by scholars such as Bart Ehrman but, rather, angry, sarcastic piles of assertions (most sans argument or evidence) by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, or Christopher Hitchens.

Richard Dawkins is a zoologist — and good at his job — who has written some very powerful, well reasoned books concerning his firm and absolute belief in Darwinism. To Dawkins, Darwin was the wisest man who ever lived, the St. George who slew the dragon of myth, severing the chains of religious puppetmasters. He bluntly states that nothing ever written about man or mankind before Darwin was worth any consideration at all. He is a True Believer. If you pick up Dawkins’ latest bestseller, The God Delusion, after having read his classic works such as The Blind Watchmaker or The Selfish Gene you would be forgiven for wondering if he wasn’t facing some early onset senility. And you wouldn’t be alone — his good friends Swinburne and McGrath have tried to help him see the follies of his new book and failed to make headway. Dawkins is loved by interviewers for his absolute and startling assertions which, of course, are never questioned.

Daniel Dennett is a philosopher — and good at his job. He is, in my mind, the most reasonable of the four. Sam Harris is a doctoral student who is handsome and beloved by the camera and those who stand in front of them for a living. His books are polemics without anything to back them up at all; skyscrapers built on cobwebs. Christopher Hitchens is, by his own description, a heavy drinking, heavy smoking English journalist with no scientific training at all. He is a frequent guest of political commentary shows.

Now… why are they angry? It is hard to say with any certainty. Of course, many atheists hate religion because religion claims there is a right and wrong way to live and atheists, by definition, are living the wrong way. That offends them, especially if they have an overly high opinion of their intellect, education, or self worth. Some atheists are offended by the "shiny happy people" version of Christianity that turns our faith into a pseudo-social club; a thin veneer of gloss over a big ol’ tub of hypocrisy.

We’ve always had those two types of atheists with us. What has changed the equation is the power that Christians have ceded to atheists. Over the last several generations we have given more and more control over the education of our children to strangers and many of them come from universities that aggressively select out any believers in science (especially geology, astronomy, zoology, biology). There are movements afoot from two major universities (or at least prominent professors in them) to deny a doctorate to anyone who professes belief in God and creation. Some professors write that we should rescind doctorates already awarded if the recipient professes such belief later in life!

We then elected (again and again and again) people who give lip service to God, but make sure that He has no presence in their life or in politics. Republicans often claim God and family values but go ahead — try to find very many of them who are on their first wife (or second or third) and still have been faithful to them. Perhaps it is my natural contrarian, suspicious personality but it does seem to me that the GOP has had more than its share of scandal in recent years. Democrats shouldn’t crow too much about this — their side does the same thing; they just don’t feel bad about it afterwards. ("everybody lies about sex")

God is then removed from public life. Our children are sent to universities where the smart, educated, and lofty persons in position there tell them that everything their parents taught them was silly. And yet… after all their efforts… most Americans don’t buy into Darwinism and still insist on believing in God. Atheists are getting angry. They have our great institutions but not our hearts and minds. Therefore, a charm offensive (think "Harris"), an intellectual offensive (Dennett), and a kooky, smug, arrogant offensive (think Dawkins and Hitchens) must be launched. The media jumps up and rushes to praise them. Should someone… say, a Ben Stein… make a movie about this (say… Expelled), he must be vilified. My informal survey of reviews indicates that 81% of them were negative — most to the point of saying "don’t go."

And yet… tomorrow is Sunday. An inordinate number (to Dawkin’s and his ilk’s mind) of Americans will hie themselves off to a place of worship. What’s an atheist to do?

If you want to read one book answering the arguments of these new, angry atheists get Vox Day’s "The Irrational Atheist." It is brilliant. You can buy a hard copy (I did) or you can read it for free online at voxday.blogspot.com along with some other interesting bits and pieces.

This question came over the transom at tentpegsquestion@yahoo.com some time ago. It is a question I heard addressed frequently in decades gone by but not so much recently.

Two questions have come in recently asking my take on a book and a movie. I’ll go ahead and answer these and get back to the tentpegsquestion@yahoo.com pile later.

I see over at your personal blog that you are reading/ have read "The Shack." What did you think of it?

I am about to alienate a lot of good people with my response to this one. Short answer: I was terribly disappointed. I read the book on the flight back from Albuquerque to Detroit via Chicago last weekend. Some of my staff and several of my congregation had raved about how life changing this book was and how deeply it touched them. As I read the book, I kept waiting for the meat, the hard stuff.

I don’t want to spoil the book so, if you are about to read it, you might want to skip this bit. The book deals with a man who loses a daughter to a serial sexual predator. The body isn’t found, but her blood and dress are discovered in a shack; the place she lost her life in a horrific manner. Years later, the father is invited back to the shack by a note left in his mailbox. Not knowing if this is the murderer setting him up, a sick joke, or something else, he goes.

In the shack, he meets the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is usually in the form of a large African American woman with a southern dialect who spends most of her time cooking and baking. The Son is a not so good looking carpenter type and the Spirit is a vaguely Asian woman who gardens a lot. I had no problem with those kind of appearances for I know that God is spirit and He can take any form He wishes. I’ve heard that some were offended by the characterizations of the Trinity, but I think that part was fine.

So why was I disappointed? Two main reason. The first is that the book does not hit hard enough. It takes the man forever to really lash out at God and demand answers. If "The Shack" were the book of Job, Job would have been sanguine and content with eating (there are tons of eating scenes and most exchanges between one of the Trinity and the father end with grins and laughs) until chapter 39. I might have been spoiled by reading two very powerful books that I think belong in every Christian’s library. Both are by Philip Yancey — Disappointment With God and Where Is God When It Hurts? Another book I think everyone should read — though it is deep and very painful — is God at War by Gregory Boyd. Compared to these books, "The Shack" pulls every punch. It is the Book of Job as diluted by watching too much Oprah. Sorry, but that’s my take on it.

Second problem? There are smacks and hints of universalism in the book. Everyone’s sins are already forgiven and calls for justice are out of place. I wondered how the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would like the God in The Shack. The concept of universalism isn’t expressly spelled out in The Shack but it weaves around enough that you can glimpse it several times. More than once, the God in The Shack states that He/She has no problem with Buddhists, Muslims, etc. and doesn’t ask for them to change. He just wants them to know Him and understand that their sins are already forgiven. That seems out of kilter with the Christ who demands exclusive rights over our hearts and bodies.

That said, there are some real insights in the book. It wasn’t wasted time and I might loan it out to a member here who wanted to read it. Will I recommend it? No. There are too many far superior books out there for me to recommend this one.

What do you think of Ben Stein’s "Expelled" movie?

I took my wife to watch this movie. I have known Ben for a long time. We have never met, but we have written back and forth and he even sent a gift to my son when Duncan was about nine years old and had just come back from a mission trip to Guyana. I have a lot of love and respect for Ben. Everyone who knows him knows that he is the sweetest man on the planet and he has a very, very hard time slipping the knife in as far as he should when his opponent gives him that opportunity.

"Expelled" isn’t a perfect movie but it is a very important movie and I highly recommend — no, URGE — all of you to see it before it leaves the theaters. Every major newspaper has attacked it and the blogs are on fire about how terrible Ben Stein is… but the movie is, if anything, far too gentle on atheists and their claims.

I am doing a series at Rochester on "Answering the New Atheists" and I go a lot further than Ben. Of course, it is my nature to be quicker and deadlier than Ben’s nature will allow him to be. There is a wasted opportunity in Expelled when Ben tries to connect Darwin to the Holocaust and it falls rather flat. The truth is — there was a HUGE connection between the two, but Ben doesn’t make his point. Perhaps the constraints of time moved him along too quickly. Google the eugenics movement, W.A. Plecker, and Cold Harbor to see that America’s scientists, waving the flag of Darwin, were the origin for Hitler’s genocide. Hitler even wrote letters warmly thanking Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, and Plecker along with some prominent senators for all their scientific help and philosophical guidance. In their letters to him and his to them, Darwin is mentioned as providing the scientific justification for the forced sterilization of over 67,000 Americans ("Expelled" has it wrong when it says 50.000) and the forced annulment of marriages, the forced incarceration of "unfit" people to asylums, etc. The movie needed to be twenty minutes longer so that it could cover that. Those readers of my blogs who went through the Hidden People series know about this already.

Ben relied too much on vintage footage as an attempt at humor, in my opinion. Some of it fell flat or seemed out of place. Regardless, this is one of the most important films I have seen in years and I recommend that you see it in the theater to get its gross revenue up and that you buy several copies of the DVD as soon as it is released. Ben has done us a favor. I’ll be writing him to thank him personally. So should you. Since the movie’s release, he has been attacked, received death threats, and there is a movement to deny him TV time or movie roles. So much for the kindness of atheists.

This one has been sitting in my inbox for awhile so I had better get to it!

What is Satan’s origin?  I’ve never found a clear answer for that one.

Many religions teach that Satan is co-eternal with God. They explain the universe as battlefield between roughly equal forces — Good and Evil. This concept is known as Dualism and it exists in several forms. Fact is, many Christians believe some aspects of Dualism even though they’ve never heard of the term.

The scripture is plain: God created all things (Genesis 1, John 1:1-4). That would mean that Satan was not in eternity with the Father but was created by Him. He is not co-equal in nature or in power with God. Sometime before the foundation of the earth, angelic beings were created in various ranks (Job 38:4,7; Ephesians 6:12; Psalms 148:1-5). The Jews left us a large body of literature and tradition about these various rankings. How accurate their ideas were are certainly up for discussion, but there is no question that God created beings, some of whom are called angels, others cherubs, others seraphs, and others "friends of God," or "sons of God." (bear in mind there was only one "begotten" Son of God, so in what sense these other beings were "sons" is unknown)

It seems that even though Satan makes an early appearance in the Old Testament (Genesis 3), the Jews only became aware of him in bits and pieces as they journeyed with God. Perhaps the open worship of demons (false gods) made his open appearance unnecessary. Regardless of the reason, he is only mentioned by name 24 times in the Old Testament; where he is also called "serpent" five times, all in Genesis 3. By the time of the New Testament, he was much more widely known and we find his name there 83 times.

He must have gone wrong shortly after creation for he is called "a murderer from the beginning." What happened? Let’s leave aside John Milton’s Paradise Lost and other poetic literature for a moment, even though it is where we get most of our myths about the devil and his interaction with heaven. The fact is that we are not told much about what went wrong with Satan, but we can surmise a few things.

While this is controversial, I believe that Isaiah 14:12-14 uses the king of Babylon to personify Lucifer. He was a guardian cherub, a massively powerful, beautiful, important being who was taken by his own beauty and power. He saw the plan of God — that God would put on human form and walk among those sweaty, stinky, fallen beasts known as humans. Lucifer was appalled by this plan and refused to support it. Perhaps he did so out of pure pride or perhaps he did so out of misguided offense; that God would stoop so low was unthinkable to him. Regardless, by assuming he knew better than God, he was considered prideful and cast down.

Again, not without controversy, I believe Ezekiel 28:12-17 personifies Satan as the King of Tyre. He is called the model of perfection who was blameless until he sinned and was then driven from the mountain of God. Jude 6 adds just a bit to all of this, but I believe it is consistent with my theory that Satan was offended by God’s plan to redeem man. He refused to play his part and, somehow, he convinced a significant minority of the angels to join him in that rebellion. (when the Bible says "a third" it doesn’t mean 33%. It means "a lot, but not most")

Satan believes, according to his words and actions in Job (perhaps our most ancient book), that we will only love God if God keeps the faucets of blessings wide open. Start to dry those up or not give us every desire of our hearts and we will, Satan says, turn against God. True enough, that often happens, but God choses to love us and reach out to us anyway.

Some angels are said to be in chains, but we have no idea if that means they are limited in their actions (physically or metaphysically) or if they are, indeed, chained up, too powerful to be loosed upon mankind.

There is no "plan of salvation" for angels. They have seen the glory of God. While they do not know all of His plans, they know who He is and, therefore, there is no excuse for their rebellion. Hell is not prepared for us, but for the devil and his angels. If we end up there, it is in spite of every effort of God to stop it. I try to remember (operative word: try) when my life becomes difficult or painful, that I need to prove the devil wrong and love God through the dark times. I don’t want to ever give Satan the right to throw my name in the face of God.

Perhaps I should let my friend and superior blogger, Greg England, handle this question as I’m sure it comes up in his work from time to time. Since he is busy doing things like playing with a grandchild (Hi, Peanut!) and working for a living, I’ll go ahead and take a shot at it.

Cremation vs burial.  Does it matter?  In light of skyrocketing funeral costs, cremation seems to be an increasing practice among many in the church.  The bible seems to only speak of burial for christians.  Intentionally burning dead bodies seems to be something God reserved for the wicked, or something pagans practiced in the bible.  Does this suggest that cremation would be wrong for us today?

This is a great question for it makes us look at our Bibles armed with a bit of information about ancient times and how meanings can change through the centuries. In many ancient cultures, cremation was an act of prayer. Smoke, fire, incense… and anything else like that, was considered a form of prayer. Prayer flags, prayer wheels, and even fireworks were a way to communicate with a god or group of gods. Cremating the body was the accepted way of delivering it back to its Maker (and keeping the spirit from returning to haunt the family).

In cultures where smoke equaled prayer, cremation was shunned by those who followed Jehovah. Rather than considering smoke a prayer, they considered their prayers as smoke! Perhaps I should explain… they used incense, of course, as a sign of their prayers — their need to be in constant contact with their God — but they also used smoke (and the odors and smells associated with it) as a symbol of prayer (Revelation 8:4).

As the questioner indicated, there are times that burning and smoke are signs of God’s wrath and judgment (Revelation 9:2,17,18; 14:11; 18:9,18) but smoke was also used as a sign of the presence of God, arriving in His glory (Revelation 15:8). It is, therefore, not the smoke, but what that smoke means to those sending it upwards. It is not the burning, but what the burning means to those standing before the fire.

If cremation is your choice, there is no Biblical mandate against it. You are free to be cremated or interred. Burial is quite rare in Scotland and much of Europe. Some say it is because of the land that burials take up, but that is just not true. A more likely story comes from World War One when the artillery chewed up thousands of square miles of soil unearthing many previously interred bodies. The horror of those bodies being re-exposed in front of the soldiers, I am told by a few sources, led the gradual change in Europe from burial to cremation. While this story is repeated frequently, I have no way of determining if it is true. I CAN say that after WW1 burial practices did, indeed, change in Europe.

Christian churches used to teach against cremation, not because of its past association with paganism, but because they wanted the body to be available for the Resurrection. By this time in our history, we should know that matter cannot be created or destroyed and is, therefore, always there for God to put it back into whatever form He desires. I could be eaten by a lion, the lion cremated, and his ashes tossed into the sea… and all my atoms would still be there for God to reassemble (should that be His desire).

The Roman Catholic church outlawed cremation in 1886 because they believed it was part of Masonic ceremonies. They reversed themselves in 1963 and, since that time, cremation has been legal for Catholics. The latest edition of Canon Law says it this way: The Church earnestly recommends that the pious custom of burial be retained; but it does not forbid cremation, unless this is chosen for reasons which are contrary to Christian teaching.

The Catechism goes further and says: The bodies of the departed must be treated with love and respect. Their cremation is permitted provided that it does not demonstrate a denial of faith in the resurrection of the body.

Contemporary Christian religious writings opposing cremation do so citing three reasons for their stance:

1. The pagans practiced cremation while the Jews preferred burial.

2. Burial shows greater respect for the body.

3. Burial is consistent with our hope of the resurrection.

None of these even approach a "thus saith the Lord" standard. In my opinion, cremation is just as valid an option for Christians as is burial.

I can remember the illustration as if I heard it yesterday. I couldn’t have been more than eight years old. Cars back then had no console and cup holder in the middle of the front seat. The entire seat was a bench and few people wore seat belts. In some cars, they were considered options and had to be ordered when you bought your car. The sermon illustration went something like this: an old man and woman were driving down the road when she turned to her husband (who was doing the driving, of course. This WAS in the 60s) and said "Do you remember when we used to snuggle when we drove around? What ever happened to us?" The old man thinks for awhile and then replies, "I didn’t move."

The story was to illustrate how we can often feel distant from God, but God didn’t move; we did. That has been a very helpful picture to keep in my head over the decades, but it is an incomplete answer to this question:

"Why do You seem the most distant when I need You to be
so close in a given experience / event?"

The Bible is plain: God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. James 1:17 compares him to a sundial. While the shadow moves around its face, it doesn’t move ("there is no shadow of turning"). He is a fixed constant. This can be confusing if you don’t read the rest of scripture and see that God changes the way He deals with human beings, varying His approach, blessing, or punishment from person to person. He can also be bargained with (re: Abraham about righteous people in Sodom) and He doesn’t mind if you wrestle with Him (re: Jacob at the River Jabbok, Job, etc.). What never changes about God is His desire for you to be good, strong, and righteous.

But what if you are in the middle of a crisis and you turn to wrestle God… and He seems to have moved? I wouldn’t assume that it was you that moved and I wouldn’t assume that God moved… there are alternative explanations.

First, we need to admit that the continued presence of God does not always result in happy human beings. Read the Old Testament for examples of this: God was there every day in the pillar of cloud and fire, in the commandments, and in the daily requirements of worship, sacrifice, and prayer. Their reaction? Attempts to hide from God, anger at His being too close to them, and ignoring Him when He refused to back away.

It seems that there is no pleasing us. We want God close when we want Him close and we want Him far away when that suits us better. But God is not our puppy or a Yo-Yo. He is God, the Father.

Ah… a clue! "Father." Flash back to when you were in junior high. You got some homework that was really challenging you. Maybe it was a large set of math problems or perhaps it was a paper you had to write. You asked for your parents’ help and — let’s assume they were good parents! — they helped you with a part of it, but they insisted that you do the work on your own. What?!?! How could they?!?! Didn’t they know that you needed them? Didn’t they know you were struggling and that you might miss out on joy (play time, TV time, hanging out with friends) because of this enormous task in front of you? Of course they understood that, but they also knew that if you did not climb this mountain on your own, you would be weak and handicapped in the future.

There was a time that somebody decided it was time for you to walk. If you didn’t stand up and move on your own (some do, I didn’t), they walked you back and forth, slowly releasing your hands until you were on your own. Was that cruel? Were they letting go of your hand so that they could gain some distance from you? Nope. They knew that, to be strong, healthy, and grown up, you were going to have to learn how to walk. I’ve seen five year olds who insisted on being carried everywhere (and I’ve seen four year olds being nursed. Eww). From time to time, that is helpful (the carrying, not the nursing), but it isn’t good for a child to spend their days being carried. They need to exercise, be challenged, and risk failure if they are to grow and mature.

Back to James — James tells us that our struggles and trials are our path to maturity. We NEED to struggle.

When I said goodbye to my son, almost exactly a year ago today, and shipped him off to Parris Island, my heart was so broken that I couldn’t speak for nearly two hours. I fell against the door as he walked away, unable to walk, sobbing my heart out. (even writing this now reduces me to tears. I’m glad my office has a door) I wanted to be with him. I wanted to help him with the challenges he was going to face starting as soon as he was driven off that bus in the middle of the night by a strange man yelling at him. I wanted to back his drill instructors down, telling them that this was MY son and they had better treat him with respect.

But I didn’t. Because I loved him, I had to let him suffer, sweat, cry, and experience loneliness and pain. It was the only way he could earn the title of United States Marine.

There are times that God might want to jump in and take our pain away from us, but He has to stand back and let us learn to walk, even though we fall down from time to time. He has to let go of our bikes as we wobble down the sidewalk, even though He knows we will eventually bust open our knees and chin. How pitiful would it be to see a 45 year old dad running alongside his 25 year old son’s bicycle, holding onto a handlebar? If we saw that, we would assume that the 25 year old was either handicapped or incredibly spoiled. And we’d be right.

God is going to let go of our handlebars from time to time even (especially) when we don’t want Him to. It seems counterintuitive, but letting go is a sign of respect, trust, and love. If we don’t wrestle with pain, loss, grief, loneliness, and worse, we will never grow up big and strong as one of God’s kids. And, if it is true that this earth is a training ground for our real lives, our real work to come, these experiences are necessary to our usefulness "over yonder."

In fact, much of our religion is counterintuitive. God becomes man? God is killed by men? We win by losing? God picks rank amateurs to serve Him, ignoring the religious elite? God, who lives in heaven’s throne room, cares about the beggar Lazarus and the Samaritan woman at the well? God loves us… so He has to let us risk and struggle in order to make us strong?

A simple — even silly — illustration. When I was a young minister, I could never understand the older folk complaining about their backs. A bad back? What does THAT mean? It wasn’t anything I could see or relate to, so I didn’t take it seriously…until I got bronchitis and coughed hard one day; so hard that a muscle tore in my back. For over a week, I couldn’t sit down, stand up, roll over, or do anything without hurting my back. After that time, I have been much more sympathetic to those with bad backs!

On Monday mornings, I write letters to Marines (and some from other armed services) and to the parents of those who lost their son in battle (or, this week, write to parents who lost their Marine to PTSD and its complications after he was discharged). I didn’t do that until this last year. I do it now because I have a son who can go into harm’s way at anytime. I wake up at night more than I want to admit and worry about my son even though most of the time he is just down the hall asleep in his own bed. Because I struggle in the middle of the night, I care about others who are struggling. Because I know the reality of having a Marine, I care about those who have lost theirs.

Without the pain, I wouldn’t have the empathy necessary to serve others in His Name. Were God an overbearing, omnipresent nanny who fixed everything before it even hurt all that bad, I would be forever two years old. As much as I’d like that sometimes, it isn’t good for me.

Another counterintuitive truism: sometimes pain is the best thing that can happen to us. Sometimes pain avoidance is the root cause of our pain — physical, emotional, financial, and spiritual. Wrestle with that awhile and see why God appears to be distant. Perhaps He is right there, taking His hand off the handlebars, saying "This might be painful and scary, but if you want to be a grown up, this is how you get there." 

Although I’ve yet to get a comment on the last blog, I thought I’d update this one so I can get back to writing my real books and maybe, just maybe, write some on the online novel. I have a pile of about 19 questions still at tentpegsquestion@yahoo.com and will take more as I can get to them. If you haven’t gone to see "Expelled" yet, do so quickly!

Recently you posted an answer to the question "Can you be a Christ follower if you
are not a card carrying member of the Christendom union?"  My related
question is: How should I respond to and/or encourage someone close to
me who has been deeply hurt by the church in the past and who, despite
their continued faith, does not feel they can ever return to church
again?

I want you to think about Elijah, first. There he was, hiding in a cave, telling God that he was there because he was the last faithful man on the planet. God told him there were many more out there just like him… and told him to get back to work. All players in the question asked above can be Elijah — those who are hurt and then withdraw are told by God to go back and engage. Those who see someone leave us are required to seek them out. And people who sit in a church building and think they are the only one there who (fill in the blank with anything here) are wrong — there are many more.

And it is not always the other person’s job to seek you out.

When Jesus spoke to his apostles about dealing with conflict, he posed it two ways — if you have offended your brother AND if your brother has offended you. In both cases, Jesus said it was YOUR move. There is never a time in scripture where it is someone else’s move; it is always your turn to move. Go first, forgive first, love first, serve first… and second, and third, and always.

Now to the question: we need to have a existential shift here. The church is not a building nor is it one group of people. If a person has church shopped five or six places and found all of them wanting — it is THEM and not the church that is at fault. It is rather like a man who has married and divorced six times — friend, the only common denominator is you!

If it is a particular church that has burned a person — and that happens. It has happened to me — then how should we handle them when they refuse to come back, when they question the goodness of God, or when they say they can no longer trust any church? Simple — instead of trying to woo them back into the fold, we should love them constantly, serve them constantly, and surround them with grace and peace until they (almost) have no choice but to see that God, love, and discipleship are realities. (One man told me that he was still not certain that God exists or that, if He exists, He loves the common person. My response was "watch me." If he could find another explanation for my changed life and the way I served and loved him, then fine. He is now a believer)

I would start with that person, study with them, pray with them, and then collect another person to join us. And then another. And another. At some time down the road, you will find that rather than requiring them to reenter a building they had left, you have built a church where they were — a group of people bound together in faith and love. When I do this, I never think about one day bringing that whole group back into the church building. Why? They are a church where they are and they can find and reach people who will never enter our building. Our elders can help shepherd them, our staff can offer them services, and we can all pray for them but they don’t have to go to heaven via our building.

So, it’s your move. It’s up to you. If a person cannot return to a church, help them start the church where they are. Many will eventually return to the larger fellowship. Most won’t, but their anger, angst, and attitude will fade away over time until all that remains is faith, hope, love.

[NOTE: are you a minister, youth leader, etc. looking for a very cool sermon/devo? Go to Gunny Mark’s blog (link on right) and read what he put up about hitting walls. That’ll preach! Leave him a note to thank him for his service] 

Some quicker takes than normal…

Yes I would like to hear more about why God did create the world and also why, when He was actually sorry that He had created mankind and destroyed everything with the flood…..why did He start it all over again???  Why didn’t He just take Noah and his family on into heaven?   If He was so extremely sorry that He was willing to kill everything………..how could He start it all up again when He knew what was going to happen…again!

I would like to hear your view of this topic.

Early on in this series we looked at a lot of the "whys" that people like to ask God. This had a slightly different spin: why did He destroy the earth with water just to let people fill it with sin again? In answering these type of questions, I cannot stress enough that I am answering out of ignorance. When there isn’t a plain "thus saith the Lord," I am reduced to using human logic — and that is always dangerous!

With that said, it is a given that God has a lot more patience with us than we have with Him or each other (or ourselves). Why didn’t He just take Noah and family up into heaven and forget about the failed experiment called Earth? I think that never crossed His mind. He wanted a relationship with us via His Son and that was always His intention. I believe the Flood was God’s way of showing us the seriousness of sin. We needed to know — early and often — that God takes sin much more seriously than do we. Even to this day, we haven’t absorbed that lesson. We call adultery "having a fling" or "having an affair" or "fooling around." We don’t say we lied, we say we "misspoke" or "misremembered." You get the idea.

But every time I go through a cut in the mountain and see the layers laid down by the massive, earth changing, flood, I remember that sin is not a little thing in the eyes of God.

What do you think of the "near-death" or "out-of-body" experiences claimed by some people? Are we getting some glimpses of Heaven and sometimes Hell?

I have some complicated ideas about all of this, but the condensed version is: I believe we are looking at a combination of two factors — the massive release of endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin in the bloodstream and our belief systems. When our bodies are shutting down, especially due to pain, organ breakdown, and fatigue, we need the grace of God to ease out of this life into the next. We were designed to get the gift of unconsciousness when we need it most, so God dumps pain killers and various "happy" chemicals into the bloodstream so that we stop fighting and stop hurting at the right time.

We enter a vibrant, fractured dream state and images rush at us. Those images are made up of our life and our beliefs and emotions. We "see" those we love; those who have gone before us and those who we are leaving. The blood vessels contract in our brains as oxygen fails to flow as it always has before. That shrinks our internal and external vision so that we are suddenly looking at a tunnel. So we have those we love, a tunnel, light, and a sense of peace and joy, but it is all internal, self generated and not a pulling aside of the cosmic curtain.

Are we really getting a preview of heaven or hell? I have to say I am unconvinced by the data so far. Most studies are not very well done and those that are are ambivalent at best. I remain open to any further evidence.

In your response to a question about homosexuality you wrote: "female homosexuality is far, far more complex…"  

So, what are some of the causes and/or explanations of lesbianism?  I ask because it is a prevalent lifestyle where I live, involving people I care about.  The sense I get is that from their point of view lesbianism is a kind of moral high ground.  

You have almost answered your own question! The fact is that, while male homosexuality has a matrix of events and conditions that exist in almost every case, lesbianism is far more complex. Most lesbians didn’t always have a strong sexual attraction to members of their own sex from puberty on, as you usually find in male homosexuality. Most lesbians can actually point to an era or a set of events that brought them to where they are today. While some insist they were born that way, that is not nearly as often the case as it is in males.

Politics has a lot to do with their decision as does a series of experiences with men. Male homosexuals — while they deny this has anything to do with anything — almost always (there are some interesting exceptions) were introduced into homosexual behavior by an older adult when they were going through puberty or early adolescence. This just isn’t the case among females. It is more a lifestyle statement, a moral choice, or a reaction in protest against a system or males.

There is another pathway into lesbianism that I have seen several times in my counseling years. Two young women thrown together in a college dorm or on a mission (religious or secular) where they are still finding out about themselves, feeling out of place, and without strong family guidance can form such a close bond of attraction and a deep loving relationship that they allow that relationship to become sexual. This is even more likely if neither (or, less often, only one) is being pursued or wooed by young men.

Just as there are conservative Republican gay men (The Log Cabin Republicans), there are also lesbians who are conservatives. One has a popular political talk radio show and appears on Fox News as a commentator. Both men and women homosexuals can love God and enjoy worship. Others hate God, hate Republicans, and, well, hate everybody. It is best not to jump to stereotypes, but it is safe to say that female homosexuality is a very, very different set of behaviors and drives than is male homosexuality.

At the risk of alienating (pun intended) those on my left and right, I have decided to go ahead and tackle this question. 

There are those in our church who believe that illegal aliens have no rights and should be deported. Others say that goes against our Christian faith and that we should, instead, offer them citizenship and full partnership in our society. Is there anything in scripture that would help guide us?

The Bible has a lot to say about this throughout the Old and New Testaments. The key word here is hospitality. Hospitality means more than sharing a sandwich or offering someone a spare bed. While ’sharing’ is a good thing, Romans 12 and other sets of admonitions separate ’sharing’ and ‘hospitality.’ Hospitality is more than sharing; it is sharing with another — who cannot or will not reciprocate — at personal cost to yourself. The same root word gives us ‘hospital’ and ‘hospice’ conjuring up images of people caring for others who aren’t caring for them.

The most famous example of this is the Good Samaritan. He lost the use of his animal, his wine, time, and money to care for the Jewish man he found by the side of the road. What did he get out of it? Nothing. He couldn’t even brag to his buddies about his good deeds because they would have been appalled that he did good to a Jew, the enemy of the Samaritans.

Notice the teaching of scripture on this: "Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt" (Exodus 23:9). The last part of this verse is lost on most of us because we have never been a part of the minority or, if we were, we were part of the powerful minority (such as a white missionary heading a school in Africa). We have a real problem empathizing with aliens because we have never been in their shoes. God uses this call to fellow-feeling again in Leviticus 19:33 and raises the bar considerably on how we are to treat the Others among us: "When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God."

Wow. We went from "do not oppress" the alien to "love him as yourself." That command should sound very familiar for Jesus referenced it when he told the story of the Good Samaritan and the apostle John repeated it every chance he got. God goes even further in Leviticus 24:22 — "You are to have the same law for the alien and the native-born. I am the LORD your God." Notice how God keeps bringing His status and authority into the mix? He leaves no room for exceptions and, yet, I can think of no nation that has the same law for aliens that it does for citizens. It is generally accepted, for instance, that aliens do not have all of the same Constitutional rights that US citizens have. I have never heard an argument that helps me understand that concept for the Founders of this great republic were very plain in their statements that rights accrue from God, not from government, and that they are freely given to all. Regardless, God says that justice must be equally dispensed to both citizen and alien alike: "Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless, or the widow. Then all the people say ‘Amen!’" (Deut. 27:19)

I like that last bit. It is like God is leaning over the table and staring at us from about six inches away, saying "This is where you nod your head and agree with me." Yes sir!!!

God is adamant about this because it is an integral part of His nature. Describing God, Deuteronomy 10:18 says "He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt." This is demonstrably true, for we constantly see God and Jesus going to those outside the covenant, outside the blood line of the blessed, and offering them love and blessings one might assume were reserved for citizens in His kingdom (Hagar, the woman at the well, the Syro-Phoenician woman, etc.).

The special tithe required of Jews every third year was to be given to the Levites, the alien, the fatherless and widows…not by the temple staff but by the individual whose money it was. After giving the money away — personally — the individual was to go back to God and say "I have removed from my house the sacred portion and have given it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow, according to all you have commanded. I have not turned aside from your commands nor have I forgotten any of them." (Deuteronomy 26:12,13)

Jesus told us how to ‘do’ hospitality…and we almost always do it wrong! "Then Jesus said to his host, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."’ (Luke 14:12-14) On the day of judgment, Jesus will measure us — at least in part — by our hospitality. "I was a stranger, and you took me in." (Matthew 25:34ff)

Paul told Timothy and Titus that only those who were "given to hospitality" (a very strong phrase meaning much more than someone who just regularly practices hospitality. Hospitality must be a huge priority in their lives) could serve as leaders in the church. He admires women who "are known for her good deeds, such as bringing up children, showing hospitality, washing the feet of the saints, helping those in trouble and devoting herself to all kinds of good deeds."

Of course, there is also that passage in Hebrews 13:2 — "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels unawares." God has things going on that He does not have to tell you about. Some of the messengers — human or supernatural — of those other works may cross your path, giving you an occasion to offer grace and service. Don’t fail Him but walking by, assuming that all God’s people look, talk and sound like you.

What are the political ramifications here? I fear that neither the left nor the right can be comfortable with this teaching, if they want to remain loyal to their party’s platform. The right is often blasted, charged with not caring about the aliens among us (we’re talking about those who illegally entered or who are now here illegally after visas expired). Some have said that we have to send back every illegal alien, all 10-12 million of them, loading them up in boxcars, tearing them away from their children who were born here, taking them away from property they have amassed… and for the life of me I cannot see Jesus in that idea at all. I love my conservative brethren (and, for the most part, I am one of them) and I absolutely understand the fact that these people have broken the law and, as such, must pay a penalty, but rounding up and deporting millions at the point of a gun is just not something I can reconcile with the teachings of scripture.

On the left, I see just as many problems. They created an entitlement society, a welfare state, and then fight to keep the borders porous so that others can come and live off the legally coerced largess of others. Let me be very plain: it is NOT compassion if you are offering to feed, clothe, give medical treatment, and education to others by using other peoples’ money. That is not compassion, but coercion. Those who do not want to join into the wealth-reallocation party are forced to do so by the full weight of the government (IRS, sheriffs, battering rams, and wage garnishment). I do not see Jesus in that in any way, shape, or form.

Remember this: God is not the property of any political party nor were they founded to advance His will. We do not belong to parties and we cannot offer them our first loyalty. We belong to God and that means that the scripture must be obeyed even if it makes us uncomfortable.

The law of God is that we are — personally, as individuals and as churches — to care for any who we see in need, regardless of their otherness, their legal status, or how repugnant some of their personal habits and choices are to us. Remember, in the Jewish world every single aspect of life — clothing, family organization, food choices, loans — was covered by law. When an alien came in, they would give offense every day of the week, usually without an intention of doing so. God’s response was to have them understand the law they were amenable to (especially the Sabbath laws) but, otherwise, to require His people to show them love, the protection of God’s social justice laws, and to give them alms when they were in need. That job was not given to the government, for governments exist to exercise power and gain more of it. This job — love and care — was given to individuals and any fobbing off of this to government — which is the tendency of the left — is antithetical to scriptural teachings.

God requires us to go to Him with empty hands (Deut. 26:12,13; Matthew 6:19,20). We are to give away rather than live to accumulate. We are to share with others — especially those who are not like us, cannot repay us, and who may offend us — rather than build our own circle of friends. This is an individual duty — not a state duty — so neither right nor left will like it.

But who cares? God has spoken.