Does The Dogma Live Loudly Within You?

How does a life of faith contrast with a life of dogma? Dogma is something held as an established, authoritative tenet, a propositional axiom. Faith is trust in someone or something  that one holds onto despite difficulties and in confusing circumstances. We can have faith in tenets as unshakeable truths, but faith has a far broader scope. Dogma connotes authority; we can trust authority or rebel. Jesus enjoins us to trust Him on the basis of knowing Him, of having a relationship so strong that we recognize and understand His voice. (John 10:4 & 27) It is not doctrine to know the voice of the Lover of our soul. In the words of a traditional hymn, trust and obedience are inextricably linked at the core of our relationship with Jesus.

Both faith and doctrine influence our lives, in that we honor what we believe, and who we believe in. God created both the angels and humankind a certain way, and it seems logical to us that He would  command and bless our fulfilling the nature He created us with.  In life, we often find that God-given desires are not fulfilled. We blame this on sin (our own or others’), or opposition by the world, the flesh, or the devil. The gospels show that Jesus’ earthly life included fasting, denial of the flesh, and suffering. With Him as role model, this suggests that God’s intention for Adam and us is to overcome naturally good things for the sake of transcendent spiritual values, as Jesus did. (For example, His spending 40 days in the wilderness.) Lucifer’s downfall was that he believed that the light and beauty of his God-created nature would be fulfilled when he ascended above God. (Isaiah 14:13-14) He tempted Adam and Eve that they could become as God. (Genesis 3:5) It is a subtle path from “God created me this way”, to “God intends me to fulfill the nature He created in me”, to “the ultimate fulfillment of God’s creation is for me to be as God, and ultimately transcend Him.”

Does God take us through trials to reveal our true internal condition to us and to others? The life of faith - knowing Jesus even in the storm - suggests that we know Him best when we have nothing else. I have found the homeless have a strong connection to the Lord; they have tried and found Him faithful.

We all experience storms; whether He takes us through or we tough it out alone depends on us. If our faith speaks through our lives and actions, is it an assertive self-conscious (or self-righteous) display, or the aroma of a life broken by storms and saved by His hand? Is it a dogmatic life that acknowledges the struggle to reconcile relationship with Jesus with the imperatives of a world system that we live in?

The world, with its focus on intellectual understanding without a spiritual dimension, sees the Bible as a source of intellectual propositions, not a revelation of eternal truths. The intellectual content of the Bible is glorious (Psalm 119), but that is the farthest the world can get. The eternal presence of God is not merely a different view of reality, it transcends all that we can see or understand in the world. The life of those who know and walk with Jesus may appear governed by dogma to unbelievers. Only those who have access to that inner source of life that flows out of the innermost being of Jesus’ people (John 7:37-39) can discern the life of faith. The only way to experience this artesian well of eternal life is to receive Jesus and surrender to Him.

Book Review: Finding God in the Waves, by Mike McHargue

Not your typical conversion testimony. “Science Mike” places modern science and empirical evidence as the epistemological authority for understanding God and interpreting His word. His experience seems genuine - he went astray and God searched for him as a lost sheep and brought him back to the fold. His refound faith seems a work in progress (aren’t we all?). The second half of the book, the writer’s explanation of the axioms of his faith, are certainly unique to him. One unusual feature - he links religious and spiritual experiences to activity in specific locations in the brain.

The greatest value in reading this book is the insight the author gives into the thoughts and feelings of searchers, questioners, doubters, and unbelievers. How does a person who is unsure of what he or she believes react to the way church services are conducted and members treat them? How do believers treat those who would like to believe but openly express the doubts they are struggling with? How do those trapped in sinful lifestyles react to what us said and done in church? The core question: is our response to those who don’t line up with our understanding of Christian belief and practice more like Jesus or the Pharisees? The author details his experience with the latter.

God’s transcendence. In many areas, this book articulates the author’s trust in God’s overarching, omnipotent love. Yet there is one central tenet of Christianity that he does not “grok”. Atonement. He asks why God determined to send Jesus to die on the cross for the sins of humankind. How could Jesus’ blood pay the price for our sins? Why was it necessary? Oddly, he foreshadows awareness of the resolution of his own issue early when discussing his disappointment with God in not answering his prayers to prevent his parents’ divorce: “Instead, He bowed His head and died.” (Chapter 6) The fundamental tension that God has in dealing with fallen humans is His own perfect love and perfect holiness. Perfect love impels Him not to leave us to reap the fruit of our sin; perfect holiness cannot allow us as sinners into His presence without our destruction. The Atonement is God’s response to this dilemma. In God’s transcendent eternity, He simultaneously resolved both the legal and experiential problem of sin, and empowered His people to defeat sin and enter His kingdom.

Labor Day in Heaven

Labor Day, with its U.S. origin in the 1882-1892 time frame, recognizes union members who fought for livable wages over a hundred years ago. It rejects the Malthusian theory and celebrates that humankind is not condemned to live at the subsistence level. Work enables us to receive income to live, to support our family and others. Work provides tangible benefits to society: food, shelter, enlightenment, entertainment, etc. Work enhances our self-image, built by accomplishment.

The Bible recognizes that we live in a physical world that was very good when God created it (Genesis 1:31), but that our priority should be Him and His kingdom. In Genesis 3:17-19, God put a curse on anything in this world that we work for in disobedience to Him.  Proverbs says in all labor there is profit (Proverbs 14:23), but Jesus said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33)  Paul wrote, “ ...if anyone is not willing to work, neither let him eat,” (2 Thessalonians 3:10) but also “... the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” (Romans 8:6).

What will labor in heaven be like? What will we do? Will we participate in one continuous concert of worship, interrupted only by choir rehearsals? (Revelation 5:13) Will we tend the gardens of the new earth, as Adam was originally assigned in the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15)? This is all idle speculation.

Jesus gave instructions which apply to all circumstances in John 6:27: “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life.” In some inconceivable way, work that provides this food is faith in Christ. The context of this conversation is the miraculous feeding of a multitude, followed by Jesus walking on the water. Near the end of this passage, Jesus gave this explanation to His disciples: "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. “ (John 6:63)

The refrain from a poem by Charles Thomas Studd summarizes human understanding of what God thinks about labor.

Only one life, twill soon be past.

Only what’s done for Christ will last.

And when I am dying, how happy I’ll be,

If the lamp of my life has been burned out for Thee.

Independence Day

Celebrate Independence Day

The Declaration of Independence’s list of grievances sounds a lot like children whining. Grievances are not unusual; the essay in the Declaration attempts to explain that these legitimate grievances justify the rebellion. What is the difference? Good parents have a vision for the future of their children, which the rules they impose seldom convey and the child or adolescent cannot yet grasp, so they whine. But in the political realm, adults with differing perspectives cannot claim this kind of superiority over others.

The colonists in 1776 did not primarily complain that they had to pay for the cost of British colonial governance and protection, but that they had no say in the matter. They felt like adults being treated as children. Would things have gone differently if there had been members of parliament from America to advocate for and vote on these issues? But if so, what of the rest of the British colonies? Should India and China and Australia also have had representatives? Should this have included representatives of the conquered as well? Quite quickly the inherent racism of colonial empires surfaces, the “white man’s burden” to minister to and elevate the subjugated peoples, not admit them as equal partners. Did American colonists deal with native Americans any better? (Lamentations 3:39)

What defines the difference between whining, rebellion, and legitimate grievances? Surely it rests in the standards by which complaints are judged. The founding fathers declared that certain natural rights were inalienable: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They further asserted that the creator endowed humans with these rights, an essential part of being human. The Bill of Rights recognizes many other derived rights. The modern era has created a whole new set of “rights.” Whining is usually characterized as complaints about unhappiness that is someone else’s fault, not on the level of rights, but more of the flavor that someone didn’t do something to make me happy. God is often indicted on this charge. 

The founding fathers’ logic implicitly derives from man being made in the image and likeness of God. (Genesis 1:26; 5:1) The natural rights of man therefore derive from the respect that everyone ought to render to the image of God in others. That likeness is awesome to contemplate, as is the idea that God’s original intention for humankind is to be like Him in all aspects (Ephesians 4:15). He deals with every person and situation in full accordance with His holiness, love, and justice. We stretch credulity when we invoke His image in us, because none of us measure up to His stature.  

The climax of C. S. Lewis’ novel Till We Have Faces includes a fictional list of grievances, but with a fundamental difference. Grievances against God suffer from differing levels of knowledge. He sees the big picture, knows the future, and has a plan for our spiritual and eternal blessing. He plans that we become like Him in ways we only dimly sense. The principle illustrated by the fictional conclusion is that God’s ways and plans and very existence are transcendent.  Any complaint we have results from our own choices to refuse Him, just as Adam chose in the garden of Eden. 

Book Review - Paul, A Biography by N. T. Wright

There is so much depth that highlights can only hint at. Paul’s pre-conversion zeal was based on the examples of Phinehas (Numbers 25:7-9) and Elijah (1 Kings 18:40). Psalm 106:30-31 says that Phinehas’ slaying of the brazenly apostate Israelite was reckoned to him as righteousness.  Wright points to the likelihood that young Saul took these to mean that the slaying of unrepentant backsliding Jews was how to deal with early Christians. (Acts 7:58). This was the mindset of Saul when confronted by Christ on the Damascus road.

Considering Paul’s life in chronological order, pulling the Acts and the epistles together, gives us clues to Paul’s interior life, and to events not reported by Luke. The author expends considerable effort on events in Ephesus not recorded by Luke, in which Paul experienced such grievous trials that he despaired of life. The evidence comes from Paul’s own words. The impact on Paul’s outlook on life, ministry, and writing style suggests that this was a significant event. He learned a new aspect of walking with Jesus: His faithfulness in the darkest trials, and being so weak that he had no strength of his own, and was totally dependent on the Lord.

It is hard for us to grasp how hard it was for Jews of Paul’s time to accept the idea of a crucified Messiah. Paul could not, until he met Him. When he preached to Jews, he emphasized continuity with the history, prophecy, and promises of the Jewish scriptures. But it was a hard sell to convince Jews, who expected a conquering hero to set the world right by force, that God had worked more powerfully in Jesus by defeating evil spiritual powers through His crucifixion and resurrection. Paul preached that they needed to experience that power personally, and when writing to churches, reminded them of their own experience with Christ.

The impact of Paul’s life is hard to overestimate. He personally travelled to innumerable cities, preached Christ, established churches, and demonstrated by his own life how a Christian lives. And then he wrote letters that have shown two millennia of believers not only the doctrines of the church, but also how to think about faith, religion, and life in a holistic framework. If nothing else, N. T. Wright’s biography awakens the reader with an appreciation of all that God did through Paul, in fulfillment of Acts 9:16.

Visit Colonial Williamsburg and Appomattox Courthouse

Colonial Williamsburg brings to life the people of Virginia before the American Revolution. The geographic proximity of the Yorktown battlefield and Jamestown settlement provides a sketch of English colonization up to and including the American Revolution. Not too far away, the siege works around Petersburg, and the Appomattox Courthouse speak of a later century and another war. Aside from the lifestyles of the pre-revolutionary colonists, the tension in the revolutionary era begs a fundamental question.

When do values and circumstances drive us to a potentially catastrophic rebellion against an unjust status quo? What injustices justify rejection of existing governance? Were the founding fathers justified in rebellion against Great Britain? Were the Confederate States justified in leaving the Union? On a spiritual plane, was Satan’s rebellion against and rejection of God’s authority justifiable? (I speak as if insane.) Every would-be rebel must address this. 

Justification of rebellion must ultimately rest on moral grounds. When is better the enemy of good enough in a moral dimension? Resistance to Nazi Germany seems a clear example of a government legitimizing its opposition by brazenly embracing and practicing evil. The legitimate functions of government are to protect its citizens and enable them to flourish. A completely illegitimate policy of government is anything that benefits the governing officials and their cronies at the expense of its citizens.

The U.S. Civil War (a.k.a. The War Between The States) was a military stand-off for two years, giving the advantage to the Confederacy. If the Northern states could not defeat them outright, the Southern states expected them to give up the fight, de facto recognition of their departure from the United States. The tide seems to have turned after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Initially, the war was fought to preserve the Union, but after this date, the Union was on record that freedom of enslaved people would be one of the outcomes of the war. After the enormous losses of troops and battles with no gain in two battles at Bull Run, the peninsular campaign, the battle of Fredericksburg and so forth, the battle at Gettysburg in July 1863 seems to have marked the tide turning.

There is probably a gray area in the spectrum of government morality, but somewhere there is a line which, if crossed, removes the legitimacy of that government. Had the British government of the colonies crossed that line in 1776? This is not part of the Williamsburg experience. It is worthwhile to take the 150 mile drive to Appomattox Courthouse, to ponder the contrast between rebellions that succeeded and failed, and their moral underpinning. It may be that the moral do not always succeed in armed conflict, but if there is justice on earth as there is in heaven, this author hopes they would. There will be no moral ambiguity or uncertainty in that final battle, when Jesus will completely eradicate evil on earth.

Celebrate Memorial Day

Celebrate Memorial Day

We seldom hear of the roots of Memorial Day, focusing on the start of summer. We remember those who have fallen also on Veteran’s Day, and of course we celebrate the birth of our nation on Independence Day. One remembrance from each century ... the American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War I. Each day has a different theme. Independence Day focuses on the fundamental values of our forefathers that led them to rebel against Great Britain, immortalized in the Declaration of Independence. Veterans’ Day honors the sacrifices of those who died fighting for our nation, in World War I initially and now more generally all wars. 

It is surprising that the origins of Memorial Day are not more frequently discussed. It began as Decoration Day; there are many localities that claim they were the first to decorate the graves of fallen Union soldiers. The earliest is claimed by some to have occurred in 1865, when former slaves in Charleston, South Carolina did so. This was to express gratitude for their freedom having been gained as a result of the Civil War. The War between the states was fought to preserve the Union, but the Emancipation Proclamation was integral to that war. The war remedied the moral defect embedded in the constitution and subsequent law that had recognized chattel slavery. Abolitionists may have incited the war, but the American people as a whole carried it to completion, at the cost of hundreds of thousands killed, many more wounded.

As we celebrate our values of freedom, I fear we too often confuse it with license; even Christians are sometimes tempted to conflate liberty growing from grace with anomie (lawlessness). Likely few slaves saw their emancipation as enabling them to not have to work, or obey the laws of the land. It meant they were free to become what God had created them to be, without tyrannical human control. It meant that (at least in theory) their lives had equal value to everyone else’s. Subsequent generations have demonstrated that value, not only in the eyes of God, but also to our society. 

We should also, somewhere in our remembrance, honor the price that Jesus paid to free us from the bondage of  sin. We think about this on Good Friday and Easter in a judicial sense. But Jesus unleashed through His work  the very power of God within us, through the Holy Spirit (manifested first on Pentecost) to overcome sin in a practical sense. As we celebrate Memorial Day, let is seek to honor Christ by receiving His empowerment to become all that God calls us to.