Solitude and Spiritual Transformation

I'm teaching Spiritual Formation to Payne Theological Seminary M.Div. students this week. I'm sending them to pray for an hour, using Psalm 23 as their meditative focus. I'm going to find a place to pray after I post this teaching, which I'll give this afternoon.







SOLITUDE AND SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION

Spend meaningful time in solitude and you will be transformed.[1] Solitude is not “loneliness.” Entering into solitude for the sake of drawing near to God is a spiritual discipline. Solitude takes us into the “deep waters of the heart” more than does fellowship. To prove this, go alone to a quiet place away from your home, work, and place of ministry for a day. Leave your cell phone and blackberry behind. Take only with your Bible and some paper to write on. Then watch what happens. As Thomas Merton said, there will be an encounter with the subconscious depths of your will, where ancient selfish motives move comfortably like forgotten sea monsters in waters where they are never seen. In regard to the challenges solitude brings Dallas Willard notes that the most challenging environment in a prison setting is solitary confinement.[2] Solitude is dangerous and threatening. For many it is punishing to be alone with themselves.

The deepest of the great lakes is Lake Superior. The deeper the lake the more turbulent and majestic is the surface. Thus Lake Superior is known for its dangerous waves that have sunk many a ship. If Lake Superior were only ten feet deep it wouldn’t have huge waves. It would be far less threatening and dramatic. Its great depth makes possible the great dangers and possibilities that lie on its surface. This is also true in a human heart that has great depth. Solitude has the potential to move a person into the deep and potentially dangerous waters of the human heart. In solitude deepens a shallow life.

1. Jesus Spent Time Praying in Solitude.Why choose times of solitude? Isn’t it an option that might be good for some but not needed for others? The answer to this is that Jesus spent time in solitude. Jesus began his ministry by spending 40 days alone in solitude (Mt. 4:1-11). Before choosing the 12 he spent the entire night alone in the desert hills (Lk. 6:12). When he heard of John the Baptist's death he "withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place apart" (Mt. 14:13). After feeding the 5000 he dismissed the crowd and "went up into the hills by himself" (Mt. 14:23). After a long night of work, "in the morning, a great while before day, he rose and went out to a lonely place" (Mk. 6:31). After healing a leper, Jesus "withdrew to the wilderness and prayed" (Lk. 5:16). Before his time on the cross he went alone to the Garden of Gethsemane (Mt. 26:36-46).
If our Lord took times of solitary prayer out of his own need to be in contact with the Father, should we do any less?

2. Our World Does Not Value Solitude.In our world, "doing" is more important than "being," and speaking is more important than silence. I have met many people (mostly men) who work “7 – 12s”; that is, 7 days a week for 12 hours each day. Henri Nouwen has said that we live in an increasingly "wordy world." My experience is that the constant barrage of words that come at us day after day not only do not serve to enrich our souls, but actually produce a kind of spiritual deadness, an insensitivity to the things of the Spirit.
I believe that what the Bible calls "wisdom" is largely cultivated in solitude. I like the way Eugene Peterson expresses this: "All speech that moves men was minted when some man's mind was poised and still.”[3]

3. In Solitude There Is An "Unmasking of Ourselves."When we go to pray alone with God we leave behind the "masks": viz., those things that are devices for covering up the self. We leave behind the people with whom we pose and posture, perform before, and trivialize with. In solitude no one is there to affirm us or challenge us or shame us. No one, of course, except for God. In solitude we leave behind all those activities we hide behind and which keep us from facing ourselves. What is left? Things such as: our temptations, our fears, our reactions and reactiveness, our own unfaithfulness and disbelief, our own lack of trust in God, and our own demons. What is left is who we truly are, what we truly have become. It's really hard to by a hypocrite when it's just you and God.

4. In Solitude We Encounter Our Own Powerlessness and Need.Psalm 40:17 says, "Yet I am poor and needy, may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay." Only the person who recognizes he is needy can seek the Lord with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. Only the person who feels thirst will crave water. In solitude we see how powerless and needy we are. We see more clearly our need for transformation. This brings humility. At this point we begin to turn to God.

5. In Solitude We See That Being Is Spiritually Prior To Doing.Henri Nouwen writes that, "In solitude we become aware that our worth is not the same as our usefulness."[4] In The Genesee Diary Nouwen says that solitude teaches us to develop a "presence" before people rather than having to give them a "performance."
In his solitude in the desert Jesus was tempted to do three things:
- Be relevant! ("Turn stones into loaves.")
- Be spectacular! ("Throw yourself down.")
-Be powerful! ("I will give you all these kingdoms.")
In solitude we see the reality of temptations like these. We see how easily we are tempted by far less trivial things than these. We see the reality of spiritual battle.

7. In Solitude We Develop Compassionate Solidarity.In solitary times of prayer God will show us the reality and depth of our own hatred, envy, jealousy, cruelty, lust, and so on. We will see within our selves these "seeds of destruction" and "the violence within."[5] In the great devotional literature there is the near-unanimous opinion that the spiritually mature person will have more compassion towards all kinds of people because God has identified the seeds of sinful behaviors within themself. We see that we are "those kind of people" too. We realize we need the help, mercy, and grace from the Lord if we are not to give in to the violence within.[6]
Solitude is the foundation of all meaningful corporate spirituality. Why? Because in solitude one gets re-related to God. To return home after a solitary time with God means that many fearful, anxious burdens have been placed upon Him. What Kierkegaard called “the crowd” and Nietzsche denigrated as “the herd” becomes an unreal, phony place to be if people have not taken the time to be stripped away by God.
Richard Nixon used to appoint someone to enter a room filled with waiting people to “prepare the room for his entrance.” The end result of people being around a Christian leader should be an experience of being, not in a great person’s presence, but in God’s presence.

8. Our time in meaningful solitude affects others.A friend of Henri Nouwen’s was leaving for a three month retreat in solitude. Nouwen writes: “I asked God that Sarah’s time in solitude would bear fruit not only in her own heart but in the hearts of many people. Sarah looked gratefully at me and said, “Yes, my time away is a time for others.” Then she drove off.”[7] (Nouwen, Sabbatical Journey, p. 20) Our ministry to others becomes more relevant as our time away with God increases both temporally and spiritually.
As Nouwen writes that "the great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there."[8]

[1] Most of what I know about solitude comes from my own experience and the writings of Henri Nouwen.[2] Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines[3] Citing R.E.C. Browne, in The Contemplative Pastor (1999: Christianity Today, Inc.), p. 30.[4] See Nouwen, Out of Solitude[5] See Thomas Merton, Seeds of Destruction; and Paul Tournier, The Violence Within[6] One of Merton’s most powerful spiritually transforming experiences occurred in Louisville as he[7] Nouwen, Sabbatical Journey, p. 20[8] Nouwen, The Wounded Healer,

The Human Soul is the Arena Where the Destinies of People are Determined

Seed & leaf, on snow in my backyard

I'm holding in my hands the book Martin Luther King is said to have often carried with him: Jesus and the Disinherited, by Howard Thurman. Thurman is the great African-American mystic-scholar who writes out of a spiritual depth that can only be gained from years and years of meditation and prayer in the presence of God.

Thurman writes these words about Jesus.

Jesus' "message focused on the urgency of a radical change in the inner attitude of the people. He recognized fully that out of the heart are the issues of life and that no external force, however great and overwhelming, can at last long destroy a people if it does not first win the victory of the spirit against them. 'To revile because one has been reviled - this is the real evil because it is the evil of the soul itself.' Jesus saw this with almighty clarity. Again and again he came back to the inner life of the individual. With increasing insight and startling accuracy he placed his finger on the "inward center" as the crucial arena where the issues would determine the destiny of his people." (Jesus and the Disinherited, 21, emphasis mine)

So:

• Jesus wants, in the first place, to capture the hearts of people. 
• Out of the heart come the issues of life.
• First be cured in your own soul.
• The human soul is the arena where the destinies of people are determined.

To focus on changing external circumstances without gaining victory in the hearts of people is like putting duct tape over a bullet wound. Physician - heal thyself. Or rather: Physician - first be yourself healed.

What is needed today is more deep people, not people with more information, with most of it trivial. The Real Jesus wants to get at your soul and start plowing so as to plant seeds that will take deep root.

The tree of your life finds its destiny in the seeds that take root in the soil of your soul.

5 Data that Point to God

Maumee Bay State Park, Ohio

Linda and I arrived in Dayton a few hours ago. Tomorrow morning I'll drive 17 miles to Payne Theological Seminary and teach, from 9-6, my first day of Spiritual Formation to Master's students. Now we're in our hotel room, and Linda is taking a nap. I decided to watch the debate on God's existence between philosophers William Lane Craig and Peter Millican. I'll make a few comments along the way.

First, Bill begins by saying he's going to defend two conclusions: 1) The existence of God provides a good explanation for five data; and 2) atheism does not explain these 5 data. Therefore theism is more probable than atheism.

Note that Bill presents "5 data" for God's existence. Sometimes I hear people say "There is no evidence for God's existence." But that is false, as one can see by listening to Bill present his case. Theistic philosophers such as Bill and myself make the case for God on the basis of evidence, not the absence of evidence.

Datum #1 is: The origin of the universe. That is, our universe began to exist. Here Bill presents the Kalam Cosmological Argument for God's Existence. Students in my MCCC Philosophy of Religion classes should be familiar with this argument. For a very sweet and fairly understandable presentation of this argument see Bill's book On Guard. (I'll be using On Guard in my spring Redeemer Ministry School Apologetics class.)

Bill here formulates the Kalam argument as:

1. The universe began to exist.
2. If the universe began to exist, then the universe has a transcendent cause. 
3. Therefore, the universe has a transcendent cause.

Datum #2 is: The fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life. Please note once again that this datum is an empirical given, which demands an explanation. The argument for God's existence that reasons from this datum is, thus, an empirical argument. The person who claims "There are no empirical reasons to believe in God" is therefore simply wrong and misguided.

Again, my philosophy students will recognize this argument. But note that Bill here formulates the fine-tuning argument is a way different from that of Robin Collins. The argument is:

1. The origin of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design.
2. It is not due to either physical necessity or design.
3. Therefore, it is due to design. 

The existence of our fine-tuned universe demands the existence of a Grand Designer. Watch the debate to see Bill explicate 1 and 2.

Datum #3: Objective moral values and duties in the world. Bill formulates this argument as I do in my Philosophy of Religion classes.

1. If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Some people say that the existence of evil disproves the existence of God. Bill thinks the existence of real evil in the world actually serves to prove the existence of God. "Real evil in the world actually serves to prove the existence of God, since without God to ground objective moral values "good" and "evil" as such would not exist.

Datum #4: The historical facts concerning Jesus of Nazareth. Bill gives three historical facts that are best explained by the resurrection of Jesus. So we have the following argument.

1. There are three established historical facts about Jesus: his empty tomb, his post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples' belief in the resurrection.
2. The hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" is the best explanation of these facts.
3. The hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" entails that God exists.
4. Therefore, God exists.

Datum #5: The personal experience of God. This isn't an argument for God's existence. Rather, it is the claim that you can know that God exists wholly apart from arguments simply by immediately experiencing him. Bill quotes his doctoral mentor at the University of Birmingham, the famous philosopher John Hick, who writes: 

"God was known to them as a dynamic will interacting with their own wills, a sheer given reality, as inescapably to be reckoned with as destructive storm and life-giving sunshine . . . They did not think of God as an inferred entity but as an experienced reality. To them God was not . . . an idea adopted by the mind, but an experiential reality which gave significance to their lives."

After Bill's presentation Peter Millican makes his case against God's existence.

Millican begins by citing the variety of cultures past and present in the world, and their varying ideas about God and/or gods. He claims that most people hold to the religious views they do, not as a result of rational-logical thought processes, but because of their unchosen cultural worldview. OK. I think this is true. But, philosophically, so what? On this reasoning Millican's own observations are culture-laden.

Millican claims that scientific beliefs are not culturally dependent. He says: "Scientific beliefs do not depend on cultural indoctrination for their acceptance and transmission.As a result, you won't find scientific theories being geographically determined anything the way like religions are." I doubt this claim. At the very least any defense of it will be, necessarily, non-scientific. 

Millican says he suspects Bill will accuse him of committing the genetic fallacy. Everyone laughs at this comment. I'm thinking the same, and just what Millican's sociological observations have to do with Bill's argument. I think... nothing. Millican clarifies his argument, saying:

If some method of acquiring beliefs leads to lots of different and conflicting beliefs, then that method cannot obviously be relied on. Call this statement M1. 

Many of the religious belief systems of the world clearly do conflict with each other, so they cannot all be true. (Millican is correct about this. Anyone who thinks All the world's religions point in the same direction is simply uninformed and irrational.

When Bill speaks again he does accuse Millican of committing the genetic fallacy.

I think Bill makes a good point re. M1. This point is:

•  While there indeed are varying religious beliefs in world history, they do not use "the same method." Bill says if they do use the same method, then he would like to know what that method is.
• Bill then says that Peter and he are using the same method; viz., empirical claims and logical reasoning re. those claims.
• Therefore, Peter's sociological comments are false re. M1, and inconsequential to the arguments for God Bill is presenting.

It's all fun listening. But Linda is waking up from her nap, and we're going down to the pool and whirlpool to relax!

Death & Life After Death

Green Lake Conference Center, Wisconsin

Notes from "Death and the Afterlife," by Chad Meister (in The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion, Ch. 27, pp. 294 ff.)

Meister's essay is a nice summary of the major philosophical views of life after death. Here's a summary of Meister's summary.

We're all confronted with our own mortality. One day, I will die. You will too. What happens after that, if anything? Your answer depends on your worldview. If also depends on your answer to the question: What is a person? Re. this, the four central views among philosophers are: substance dualism, materialism, monistic pantheism, and the Buddhist understanding of anatman.

WHAT IS A PERSON?

Substance dualism

Most Western philosophers have held to some form of substance dualism, to include Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, and Kant. Descartes may be the most famous and influential. His "cogito," "I think, therefore I am," implies that the essence of a person is to be a "thinking thing." The mind or soul is res cogitans, with the body being res extensa; viz., mind and body are two entirely different substances. The soul is an unextended, non-spatial, non-physical substance. The body is an extended, spatial, physical substance.

A main problem Cartesian substance dualism faces is: how can the immaterial soul exert an influence on the material body? "Theistic dualists often reply that if God (an immaterial reality) can interact with matter, then it is not inconceivable that immaterial souls could do so as well." (Meister, 295)

Most dualists affirm life after death. "If human persons are constituted by body and soul, then the notion of continued existence after the death of the physical body is at least a philosophical possibility, since the soul could, theoretically, continue to exist after the death and decay of the body." (Ib., 296)

See also, e.g., the work of theistic philosopher J.P. Moreland, who is a substance dualist.

Materialism

Materialism is "the view that the self, the essence of the individual human person, is fully material and includes no immaterial aspect... There is, materialists argue, good reason to believe that human persons are nothing more than the matter of which they are constituted." (Ib., 297)

Most materialists do not believe there is survival after death. "Once the physical body (or at least the brain or central nervous system) dies, the individual perishes forever." (Ib., 298)

Meister goes into some detail explaining various kinds of materialism such as, for example, type-type identity theory, where "mental states and processes are identical to physical brain states and processes. On this view the mind just is the physical brain.

Monistic pantheism

Hindu philosophers hold to monistic pantheism (whereas few Western philosophers do). Meister writes:

"According to this school, ultimate reality is infinite, undifferentiated, conscious bliss. This reality is referred to as 'Brahman' and is understood to be the only reality. It is ultimately non-dual, and all appearances, including the physical universe, are illusion or maya (an illusory aspect in which apparent differentiation and individuality emanate from Brahman). Individual selfhood is also part of the illusion, and the true self, or Atman, is in reality identical to Brahman." (Ib., 298)

So after death, then what? The loss of personal existence and becoming "undifferentiated Brahman." There is no individual existence in Brahman. "Rather, [after death] it is full union with or absorption into Brahman." (Ib., 299)

Anatman

The Buddhist doctrine of anatman is that "there are no individual substances - neither material nor immaterial ones." (Ib.) Therefore, "there is no fundamentally real individual self. Such a view is illusory, Buddhists maintain." (Ib.)

After death, then what? Meister writes: "On most Buddhist accounts there is survival of a certain sort, but not a continuation of a substantial individual self in an afterlife."

We have, then, four major philosophical view of life after death.

1. Substance dualism - it is conceivable for the immaterial soul to survive death, either in a disembodied or an embodied state.
2. Materialism - life after death is unlikely.
3. Monistic pantheism - survival is possible, but not as an undifferentiated, individual self.
4. Anatman - the individuated self is an illusion; there is no personal existence in either this life or the next.

Support for Life after Death

One kind of support for life after death is on the evidence of near-death experiences (NDEs). Meister elaborates and cites examples. More recently, see Harvard neurosurgeon Eben Alexander's testimony - here, and here. 

Another type of evidence is "that some persons have actually come back to life after being dead for an extended period of  time (beyond what are understood to be 'near-death' experiences)." (Ib., 301) See, e.g., Craig Keener's recent Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts.

More specifically, some have argued, on the basis of historical evidence, for the physical resurrection of Jesus. See N.T. Wright, William Lane Craig, et. al. 

Objections to the plausibility of life after death

"One of the central arguments against immortality relates to the claim that the existence of a brain is necessary for consciousness, that each person's brain is necessary for his consciousness, and since a person's brain will die and decay at some point in time, he cannot be immortal." (Ib., 303)

Another argument against personal existence after death is this. Since we cannot perceive a soul, we always identify a person by their body. If disembodied souls exist, in what sense could we refer to these souls as persons? "Identifying someone, both synchronically and diachronically, seems to entail the identification of a person's physical body." (Ib.)

Meister's essay is helpful in identifying the options. As for me, since I affirm a form of dualism, hold to the historical reality of the resurrection of Christ, and find materialism philosophically problematic, I believe in life after death.

Colleges Aren't Teaching Students Much

Monroe County Community College

My friend Dr. Jim DeVries and I are reading Robert Arum's Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. Jim is retired from teaching history for 40 years at Monroe County Community College, where I have been teaching philosophy for 15 years. Jim was just elected on MCCC's Board of Directors. I'm excited for him and for our college, since Jim is an excellent scholar and educator, and has a real heart for student learning.

Should colleges teach students something? I'd say yes. What should students learn (if we agree they should learn) in college? Arum says they should learn critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing during their first two years in college. Are students prepared for this when they enter college? The answer, says Arum, is no. Do colleges help? Arum writes: "How much are students actually learning in contemporary higher education? The answer for many undergraduates, we have concluded, is not much." (Kindle Locations 799-800)

At least MCCC has a class dedicated to teaching critical thinking skills, Introduction to Logic, which I teach. My classroom text is: The Power of Critical Thinking: Effective Reasoning About Ordinary and Extraordinary Claims.  

On the universally agreed-upon need to teach critical thnking Arum writes:

Teaching students to think critically and communicate effectively are espoused as the principal goals of higher education. From the Commission on the Future of Higher Education’s recent report A Test of Leadership to the halls of Ivy League institutions, all corners of higher education endorse the importance of these skills. When promoting student exchange across the world, former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings urged foreign students to take advantage of “the creativity and diversity of American higher education, its focus on critical thinking, and its unparalleled access to world-class research.” The American Association of University Professors agrees: “… critical thinking … is the hallmark of American education—an education designed to create thinking citizens for a free society.” Indeed, 99 percent of college faculty say that developing students’ ability to think critically is a “very important” or “essential” goal of undergraduate education. Eighty-seven percent also claim that promoting students’ ability to write effectively is “very important” or “essential.”"

That sounds good. "However, commitment to these skills appears more a matter of principle than practice, as the subsequent chapters in this book document. The end result is that many students are only minimally improving their skills in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing during their journeys through higher education." (Kindle Locations 809-813)

Beginning Jan. 14 I'll meet a group of new students in three philosophy classes, in hopes of getting them to see the value and even fun of learning to think critically about all things, to include life's most important issues.

The God Who Became Dirty so Souls Might Be Clean

Door, in Monroe

Here's a nice piece - Jesus was a dirty, dirty God - on cnn.com.

In God's Presence there is Healing for the Troubled Heart

Del, Sallie, Adrienne, and Julie at our Home Group

Yesterday I did the funeral service for my father-in-law Del Lawson. Thank you to all of Del's family and to my Redeemer family for the great outpouring of love. It makes all the difference to Linda and I.

Del passed away at 2:06 am, on New Year's Eve day. We got two hours of sleep. As the day went on we both knew we wanted to spend the night with our church family, just being together and worshiping in the new year together. We needed to be in God's empowering presence. What a beautiful, healing night that was for us.

The reality of God's presence is not just some religious theory, it's a visceral, existential felt-reality. We desire it, and wonder where would we be without it. To live out of the presence of God is to exist outside the walls of God's protective fortress. Linda and I know God as our fortress and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. To live outside of God is to be troubled. We found, last New Year's Eve, healing for our troubledness.

I love how Henri Nouwen expresses this as he writes:

"Once I "know" God, that is,once I experience God's love as the love in which all my experiences are anchored, I can desire only one thing: to be in that love. "Being" anywhere else, then, is shown to be illusory and eventually lethal." (Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing, 69)

The Triumph of the Therapeutic in Western Culture

Linda, on the beach

I am a big fan of U of Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith. I read Soul Searching years ago and discovered, to my horror and recognition, the religion of today's American adolescent: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. (MTD)

The main premises of MTD are:
1. “A God exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.”
2. “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.”
3. “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.”
4. “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.”
5. “Good people go to heaven when they die.”

God, on MTD, is a Cosmic Homeboy who is there, like Dr. Seuss's birthday bird, just for you, and to satisfy your desires.

When Smith explained MTD, I thought: I have seen this in my college classes, all over the place.

Before Smith explained this to us, psychologist and philosopher Philip Rieff prophesied it in his The Triumph of the Therapeutic: The Uses of Faith after Freud. "In place of a secularized Christianity building the kingdom of God on earth, Rieff foresaw an age of therapy, in which the pursuit of well-being would replace the quest for either justice or salvation." (Ross Douthat, Bad Religion, Kindle Locations 4614-4615)

Rieff was correct, and thus was born the likes of Ulrich Leonard Tolle, who disturbingly changed his name to "Eckhart" Tolle. What arrogance, I thought, because I have studied the metaphysically challenging, deep Christian mystic Meister Eckhart, who is the only "Eckhart" anyone ever need attend to. Tolle's The Power of Now (which I read in one sitting) is Rieff's predicted therapeutic mentality dressed up in religious-spiritual terminology. Shame on anyone who takes such stuff seriously. Yet many do. If you do, you should not boast of this.

We now have a spirituality of "niceness," minus active compassion (minus praxis). Smith observes and records the growing narcissism among American adolescents, with their non-commitment to serving others as a core human value. (See Douthat, K4740, passim) Douthat writes:

"[T]he triumph of the therapeutic has steadily undercut American religion’s ability to serve as a corrective or a critique. For all their claims to ancient wisdom, there’s nothing remotely countercultural about the Tolles and Winfreys and Chopras. They’re telling an affluent, appetitive society exactly what it wants to hear: that all of its deepest desires are really God’s desires, and that He wouldn’t dream of judging." (Kindle Locations 4732-4735)

In America, fluff and bunnies rule.

Following Jesus in a Post-Christian Culture

Christianity is no longer "the air we breathe" in America. This is not necessarily bad. American "Christianity" was not necessarily representative of authentic Jesus-following. And, real Christianity has flourished and been a revolutionary force when marginalized and persecuted.

In his book The Naked Anabaptist: The Bare Essentials of a Radical Faith, Stuart Murray gives the following marks of our post-Christian culture.

Churches no longer occupy a central place within culture;

Christians exist as a minority group amidst many ideological communities;

Christianity seeks not to rule over society but to witness to it through lived expressions of God’s kingdom;

Churches reimagine their primary role as a movement rather than an institution; and

Christians move from maintaining the status quo to radically following Jesus from the margins.

Do not be discouraged by this! "In today’s post-Christian culture, Christians would do well to see these changes as opportunities to re-embrace our subversive roots and follow Jesus from the margins. The natural outcome could be a witness characterized by the fruit of the Spirit, enemy love, and justice for the poor. Perhaps Christian credibility will be revived afresh." (Kurt Willems)

Humanists Absent in Times of Crisis

My back yard

In "In a Crisis, Humanists Seem Absent," Samuel Freedman asks "Where were the humanists? At a time when the percentage of Americans without religious affiliation is growing rapidly, why did the “nones,” as they are colloquially known, seem so absent?"

Humanists lag behind religious leaders who have their "boots on the ground," "a continuing presence in communities, a commitment to tactile rather than virtual engagement with people who are hurting." Newtown has shown this.

What humanists lack, comparatively, is community. Humanists tend to be "cowboy individualists."

I remember meeting with a local humanist leader, inviting him to serve with me in our comunity soup kitchen. He declined, preferring his internet presence. Of course that's a small sample, from which one can conclude nothing. But Freedman's essay shows it is representative of the inability of humanists to collectively help.

Perhaps humanism's problem is this: it's hard to form a movement around a negative. A "none" will be at a disadvantage to a "some." By definition, "nones" have nothing to give; "somes" have something to give. Who would you call upon in a crisis?