Repetitive Worship Shapes Our Hearts and Minds

When "The Lego Movie" came out, Linda and I watched it. The morning after I awoke humming, "Everything is AWESOME!!!" That little song repeats those words over and over... and over. The constant repetition worked its wonders on me.

That is the power of repetition.

Be careful of what you repeat over and over again, because it will get inside you, and become you. (In my college philosophy classes my teaching method is all about getting students to memorize via repetition the correct answers over and over and over again.)

I occasionally hear Westernized linear-thinking Christians mock the repetitive worship found in a Pentecostal church like mine. But the ancient Hebrews were tribal, and tribal worship is repetitive. Repetition is a powerful learning tool, helping God's truths descend from our Western minds into our Hebrew hearts.

N.T. Wright supports repetitive worship. He writes: 

"[S]ometimes, in some traditions at least, the things we sing in church are deliberately repetitive. We use them quite differently: as a way of meditation, of stopping on one point and mulling it over, of allowing something which is very deep and important to make more of an impact on us than if we just said or sung it once and passed on.

Quite different traditions find this helpful: the Taizé movement in France, for instance, uses some haunting brief songs or chants; but you find the same thing in many branches of the modern charismatic movement, where repetition is an essential part of worship.

True, some people find these tedious, and want to get back to old-fashioned hymns as quickly as possible. This may be partly a matter of personality. But it may also be that such people are unwilling to allow the truth of which the poem speaks to get quite so close to them.

Repetition can touch, deep down inside us, parts that other, ‘safer’ kinds of hymn cannot reach, or do not very often."
- N.T. Wright, The Early Christian Letters for Everyone, p. 139

Repetitive worship is not "mindless," but mind-shaping.

Repeat  the truths of God, and be transformed.

Moving From Self-Hatred to Self-Forgiveness

(My backyard - a light at the end of the tree tunnel)

There are things in my past that I wish I would have done differently, words I wish I would have spoken, and words I wish I would not have said. I'm thinking of one of my past failures now. The good news is that I am not hating myself for it. 

If you struggle with self-hatred I recommend Everett Worthington's - Moving Forward: Six Steps to Forgiving Yourself and Breaking Free From the Past. Worthington is Professor of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University, and a follower of Jesus.

I can never hear enough about forgiveness. I need it for myself. I need more wisdom in dispensing it to others.

I meet many who cannot forgive themselves from past failures, whether real or imagined. Un-self-forgiveness is a mental and spiritual assassin. Self-forgiveness rooted in God's great act of forgiveness in Christ is liberating.

Self-forgiveness will free you from guilt. "Sometimes guilt arises over unrealistic expectations and standards of perfection that none of us can achieve. When you are able to forgive yourself, that weight is lifted." (Worthington, p. 45)

Self-forgiveness will free you from self-blame. "Self-forgiveness frees you from the chattering, accusing voice in your head." (Ib., 46)

Self-forgiveness will free you from stress-related illness. "Self-forgiveness can improve your health, and here’s why. Holding on to self-condemnation elevates your stress, which has been associated with a long list of physical and psychological harm." (Ib.)

Self-forgiveness can liberate you from alcohol misuse. "Forgiveness of the self might be, for alcoholics, the most difficult type of forgiveness to achieve. But if they were able to do so, it could help control their drinking." (Ib., p. 47)

Self-forgiveness can liberate you from accusation. "By bringing our sins to God and receiving God’s forgiveness, we can then forgive ourselves and we can rest in the knowledge that the accusations of Satan are groundless. If we forgive ourselves, we can silence the oppressive voice of the enemy." (Ib., 47)

Self-forgiveness provides freedom for flourishing. "By not being so wrapped up in self-condemnation, you can enjoy more pleasurable and positive experiences." (Ib.)

Self-forgiveness provides freedom for focusing on God. "Instead of being wrapped up in condemning yourself for past failures, you can seek God and enjoy that relationship." (Ib.)

Self-forgiveness provides freedom for focusing on others. "Self-forgiveness allows you to focus on others, with the goal of helping to meet their needs." (Ib., p. 48)

Self-forgiveness provides freedom for health. "Self-forgiveness provides energy and vitality. It supplies both a freedom from the past and a forward-thinking orientation that helps you seek the benefits of exercise, a healthy diet, and energetic work." (Ib.)

Self-forgiveness provides freedom for a better quality of life. "Self-forgiveness can matter greatly in enhancing one’s quality of life." (Ib., 50)

Self-forgiveness provides freedom for peace. "People who continue to wrestle with self-blame are unsettled. They find it difficult to exhale and relax. Forgiving yourself will help you live at peace." (Ib.)

Worthington cites empirical studies supporting these conclusions. Why, given the great benefits of self-forgiveness, would anyone choose to wallow in self-condemnation? Why is forgiving ourselves so hard? 

Worthington says there are two kinds of self-forgiveness: decisional, and emotional. 

In the first you no longer seek retaliation against yourself. You choose to not punish yourself for past failings. Instead, you choose to value yourself. 

In emotional self-forgiveness you replace negative, unforgiving emotions with positive emotions toward yourself. "It is emotional self-forgiveness that cools the heat of anger in your heart; it’s what Corrie ten Boom referred to as “the temperature of the heart.” The emotions we use to replace negative, unforgiving emotions are empathy, sympathy, compassion, and love for ourselves." (Worthington, p. 52) 

Why are these things so hard to do?

Worthington cites studies showing that forgiving yourself is different from forgiving others. It is harder. He writes:

"When you attempt to forgive someone else for an offense, you are adopting the viewpoint of the forgiver. The wrongdoer, of course, is someone other than yourself. However, when you try to forgive yourself, you have to operate from two points of view— both forgiver and wrongdoer. Holding contrasting points of view at the same time is a strain. It is hard to bounce back and forth from one perspective to the other." (Ib., p. 54)

In forgiving someone else we are not with them (for the most part) 24/7. But we are with our own selves and thoughts all the time. We can't get away from ourselves. This can make forgiving ourselves harder than forgiving others.

Worthington says self-forgiveness is harder because we have "insider information"; i.e., we know who we really are. "The fact is, we know too much about ourselves. We know that we are capable of repeating the same wrong even when we know how hurtful it is. We also know that, as much as we profess love for God, we are like Paul who wrote: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7: 15). That is, we know the weakness of our will to do the right thing." (Ib., 55)

Self-forgiveness is different and in some ways harder than other-forgiveness because:

1. We live with ourselves 24/7. That is, we live constantly with the one who has hurt us, which is us.

2. We have insider information about our own self that we cannot have when it comes to others.

How, then, can we forgive ourselves? Worthington gives Six Steps to Self-forgiveness. They are: 

STEP 1 - Receive God's Forgiveness

• Go to God for understanding (the task is too big to handle alone)
• Go to God with regret, remorse, and repentance

STEP 2 - Repair Relationships

• Take responsibility (you are not the model citizen you'd like to be)
• Confess to any you have hurt (admitting you're in the wrong goes far in turning things around)
• Make amends through responsible compassion (thinking of others can help you make things right)

STEP 3 - Rethink Ruminations

• It's not necessarily helpful to wrestle with the Almighty
• Adjust perfectionistic standards and unrealistic expectations (Worthington shows how to do this. Getting real about yourself moves the process forward.)

STEP 4 - REACH Emotional Self-forgiveness

• Worthington shows how to move from saying it to feeling it, using the acronym REACH:

1. Recall the hurt. 

2. Empathize with yourself by considering the reasons that you disappointed yourself. 

3. Give yourself the same Altruistic gift you would give other people— understanding and forgiving. 

4. Commit to the emotional self-forgiveness that you experience in order to … 

5. Hold on to self-forgiveness if you ever doubt that you have forgiven yourself. (207)

STEP 5 - Rebuild Self-acceptance

• Live in the truth that you are deeply flawed and also valuable beyond belief

STEP 6 - Resolve to Live Virtuously

• Live virtuously, but give yourself room to fail

And through it all, remember Galatians 5:1 - "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free."

Alvin Plantinga's Modal Version of the Ontological Argument for God's Existence

 

(I re-post this occasionally, because it is so interesting.  The modal version of the OA bypasses Kant's critique of Anselm's OA, which is that 'existence' is not a predicate.)

Here's one way to state Plantinga's modal version of the ontological argument. argument. (Modal logic uses the three modes of being - possible, probable, necessary.)

1.  God, if he exists, is a necessary being. That is, if God exists at all then he exists in every possible world.
2. It is [logically] possible that God exists.
3. If it is possible that God exists, then there is some possible world in which God exists.
4. If God exists in some possible world then, because he is a necessary being, he exists in all possible worlds.
5. God, then, exists in all possible worlds.
6. If God exists in all possible worlds, then he certainly exists in this one.
7. God, therefore, exists.

Here's another version of this argument.

1. It is possible that a necessarily existing being exists.

2. Therefore, a necessarily existent being exists. 

Logic, Opinions, and Abortion

 

                                              (Riding The Badger across Lake Michigan)

Here, again, is the moral argument I have been making, for decades, against abortion.

It is morally wrong to kill an innocent, defenseless human being to solve another problem.  The conceptus/embryo/fetus is an innocent, defenseless human being. Therefore, it is morally wrong to kill a conceptus/embryo/fetus.

Put another way:

1, If something is a conceptus, then it is an innocent, defenseless human being.

2. If something is an innocent, defenseless human being, then it is morally wrong to kill it,

3. Therefore, if something is a conceptus, then it is morally wrong to kill it. .

(On premise 1, see Princeton's Dianne Irving here - "the human embryonic organism formed at fertilization is a whole human being, and therefore it is not just a "blob" or a "bunch of cells." This new human individual also has a mixture of both the mother's and the father's chromosomes, and therefore it is not just a "piece of the mother's tissues"."

A rejection of premise 2 implies that it is not morally wrong to kill innocent, defenseless human beings.)

Thus; reasoning according to the logical rule of inference called hypothetical syllogism, we have: :

1. If A, then B.

2. If B, then C

3. Thus, if A, then C. 

Like this:

1. If something is an apple, then it is a fruit.

2. If something is a fruit, then it is edible. 

3. Therefore, if something is an apple, then it is edible. 

Here is philosopher and jurisprudential scholar (Baylor University) Francis Beckwith's formulation of the argument.

FRANCIS BECKWITH’S LOGICAL ARGUMENT AGAINST ABORTION

1. The unborn entity, from the moment of conception, is a full-fledged member of the human community.

2. It is prima facie morally wrong to kill any member of that community.

3. Every successful abortion kills an unborn entity, a full-fledged member of the human community.

4. Therefore, every successful abortion is prima facie morally wrong.

By “full-fledged member of the human community” is meant that the conceptus is as much a bearer of rights as any human being whose rights-bearing status is uncontroversial, like you or me. As Beckwith says, “the unborn entity is entitled to all the rights to which free and equal persons are entitled by virtue of being free and equal persons.” “Full-fledged member of the human community” cannot mean something like “viability,” since then we have two problems:

1) the arbitrariness of deciding who’s a full-fledged member and who’s not; and
2) the odd philosophical idea that there is suddenly a “moment” (call it time ‘t’) when the conceptus/fetus/inborn child becomes a person, which means at time ‘t-minus-1 second’ it was not. “Abortion advocates argue that the unborn entity is not a person and hence not a subject of moral rights until some decisive moment in fetal or postnatal development.” (Beckwith, 130) Such a position is incoherent and fraught with philosophical problems.

“Virtually no one disputes – including leading defenders of abortion-choice – that every mature human being was once an adolescent, a child, an infant, a baby, a newborn, a fetus, and an embryo.” (131) But the abortion advocate argues that it is morally permissible to end a human being’s life at the embryo stage of human life. How is this possible? Beckwith says they argue that not all human beings are equally intrinsically valuable because some do not have the present capacity to exhibit certain properties or functions that would make them intrinsically valuable. (130) The judgment is made that the fetal self is not “intrinsically valuable.”

Beckwith holds to a “substance view of persons.” This means that a human being “is intrinsically valuable because of the sort of thing it is and the human being remains that sort of thing as long as it exists”. That is, an individual “maintains absolute identity through time while it grows, develops, and undergoes numerous changes”. To use another example, the term “universe” refers to one entity that goes through various stages. The universe at t + 1 second, though much smaller and far more inchoate then the universe now, was still at that time as much “the universe” as it is now. So, the term “universe does not suffer from vagueness. It is in precisely that sense that “person” does not suffer from vagueness as well.

Various functions and capacities, whether fully realized or utilized do not constitute a person. Thus a human being is never a potential person, but is always a person at different stages of development, whether potential properties and capacities are actualized or not.

To explain: a human being may never realize the ability to reason logically. It would then lack this ability. In contrast, a frog is not said to lack something if it can’t study logic, because by nature it is not the sort of being that can have the ability to do logic. But a human being who lacks the ability to think logically is still a human being because of her nature. A human being’s “lack” makes sense if and only if she is an actual human person. (E.g., a rock does not “lack” the ability to see.) Most pro-abortionists argue that personhood is not inherent or intrinsic, but based on certain capacities and functions, be it consciousness, sentience, self-awareness, the ability to reason, and so on.

Finally, one person critiqued my argument by saying it is "subjective, and just my opinion." This shows a misunderstanding of logic. Every statement issues a belief, an opinion. Of course, my premises are my opinions. But that is irrelevant to any logical argument. The issue in a logical argument is, are the premises true? The truth or falsity of a statement has nothing to do with the beliefs or opinions of the statement-maker. To think so is to commit a form of the subjectivist fallacy. 

Imagine this dialogue.

Doctor: You have a bacterial infection.

Patient: That's just your opinion.

Or:

Einstein: E=mc2.

Student: That's just your opinion.

Einstein: Yes, it is my opinion. Therefore...?

Being of someone's opinion does not make the truth or falsity of a statement "subjective." See especially Vaughn, The Power of Critical Thinking, his chapter on informal logical fallacies.

Teaching Encounters with the Holy Spirit - July 25-29

 https://www.fbny.org/seminary/courses/intensive-course

FBNY.ORG

密集課程 - 信心聖經會

密集課程 - 信心聖經會

Encounters with the Holy Spirit【2 Credits】

NY Time: 9am - 12pm

In this class we will focus on living a Spirit-filled life. The Spirit-filled life is a life of experiences and encounters with the Spirit, who is God's Empowering Presence. We will look closely at:

The nature of the Spirit within Trinitarian theism

The baptism and fullness of the Holy Spirit

Spiritual discernment, and being led and spoken to by the Spirit

How to hear the voice of the Spirit

Ourselves as temples of the Holy Spirit

Manifestations of the Holy Spirit, to include gifts of healing

How to pray for the sick

A Spirit-filled life is a supernatural life

The difference between experience of the Spirit and theories of the Spirit

Adventures With God - Episode 01 - Desperation

I'm with Darren Wilson, Robby Dawkins, Jamie Galloway. and Brian Schwartz, talking about desperation for God.

Experience God, Rather Than Just Talk About God

 

(Grand Haven State Park)

In my book Leading the Presence-Driven Church I make the claim that the point of the Bible is to usher us into a corporate and personal relationship with God that we know by experience, not theory. Doctrine is important, but when we claim that people need the Lord, we mean transcendently, in experience.

Sometimes I experience God mediately; viz., through creation, other persons, in reading a book, listening to music, and so on. I also experience God in an unmediated way. Here Ruth Haley Barton helps us. She writes:

"The longing for solitude is the longing for God. It is the longing to experience union with God unmediated by the ways we typically try to relate to God. By “unmediated” I mean a direct experience of God with nothing in between: an encounter with God that is not mediated by words, by theological constructs, by religious activity, by my own or other’s manipulations of my relationship with God. It is the practice that spiritual seekers down through the ages have used to experience intimacy with God rather than just talking about it." (Barton, Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation, p. 32)

When, in the Church, there is too much talk, there is not enough power. In the absence of power religious people talk. This is to miss the kingdom of God. As Jesus said, the kingdom is not a matter of talk, but of power. Not talking about power, but demonstrations of power, felt and known by experience.

Spiritual Formation and Transformation

 

Tree, in my backyard

One day I hope to finish my book on spiritual formation and transformation. This will be a phenomenology of spiritual formation; i.e., a description of what happens rather than a prescription of what we should do. I have 900+ pages of manuscript that I am working with!

Spiritual formation is the ongoing process of Christ forming himself in our heart (spirit); the ever-increasing heart-morphing into Christlikeness. Galatians 4:19 is a key verse here. It reads: 

My dear children, 

for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth 

until Christ is formed in you...

I like how Renovare's Life With God Bible expresses the meaning of this verse and the nature of spiritual formation.

"A hallmark verse for spiritual formation, Gal. 4:19 provides an image of the process of growth for Christians. In this picture it is Christ who is growing in us, rather than we who are growing in Christ. Christ is formed in us by the power of the Holy Spirit as we respond to his ever-present grace in our lives. This occurs in daily, ordinary life as we "practice the presence of God" in our work, our play, our relationships, and all of life. By the Spirit in our hearts we cry out to God "Abba! Father!" (Gal. 4:6) many times throughout the course of a day, acknowledging who we are and whose we are. Christ is also formed in us as we present ourselves as living sacrifices to him through the Spiritual Disciplines, which, far from being the binding legalism Paul condemns in this letter, are the loving response of disciples to God's grace.

Steadily, gradually, Christ looms larger and larger within us. We find ourselves thinking, feeling, believing, serving, and living ore like him. Not only are we becoming more like Jesus; we are becoming more human, more ourselves.

The work of spiritual formation is the subject of this letter [Galatians]. That the Galatians were submitting again to a yoke of slavery - the opposite of spiritual formation - prompted Paul to couch his commuication in the vocabulary of freedom. Spiritual formation and freedom have a dynamic relationship. Curtail one, and the other is stifled. Grow in one, and the other flourishes. Five dimensions of spiritual formation emerge from the text as a result of Paul's emphasis on freedom. These are seismic shifts in the core of his being as Christ is formed in him, in the Galatians, and in us." 

The locus of spiritual formation and spiritual transformation is the human heart. Here is the link to Dallas Willard's "Spiritual Formation: What It Is, and How It Is Done." 

Willard writes: "Spiritual formation in the tradition of Jesus Christ is the process of transformation of the inmost dimension of the human being, the heart, which is the same as the spirit or will. It is being formed (really, transformed) in such a way that its natural expression comes to be the deeds of Christ done in the power of Christ."

This means that one's heart is formed, or morphed, into Christlikeness (Gal. 4:19). Spiritual formation, Jesus-style, is not about asking "what would Jesus do?" and then trying hard to be like Jesus and do the things he did. If a person had the heart of Jesus, the results would be, inexorably, the kind of interior and exterior life Jesus had. With the "interior" being ontologically prior to the "exterior." As Willard says, "Christlikeness is established in the very depths of our being." This is about "change of the inner person, where what we do originates."

The interesting thing about this is that neither you nor I nor anyone can bring this about. To think that one could do so is to diminish the transcendence of the transformation. I might think that I could, given enough time to practice, transform myself into Lebron James. Had I this belief, you would question whether or not I have seen Lebron James play basketball. Who Christ is so far surpasses us that our formation into Christlikeness can only be achieved by Christ himself,

(Willard's entire article is profound, deep, and insightful. See also Willard's more recent "Spiritual Formation in Christ: A Perspective on What it is and How it Might be Done.")

Breaking Free from Self-Blame

(Crossing Lake Michigan on The Badger)

Some people, even Christians, find it difficult to stop blaming others for their current spiritual, emotional, and physical conditions. This behavior almost always makes things worse, for themselves, and for others. In our experience Linda and I often locate the root cause of the blamer in self-hatred, and a refusal to forgive. 

I'm thinking again of the inmate at Marion (Ohio) State Correctional Center who asked me to pray for him because he could not forgive himself for killing his parents. One reason that request affected me so much is that I have, in some cases of my own moral and spiritual failure, felt unable to forgive myself. I meet many people plagued by the hell-designed incapacity to self-forgive. 

How can we overcome this?

Everett Worthington says that "repentance and humility are at the core of breaking free from self-blame." (Worthington, Moving Forward: Six Steps to Forgiving Yourself and Breaking Free from the Past, p. 76) 

Three things render self-forgiveness impossible:

1.             Acting like a victim, and blaming others for your wrongdoing.

2.             Showing little or no remorse for what you did.

3.             Expecting that repairing the damaged relationships will be a quick fix (which often leads to blaming others for their "inability to forgive").

To be repentant and humble people need to do three things:

         1.             Accept responsibility for their wrongdoing.

2.             Feel and show regret and remorse for what they did.

3.             Realize that making up for the wrongdoing and repairing the relationships damaged by the wrongdoing is going to be costly in time, effort, and self-sacrifice. (In Ib., 77)

Failure to accept responsibility "shoots forgiveness in the foot - and makes it difficult for the one we harmed to forgive us as well." (Ib.)

Roe v. Wade - Overturned

 

 

(One more time, to keep it in play... I have been making this argument for decades. Moral arguments transcend legal decisions.)

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. That is good, to all of us who think it is wrong to kill innocent, defenseless humans. It is not, however, good to those who think there are reasons to kill innocent, defenseless humans.

I am not being overly dramatic, or rhetorical. That is, precisely, the issue. For if the conceptus/embryo/fetus is not a human life, then who cares what we do to it?

My pro-life reasoning goes like this.

1. It is morally wrong to kill an innocent, defenseless human being to solve another problem.

2. The conceptus/embryo/fetus is an innocent, defenseless human being.

3. Therefore, it is morally wrong to kill a conceptus/embryo/fetus.

What about premise1? I allow for one exception; viz., if killing the inborn child is required to save the life of the mother. Other than that, I find arguments against premise 1 unconvincing. (On abortion "to solve another problem, see my synopsis of Francis Beckwith here, and here.) Note: If you disagree with premise 1, then you believe it is not morally wrong to kill an innocent, defenseless human being. (Another note: Someone told me premise 1 is just my opinion and, therefore, can be dismissed. They fail to understand that every statement is a belief, or an opinion. Even their statements. To say "That's just your opinion, so we don't have to adhere to it," commits an ad hominem fallacy. The logical point is, is premise 1 true? If it is true, it is true for everyone. That's the nature of logic.)

Premise 2 - I have found no good reason to doubt this.

Therefore, the conclusion stands, and the pro-life belief is logically sound and valid. It also fits with my Christian worldview, which tells me that I was knitted and formed in my mother's womb (Psalm 139:13; that "knitting" did not begin when I was "viable" - how absurd and arbitrary), and that before God formed me in the womb, he knew me. (Greg Boyd, when asked his stance on abortion, said "I am pro-life to the core of my being.")

If you don't like what I am saying, at least understand me. When Roe v. Wade was passed, many of us were scandalized, and have had to live with it for decades. Are you willing to understand why? Here are some of my posts, if you are interested. (And note - we have always supported and continue to support ministries like this one.)

 Why I am Against Abortion

Against Abortion: A Logical Argument

Against Abortion: More from Francis Beckwith

"Viability" Is Irrelevant to Personhood (and Abortion)

Statement on the New York State Abortion Law of 2019

Abortion and the "Whatever" In the Womb

Elective Abortion has Nothing to Do with Health Care

Christopher Hitchens Against Abortion

The "Handmaid's Tale" Argument for Abortion

A Scientific Argument Against Abortion

Eminem, Ed Sheeran, and the Pain of Abortion