Do Not Let This World Interpret You

Near Brasilia, Brazil

The prescient, prophetic, praying follower of Jesus Thomas Merton wrote: "We have a vocation not to be disturbed by the turmoil and wreckage of the great fabric of illusions." (A Book of Hours, 56)

We have a vocation... 

A calling. We have a calling.

From God. God calls us.

... not to be disturbed...

To not be agitated.

This is about the heart. 

Washing machines have "agitators." They move back and forth, back and forth, with force. They are going nowhere. They make no forward progress.

Disturbances halt forward progress. Disturbances interrupt the calling.

Jesus said, "Let not your hearts be agitated." 

ταράσσω,v  \{tar-as'-so}
1) to agitate, trouble (a thing, by the movement of its parts to and fro)  1a) to cause one inward commotion, take away his calmness of  mind, disturb his equanimity  1b) to disquiet, make restless  1c) to stir up  1d) to trouble  1d1) to strike one's spirit with fear and dread  1e) to render anxious or distressed  1f) to perplex the mind of one by suggesting scruples or doubts 

...by the turmoil...

Let not your hearts be agitated by the agitation. By the upheaval. By the irruptions. By the roiling waters.

Let not your hearts be arrested by the peace-thieves.

...by the wreckage...

Do not be captivated by the incessant effluence of cultural carnage. 

Put a compress on the bleeding media.

...the great fabric of illusions.

The systematic sham that is "the world."

With all its pretension and arrogance.

Do not let this world interpret you.

We have a calling from God to remain in Christ where agitation and turmoil are not to be found and the great fabric of systemic spell-casting is broken.

Praying and Fasting

Lake Michigan sunset (from Holland, Michigan)

One of prayer’s companions is fasting. “Fasting” is a form of self-denial for the sake of more intensive God-reliance. We see this in Psalm 35:13-14.

“Ruthless witnesses come forward;
they question me on things I know nothing about.
¹² They repay me evil for good
and leave me like one bereaved.
¹³ Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth
and humbled myself with fasting.
When my prayers returned to me unanswered,
¹⁴ I went about mourning
as though for my friend or brother.
I bowed my head in grief
as though weeping for my mother.”

Old Testament scholar John Goldingay writes that “David’s sadness was not yet fully bloomed until his body – in this case, fasting – was involved."[1] Scot McKnight says these verses assume "that merely to feel sadness is not enough; because we are physical creatures and not just minds and spirits, it would be odd not to express sorrow in (e.g.) abstention from food and then afflicting one’s spirit and one’s self.””[2]

The Judeo-Christian view is that we are embodied beings, not Cartesian spirits inhabiting a body like a driver in a car. What we do with our body affects our spirit.[3]

In fasting we deny demands of our physical body for the sake of praying more intensely. Praying accompanied by fasting is a form of self-denial that focuses our spirit.

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[1] In Scot McKnight, Fasting: The Ancient Practices, xiii. McKnight’s book is an excellent summary of the practice of fasting. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010.

[2] Ib.

[3] See, e.g., Dallas Willard’s chapters “Spiritual Life: The Body’s Fulfillment,” and “St. Paul’s Psychology of Redemption,” in The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives. New York: HarperCollins, 1988. 

Consider It Pure Joy When You Go Through Trials

The sermon I preached April 3, 2016, on Joy In Suffering (James 1:1-4) can be listened to HERE. 

Because God Exists Humans Have Dignity

We were at the Pistons game last Friday night as they clinched a playoff berth.

If there is no God then there is nothing special about humans. To think so, as atheist philosopher Peter Singer has told us, is to be guilty of "speciesism"; i.e., viewing our own species as "special." William Lane Craig writes:

"If there is no God, then any ground for regarding the herd morality evolved by homo sapiens as objectively true seems to have been removed. After all, what is so special about human beings? They are just accidental by-products of nature which have evolved relatively recently on an infinitesimal speck of dust lost somewhere in a hostile and mindless universe and which are doomed to perish individually and collectively in a relatively short time." (W.L. Craig, "The Indispensability of Theological Metaethical Foundations for Morality") 

But because God exists, and persons are creations of God fashioned in the image of God, humans have ontological worth. Atheist philosopher Marcello Pera recognizes this as he writes:

"It is true that almost all the achievements that we consider most laudable are derived from Christianity or were influenced by Christianity, by the message of God become Man. In truth, without this message, which has transformed all human beings into persons in the image of God, individuals would have no dignity." (Pera, Ratzinger, Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, p. 36)

Church and the Death of Our Wish Dream

Kites over Munson Park, Monroe

Christian community is not essentially about "us" and our needs. James van Yperen writes: "A church organized around meeting needs breeds selfishness, and it inevitably leads to competition, control, and conflict." (James Van Yperen, Making Peace: A Guide to Overcoming Church Conflict)

When church people start talking about their needs not being met, we have a big problem rooted in a false, unbiblical idea of "church." James 4:1-5 expresses this.

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, 

that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

The purpose of "Church" is to be a community that is being formed into greater and greater Jesus-likeness (see, e.g., Galatians 4:19). This is what Church is for, not as some Need-Granting Machine.

Ruth Haley Barton writes:

"Christian community is not and never can be about us. When our dreams and convictions about what we think community should be are dashed against the jagged reef of human limitations and failure to live up to one another’s needs and expectations, then and only then are we ready to accept the fact that Christian community is not about us at all. It is about the transforming presence of Christ— all he will do in and through and for each of us." (

Barton, Ruth Haley. Life Together in Christ: Experiencing Transformation in Community, Kindle Locations 246-252)

"The death of our wish dream is really an occasion for great hope" (Ib.), because then God can have his way with us, his people.

Nightlight International in Bangkok - Rescuing Women from Human Trafficking

Nightlight from Lphotography on Vimeo.

You can support Nightlight here.

Marriage - Only a Piece of Paper?

Us, a looong time ago.

If marriage is only a piece of paper, then why not sign it?

Marriage is a covenant. A marriage welds a man and a woman together for as long as they both shall live.

The marriage covenant is sealed before God, family, and friends. When you say to your significant other "I will be loyal to you for better for worse, in sickness and in health, whether rich or poor, until death separates us," we all hear you. You promise this, before us. This is the power of community. Marriage covenant making is tribal. "We" are to hold one another accountable. We ask you - "Is your word any good?" "Can we hold you to your promise?"

This is not for everybody. It's only for those who desire life-long unions and who keep their promises to stay in marital union, regardless of the circumstances. God welds (yes, that is precisely the biblical word Jesus uses - see link below) two people together, which is why anyone or anything that tries to tear asunder the covenant-made marriage will do great destruction. (Yes, Jesus gives an exception - which is adultery, the weld-breaker.)

When Linda and I signed that piece of paper forty three years ago we meant it.

***
See also:

More Than a Piece of Paper, Marriage Is About THE BOND

162 Reasons to Marry

The Presence-Driven Church Does Not Try to Program God

Here are some things I know about logic, as it is understood in philosophy. (For 15 years I've taught Logic at Monroe County Community College.) I'm going to use them to talk about the Christian theistic idea of "being led by the Holy Spirit."

• Logic is about arguments - formulating and evaluating them.
• When philosophers use the word "rational," they mostly mean "logical." by "logical" they mean certain specific things. You can find these things in a basic logic text. For nine years I used Hurley's classic A Concise Introduction to Logic. It's a great text, but has no colorful pictures or funny jokes. So a few years ago I switched to Vaughn's The Power of Critical Thinking: Effective Reasoning About Ordinary and Extraordinary Claims.  Vaughn is excellent on informal logical fallacies, and especially wonderful on "the subjectivist fallacy." Most students freak out and need cognitive therapy after being introduced to the subjectivist and genetic fallacies, since they form the heart and soul of their own culturally acquired irrationality. When I teach those sections I feel like Klaatu in the original "The Day the Earth Stood Still," trying to explain to the students that the core of their thinking is incoherent. 
• Logical arguments are composed of statements. A statement is a sentence that is either true or false; or, put another way, a statement is a sentence that describes a state of affairs. Using logic one can reason that State of Affairs X either obtains or does not obtain. Not all sentences make truth claims. Requests, for example, are neither true nor false. If we're out for dinner and I request "Please pass the salt," you're irrational if you answer "That's false."
• An argument has one (and only one) conclusion. In this way, at least in logic, multi-tasking does not apply, as if one could give one argument that logically leads to ten conclusions. An argument has at least one supporting premise. That premise should have a "claim of inference," meaning: if the premise is true, then the conclusion follows, either necessarily or probably. The classic Aristotelian argument form is called modus ponens, which means: to affirm the antecedent. It goes: 1) If A, then B. 2) A (the antecedent is affirmed). 3) Therefore, B. Like: 1) If it rains, the ground gets wet. 2) It's raining. 3) Therefore, the ground gets wet. Using a Jesus-example, consider this. 1) If you love me, you will keep my commands. 2) You love me. 3) Therefore you are keeping my commands. Just as certainly as raining makes the ground wet.
• Arguments are either deductive or inductive. A deductive argument is one such that if the premise or premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. ("Must" = "necessarily.") An inductive argument is one such that if the premise or premises are true, then the conclusion probably, more or less (depending on the claim of inference in the premises), is true. Such as: 1) I am now writing this piece on my laptop. 2) I intend to finish the piece with a half hour. 3) Therefore the piece will be finished in a half hour. The conclusion is only probably true, since there are a number of reasons that could come against my finishing the piece. I may be interrupted, for example. Or, I may die before I finish, in which case you would not even know I was writing the piece in the first place.
• Humans are wired to think logically. There's a current debate on the nature of such wiring. Stephen Pinker says that logic is hard-wired, neurally, in our physical brains. It's really hard to think non-logically, even when one's logic is twisted or confused, just as one could add a column of numbers and get the wrong total. If one were to argue against the reality of the innateness of logic then one would have to use logic to arrive at the conclusion, which might be: Logic does not exist. The truths of logic function like "properly basic beliefs." 
• We are logical beings. Our logical ability allows us to predict and conclude many things. We do it all the time. Logic gives us a sense of control and security. In this regard note the inner chaos that results in fictional characters like "Alice" who enter a world where (but not entirely) logic seems not to apply. Were our lives like that, instability would be the norm. Logic helps to stabilize things. If I know that if it rains the ground gets wet, and also know that it's raining, I (logically) will not go out to water the lawn. That may seem simple but it's not simplistic. We take it for granted. Were this not so, and if we did not have logical capacities, we'd all be out watering our lawns in Seattle in the winter during the rainy season..
• "Life" is not all logical. There are many things we cannot conclude. One of them is, speaking from the POV of Christian theism, what is called the "leading of the Holy Spirit." It is important to understand this, because if it is not understood then one will try to make sense of the Spirit in terms of human logic. That would be fatal to real, full life in the Spirit. This mistake leads to "the program-driven church."
• At the heart of the biblical Book of Acts is the person of the Holy Spirit. In Acts the "acts" of the Jesus-followers (e.g., the "apostles," the "sent-from-God-ones") are grounded in the leading of the Holy Spirit. A paradigm case of this is found in Acts 10, the story of Cornelius the Roman centurion.
• God sends an angel to Cornelius, who is a pagan God-fearer. Cornelius is more than interested in the God of Judaism. He worships and prays constantly, and participates in the regular, daily Jewish prayer times. He gives generously to the poor. The angel appears to Cornelius and says: "Cha-ching! Your prayers and offering to the poor have registered as a memorial offering before God!" In other words, "Cornelius, what you are doing is acceptable to God." 
• The angel instructs Cornelius to send three men thirty miles south of Caesarea to Joppa, to a man's house by the sea whose name is Simon the Tanner. Simon, aka Peter, is there. The angel says - "Bring Peter to your home. He has something to tell you." Cornelius obeys. But note this: Peter knows nothing about this. He has no rational premises from which to conclude anything. He's sitting on the rooftop of Simon the T's house, hungry as the meal is being prepared. Then God gives Peter a vision. This is the unbeknownst-to-Peter orchestrating activity of God. God has the Big Picture. God waved his conductor's baton over Cornelius, and now points it thirty miles to the south over the heart and mind of Peter. God's got a little symphony going on here, and is directing Cornelius and Peter.
• God gives Peter the shocking, paradigm-shattering-and-shifting vision of the unclean animals. "Eat them, Peter," the voice from heaven says. "No way!" respond Peter. The voice says, "Don't call things unacceptable that I have called acceptable." OK. Peter sits there, stunned. Meanwhile, the three non-logical men from Caesarea come knocking on Simon the T's door. Peter comes down from the roof. He does not know why they are there. He concludes nothing.
• The men tell Peter about their master, Cornelius, and about the dream Cornelius had. Peter then concludes something. Somehow, perhaps by experience or intuition, he sees the orchestrating hand of God in this. He goes with them, into the unknown. There is some reasoning going on here, but it's like this: 1) I think God sent these three men to me. 2) I don't know what for, but I am to go with them, because I think this is God and I trust God. If Peter logically concludes anything here, it's only that "This seems like God to me, so I will trust my intuition. Besides, I just had this shocking, seemingly anti-Jewish dream, and now these guys show up and invite me to take a road trip."
• Peter arrives at Cornelius's house. His entire household is there, which includes family and soldiers and servants. Peter says, "Uhhh..., you all know a Jewish boy like me is not supposed to be here with pork-eating pagans like you, right? But God told me not to call you 'unclean'. So here I am." Cornelius says, "Now that we're all here in the presence of God, tell us what you are supposed to tell us." If I were Peter I might ask for a few days to put together some notes and an outline and then get back to him. What Peter does is simply open his mouth and begin talking. In doing this he is trusting that this is God, and God is now going to orchestrate and guide and "lead" what God wants to say to these pagans through Peter. There's no planned program here. And it's not been "inferred," in the sense of logical predictablity, which is: given these premises we can conclude this. The only premise needed for Peter is: If this is God, then I will obey. I will follow. But I do not know the logical outcome. I do not know where this is going. In the Book of Acts, this is what it means to be "led by the Spirit." You can't program the Holy Spirit like you can program a thermostat to turn the heat on at 9 AM. Being led by the Spirit is like having a God Positioning System (GPS) that includes your starting point and the next steps to take but does not give you the destination.
• We see this clearly in what happens next. Peter tells C's household about Jesus, and about forgiveness of sins. As he continues talking the Holy Spirit gets poured out in that place, and C and his household begin praising God and speaking in tongues. This giving of the Holy Spirit is the sign of God's ultimate acceptance. In the giving of the Spirit God says things like, "I've come to make my home in you. I want you to host my presence. You are now a portable sanctuary." Peter not only did not or could not logically predict this outcome, he didn't even recognize initially what was going on as he just kept on preaching. Peter stayed with the program-as-he-knew-it. Then: Deus Interruptus.

This is the non-programmatic "church." 

I'm not against "programs." If God says "start this," then obey. But in my Jesus-following context we don't hand out "programs" with the "order of service" on Sunday mornings, because I do not presume to be able to program the Holy Spirit. 

Do I plan for Sunday morning? Oh yeah. My plan is: abide in Christ; hear his voice; follow; preach...  and remember, John, remember... that God is the Orchestrator, who knows the song he wants his people to sing, So watch the Baton of God closely. Follow. Let God have the baton, for God's sake! Trust. Be led by the Spirit whom humanity foolishly tries to control and predict. Logically conclude only one thing: If this is God, then I'll follow because it's going to be very good.

The Day the Church Stood Still. And God had his way.

Worry Is a Crooked Path Leading Back to Itself

Somewhere in Ohio

           I come from a long line of worriers that stretches back to Adam. My mother, wonderful person that she was, suffered from excessive worrying. I think my father worried, but it was hard to tell since he was, generally, non-expressive. Our roots are in Finland, and Finnish men tend not to show emotion.

“Worry” is part of our fallen, subhuman condition. "Worry" is endemic to humanity, in general. I come from a long, wide path of worriers trailing back to Old Testament times. Fallen humanity broods, negatively.

Worry is not helpful. Brooding on darkness brings on more darkness. Worry says, “Something bad is happening. You cannot stop it. Do worry, be unhappy.” 

Worry is passive, like waiting for the tornado that never comes. This adds nothing of value to life. Jesus said, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”[1]  

Worry is non-additive. Worry is not neutral. Worry subtracts, knocking minutes off life.

Worry is absurd. This is because worry’s concerns are things that cannot be controlled. Like people. I can’t control others. I can love and serve them, but love and service will not inexorably come back to me. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. When it comes to others, worry is a non-player.

I control none of this. Most of what happens to me in life is not in my control. This being the case, one thing that will not comfort me is worry. To ruminate on negative possibilities is absurd because it effects nothing. Except to subtract from me. Worry is a thief. Worry steals joy, peace, and hope from my heart.

Worry is a bad thinker. Worry needs to take a logic course. Anyone who has responsibilities exhibits care. Caring is good. Worry is caring gone berserk, which is bad for my soul. At this point caring mutates into worry. Caring packs its bag of burdens and hauls it south to the land of anxiety.

The antidote to worry is trust. The more I trust, the less I worry. The question then becomes: In whom, or in what, shall I place my trust? Trust must be rightly placed. Trusting in just anything will not do the job. 

Proverbs 3:5-6 says, famously: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not rely on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” 

Worry is a crooked path that leads back to itself. But as I trust in God, my convoluted mental highways are made straight.

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[1] Matthew 6:27

Praying for God-love to Totalize Me

Linda and her 2014-2105 piano/vocal students.

            Jesus tells me to love my enemies. I understand this. My problem is that my heart has not caught up with my mind. I'm asking God to fully bring the beautiful "love your enemies" command into my entire being. How important is this?

In God's kingdom, everything rises and falls on love. The mark of the Christian,[1]  and the sign that God reigns in their life, is that they love one another, love their enemies and die for them, and do good to those who don’t love them. 

I am to love all people. No exceptions allowed. God's love does not discriminate between friends and enemies. Greg Boyd explains this.

Notice that there are no exception clauses found anywhere in the New Testament’s teaching about loving and doing good to enemies. Indeed, Jesus’ emphasis on the indiscriminate nature of love rules out any possible exceptions. The sun doesn’t decide on whom it will and will not shine. The rain doesn’t decide on whom it will and will not fall. So too, Kingdom people are forbidden to decide who will and will not receive the love and good deeds we’re commanded to give.[2]

God is love. Jesus had compassion on people, seeing them as sheep without a shepherd. Jesus died for his enemies, including moi. I am praying for this love to totalize me.

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[1] I remember reading Francis Schaeffer’s The Mark of the Christian in the 1970s.

[2] Greg Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Religion, 99-100. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.