Facebook

I was thinking about how Facebook and other social networking sites are (and blogs for that matter). I think it’s supposed to be really informative about people you know, and help share ideas and info; and communicate better. I think in theory it really can be this way, but I find that I have used it more for the purpose of feeling like I am prying into someone’s personal life without them really asking and wasting any opportunity to actually learn something. In theory I think it’s a great idea, but it seems like the majority of the time I find myself using it in a completely pointless kind of way. Like trying to find out how to add some stupid application or looking at what groups people are in. All of which are complete time wasters and don’t really accomplish anything in terms of getting to know people better or (even crazier) actually communicating with people in a valuable way. I guess that’s not really the point, and it’s supposed to be a huge time waster, but it seems like it has a lot of potential to be a good tool to share information.

I compare it to AOL instant messenger, which was pretty different in that you have access to a much more limited area of personal expression via the profile, which was just a small window. Facebook (and MySpace) has an almost unlimited amount of information that could be displayed on the profile, and many more avenues for communication. And in that way it is more valuable.

But I find that with the greater potential there is also a greater amount of effort put into developing your own profile as opposed to learning more about others and their thoughts. Granted, most of the time the information provided by other people (and probably myself) is plain useless, but sometimes there are things written or shared that are worthy of notice. Maybe I just wish there were more focus on thoughtful posts and discussions, and less on some of the pointless stuff like being a member of a group that doesn’t accomplish anything whatsoever and is just a placeholder because the title of it is funny (or not funny).

Anyway, those were just some thoughts on that.

Blog

I’ve switched around the blog quite a bit, and modified the title since I think it is a bit discouraging to someone that may come across it. While that was sort of the intention in naming this blog since I was trying to make a strong point with it, I think it may be in a little bit of bad taste to have WHORE written across the top. Plus I deleted a bunch of the clutter that was sort of not happening and pointless. I hope it’s more pleasing to the eye and also more beneficial to read, since I’ve been more regular in writing stuff. There still is the issue of whether people will actually read this, which I think is a slim possibility, but I still enjoy writing so I will continue even if my wife is the only one who looks at it. Peace out.

Tim Keller on Predestination

This audio clip of one of Tim Keller’s Q&A sessions is very interesting, and he makes the point that even if you don’t believe in predestination, you are still left with an unsolvable theological problem…

3 cheers for my wife!

I love Emily more than anything on this planet. She’s really cool, and hilarious, and cute. And beautiful J. Just in case you were wondering. More thoughts on this later…

I have a wife…crazy thought…

Religious Nuts

I recently met a Buddhist lady. But she was not a Buddhist simply because she was drawn to the particular teachings of this religion, but (as I assessed it) more as a rebound from some bad experiences she had in “Christian” churches (I use the term loosely). She was subject to some serious abuse from what sounded like preachers of the “prosperity gospel”, meaning that members of the church should give all their money to the preacher and in turn they will be blessed all the more. Meanwhile, the pastor is driving a Ferrari and living in a mansion, while those givers are left with nothing but desperate faith in the preacher’s rotten character. She was very hurt from these experiences and ended up leaving the church and Christianity as well.

But she took it too far and denounced all of Christianity as evil, based on her few experiences in a small, hick Texas town. Surely the perspective of the cultural transcendence of the Gospel from the backwoods of Texas can be blurred a bit. She said she liked Jesus (even loved him), but “couldn’t stand his crazy-ass friends.” I would be very prone to agree with her that there are plenty of people who claim to follow Jesus that are nuts, and sometimes even wolves in sheep’s clothing. But to dismiss them all by a blanket generalization is just plain reckless. I think there’s a lot of people that are nuts from other religions and worldviews, but I can’t judge the truthfulness and value of their substances based on the character of their proponents. I can look at atheists I would say seem nuts, as well as Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, etc. Really, the only common denominator in the nuts of all these groups is that of humanness. People are nuts! And sinful. People do terrible things, regardless of their religious affiliations. This is just one way of expressing the Christian doctrine of total depravity, which says that no one is righteous (Psalm 14:3) and we all do evil, as it is the nature of our unregenerate hearts.

She became Buddhist when she was invited to a temple and felt a feeling of great peace when she prayed there, contrasted to the spiritual chaos that she had experienced in church. While she admittedly had no idea what Buddhism teaches, her affinity for it developed from what she perceived as possessing value, as giving her peace and a sense of acceptance and non-judgment.

But the thing is, like all humanistic religions, that her religion is essentially her preconceived preferences, not particularly Buddhism or Christianity. In effect, she is not appealing to Buddhism and rejecting Christianity as if they are absolutely mutually exclusive (at least in some moral principles). She is merely appealing to what she already believes, indeed knows, is true. She has already formulated her beliefs prior to investigating Christianity or Buddhism, or whatever. It is whatever gives her peace, acceptance, warm feelings, etc. And this is sort of the prevailing wind of this world pertaining to spirituality. In effect, it is just paganism—a certain breed of selfishness that props up its own religion, worldview, and preferences above what is revealed from God. What characterizes man-made religion is that it always originates from the person. It is always man looking up to heaven speculating about what God (or whatever) is like. If this is, in fact, all that religion is (including Christianity), then it is logical that the tenets of relativism are true: there is no religion better than another; in fact, they are all useless in the end since none of them can knowingly make contact with reality. But humans don’t behave this way. Religion is built into us, even when we want to claim relativism. Take these three common sayings claiming relativism from our religious culture:

• “I don’t like this religion; I like THIS one”: This saying essentially appeals not specifically to the religion of the speaker’s liking because it’s superior, but to himself and his own beliefs. This is the opposite of Christianity which says truth comes from God and not from religion or from our perspectives and preferences.
  
  
• “All religions are the same”: This statement says so in an attempt to be accepting and tolerant, but this is actually just another statement of belief/doctrine and immediately defeats the point it tries to make if applied to itself. The insistence that all religions are the same is, in effect, itself a religion, and the chosen one of secularism.
  
  
• “Doctrine isn’t important, let’s all just love each other”: This statement of the unimportance of doctrine is actually making a doctrinal statement, since I could make the opposing unprovable statement that rather we should hate everyone. Love (the real type of love Jesus demonstrates by dying for his people, and for his enemies) is very much a Christian doctrine, and not to be confused with the emotional type of love that an American “Christian” may purport.
  
  

All this is in effect simply pride in oneself instead of in God. It’s all elevating the human ability to discover truth, instead of in God’s ability to reveal it. Surely it’s an arrogant view that props up the religious musings of the fallen sinner’s depraved mind over the mystery-revealing, all-knowing mind of God who created all.

Jediism Among Other Religions: The Height of Absurdity

There is apparently a new religion in England about being a Jedi, the hailed light-saber-wielding warrior-monks from Star Wars, called Jediism. It appears to be a group of uber-nerds who have for some reason formed a church based on the teachings of the fictional Jedi character from the George Lucas movies. They have religiously embodied the philosophical theme put forth in the movies called “The Force”, and have sought to abide by it, learning how to channel the Force to do good (as is part of the Jedi code). (This can be seen in the movie as Luke moving something with his mind i.e. using the Force.)

On the whole, in my opinion, this is one of the stupidest and most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard of, and reflects partly the decay of Western thinking and our world’s religiously secular futility of relativism. It appears to be the religion mostly of white guys that can’t get dates and spend their days and nights watching Star Wars and playing video games in their parents’ basements, instead of growing up, getting a job, and realizing that Star Wars is a story written by another nerd in the 20^th Century and there is completely no value in allowing it to affect your life in the way it has for these geeks since no one cared in the 10,000 years before now, and no one will care in 50 years or less.

I can think of few things more absurd than what I’ve just briefly looked at about this Jedi religion. I can’t believe people have taken a movie and created a religion from it. I didn’t think idolatry was possible in the vivid way it is in “primitive” cultures, such as in ancient Babylon or in India where gods are formed from wood and metal. But I think this qualifies as a sort of modern-day idolatry of art, in this case a film. The funny thing is, if you read their little “Jedi Code” of what they believe, it’s exactly the same as the spirit of this age. They teach human rights, dignity, equality, tolerance, secularism (separation of church and state), democracy, and—most definitively—relativism. Go here to read their “code” of what Jedis believe. Also, I think one of the main “teachers” is this guy, who is not super inspiring but I think would be a good candidate for mega nerd of the century. I wish it weren’t the right thing to do to mock them, but I see no other choice when something this ridiculous arises.

But if you think about it, any old religion can be seen in this way. If you break Jediism down, it’s basically just rehashed eastern philosophy presented as something “new”. If you look at any man-centered religion, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Voodoo, or any other religion from the grab-bag, it will inevitably involve some sort of speculation created by someone or some culture that offers ideas about what reality is like, exactly in the same way that Jediism does with the Force. The thing that is in common with all these is that none of them really offers anything in the end. They are all just products of the Zeitgeist, or the “wisdom of the age,” as Scripture calls it (1 Cor. 2:6), and are “doomed to pass away”. All of these religions, with perhaps the exception of radical Islam¹, promise precisely nothing if they are taken to their logical conclusions. The best they can do is offer some sort of moral code that may help you feel better as a person, all the while ignoring that there really is no standard that we are expected to uphold and we still stand condemned at the end of the day since there is no real and tangible eternality to them. Or they may offer some sort of “enlightenment” when we die, where we empty our minds and become one with nothing (literally). None of these offers a shred of hope. But Christ offers the “wisdom” and “power” of God (1 Cor. 2), which is the gospel that Jesus has done what no man can do: overcome death and sin and given us life in him.

I wonder how the Jedis (or any religious people) would respond to me inventing a religion that's main tenet is that specifically their religion is wrong. I wonder if they would be tolerant…

Note 1: I think fundamental Islam would teach a salvation acquired by radical sacrifice involving the killing of the “infidel.” This is, in a contrasting way to most religions, a different sort of thing. This sort of Islam promises the fulfillment of all sorts of base human pleasures and desire, since I hear they get a bunch of virgins in heaven to do with what they please. In the end then, this religion teaches that a bunch of murderers and perverts will inherit the kingdom of heaven. This doesn’t seem like the best path to go with either.

My Wife

I’ve known my wife Emily for almost a year now, and been married for about 3 months. It’s crazy. Sometimes it just kind of hits me like, “a girl sleeps in my bed now.” This girl I’ve known for a year is now going to be with me, virtually by my side the whole time, for the rest of my life. It’s hard to believe because it happened so fast, and I’m still getting used to the idea. Our dating relationship, which took place only on the weekends, seemed like one long vacation with timeouts for workweeks. It was hectic with plane rides, luggage, delayed flights, cancelled flights, late Friday nights getting in, early Monday mornings leaving (to the tune of 4:30am), airport food, and lots of emotional hellos and goodbyes. In retrospect, it was easily the best time of my life up to that point, as well as one of the most exhausting. Since then, things have settled down greatly since Fridays are no longer filled with rushing to the airport after work and anxiously waiting for the flight to land in Memphis (or whatever city we happened to be in). It’s also a great time now precisely because there’s no more of that! Ecclesiastes says there is a time for everything:

a time to be born, and a time to die;a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;a time to kill, and a time to heal;a time to break down, and a time to build up;a time to weep, and a time to laugh;a time to mourn, and a time to dance;a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;a time to seek, and a time to lose;a time to keep, and a time to cast away;a time to tear, and a time to sew;a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;a time to love, and a time to hate;a time for war, and a time for peace. -3:2-8

And even though this verse was ripped off by a hippie band in the 60s, it still rings true. Life changes, a lot of times without your control, but each season has its good things, and each season is inhabited by God’s grace. On a graver and somewhat unrelated note, I’m reminded of the tragedy of Horatio Spafford, in which he lost his 4 daughters in a shipwreck. Despite the horror, he somehow managed to see God’s love and providence in any season of life no matter how horrible, and he penned these paradoxical words: When peace, like a river, attendeth my way/When sorrows like sea billows roll/Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say/It is well, it is well with my soul.

I wish I had that kind of faith.

Anyway, I’m enjoying being married to her. She is a wonderful gift from God and an answer to my prayers. It’s a good season.

The Dangers of Reading

I think I am addicted to buying books. Amazon.com and half.com have books for much lower prices than you find in Barnes and Noble, and I don’t think I can stay away. For the last few years I’ve really developed a hunger for good books. It’s weird because I used to despise reading in school. In English class, I did my work without reading the assigned books, and always tried to find a short-cut by hunting for Cliff’s Notes or existing book reports so I wouldn’t have to read the actual thing. In retrospect, I probably put more effort towards cutting corners and created more stress for myself by procrastinating like mad and getting bad grades than if I had just read the dang book. Particularly, I really hated history. I couldn’t understand the point of studying the past. When I asked my history teacher in high school about my frustration, I heard the oft-quoted sentence by philosopher George Santayana: “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” I understood that it was valuable for important people, such as presidents and kings, to learn history so as not to repeat past mistakes in world policy or whatever, but how did this apply to me, some skinny schmo in high school with a serious social deficiency? Well, I’ve grown out of this immature view, which frankly was mostly fueled by my disdain for reading my history book, and I’ve really become very interested in history. I think the truth is much stranger than fiction; and much more interesting in my opinion. As a result, I rarely buy fiction books.

The danger though I see with my reading, especially with books pertaining directly to Christian theology and practice, is that it can easily lead to the reinforcing of a false dichotomy between theory—that which pertains to my mind, and practice—that which pertains to my actions. This is an Aristotelian distinction, reinforced greatly by the ‘supreme’ mind of Descartes, and does not reflect the philosophy espoused in the Bible. It basically says, as I understand it, that intellectual life consists of that which you observe and ponder abstractly (theoria), and that which you tangibly act on (praxis). So according to this as it pertains to reading books, I can set up my own theory about how life should be—perhaps an idealized Christian-y world where things make sense and I’m content to feed my brain and muse, and the actual world—filled with pain and failure that falls far short of the ideal. This topic is too grand for me to try analyzing here, but I will offer the explanation offered by Lesslie Newbigin in his book Proper Confidence: that in fact the duty of a Christian who knows God as he has revealed himself, is not characterized by this separation dichotomy of theoria and praxis, where life is compartmentalized into that which is in my head, isolated from that which my hands grasp (dare I say vaguely Gnostic?). Rather, it is characterized simply by the single act of belief and obedience. That is, our lives are based on the fact that God speaks truth, and we respond simply by believing him through obedience to him.

Most times, the world does not want to behave this way; instead we want to speculate, brainstorm, navel-gaze, and work up our own utopian theory of how life should be (religion, politics, etc.), and then maybe, if we get around to it, enact the policy or whatever to accomplish the ideal that has originated from our brains. The Bible presents an alternate (and better) solution to the confusion that our world offers. He offers himself as the king, who is to be loved, trusted, and obeyed in all things. There is no speculation required, but simply trust in him who is the Father that knows all.

So how does this relate to reading? Well, I guess the point is that when I read it is sometimes easy to slip into a world of fantasy where I somehow take the true spiritual concepts I read in the book, and wrongly attach them to my own life as if my mind’s resonance with the truth were the same thing as me living the truth that I read. If that’s confusing, I will try and put it in other words: I selfishly ascribe the truth which I recognize when I read it, to my own life even when the two don’t line up. I don’t know if anyone else has this problem, but it is convicting to me that I have recognized this about myself. Perhaps to a certain degree, this ascribing business is due to the notion I put forth, which is I think for the most part subconscious, that because I make an effort to read challenging books, whereas so many people don’t in our culture, I am somehow more righteous than those who don’t. Therefore, since I revere so much the truth that I read, I link the righteousness conveyed in the truth with the very fact that I’m reading it. It’s pretty sick. It seems though that this might be something more common than most realize. I’ve seen some things in other people that suggest this. When they read some new popular book on “how the church should be” or something, and then blog about it because they are apparently such superior Christians because they read it and now want to haughtily promote the ideas in the book (perhaps on Facebook or something), even though they themselves are a far cry from what the book teaches. I believe to some degree, it’s the theoria-praxis dichotomy in action, but at bottom it’s just an intellectualized, churched-up version of pride and lazy theology combined.

I would do much better to simply believe in God’s truth and be humbly obedient to it.

Do Hard Things

I’m in a posting mood right now so I’ll just add another one on the crap pile today. I like how I get in these moods where I’m just like, “ok this time, I’m going to start posting every day,” but it never lasts more than a couple days. Then I go for months and months with nothing on here and then pick back up like there wasn’t a huge void there, and expect anyone at all to read it. I admit it’s silly. Maybe someone in like a month will stumble upon it. But I’ve sort of resigned to not caring anymore if anyone reads anything, though it would be nice. I write stuff all the time, it’s just never really presentable in any sort of coherent way. But I can probably muster something every now and then. Plus I found a way to post just by writing an email, so there isn’t the hassle of navigating to the freaking page every time and putting up with the slightly terrible interface that’s on here. So that’s nice. If anyone does actually read this, let me know, and maybe it will provide a little more motivation. But if not that’s fine, I’ll just keep talking to myself, or maybe let another year go by before I post again.

I notice that many people I know also exhibit this pattern of long periods of non-posting, and then a serious “get-back-on-track!” post that explains why they haven’t posted in forever. I’m not sure why we feel the need to explain why we don’t devote time to something that very few people care about, other than the need to feel like someone does care what we write. I suppose I do care some, and granted it might be pretty neat if people were actually looking forward to what I write next and checked it every day (although the use of the word “neat” may hinder that happening). But I am also accepting the cold hard truth that that will most likely not happen unless a lot of effort were put into it, which is probably not going to happen since blogging is not exactly one of the most important things on my agenda. Maybe the nice email-in feature will help out since I’m apparently too lazy to….enough already….on to the stinkin’ post.

I just read this new book by Alex and Brett Harris called Do Hard Things. It is targeted at teens, but the premise sounded really interesting so I thought I’d pick it up. Plus I used a gift card, so that’s good. The message of this book probably destroys my explanation of why I don’t post, since much of it has to do with being lazy, so I’ll work on that, but anyway... This book is geared towards teens and wants to goad youngins to not wasting their “adolescent” years (a term whose concept the authors pretty much dismantle and I agree with). It explains the pattern our society has set up to where nothing is really expected of teenagers because we don’t think they can contribute anything to society since they’re always playing Xbox, picking a fight, or texting their underachieving slackers of friends on their cell phones about things of absolutely no value to anyone in the universe. This is such a perceptive observation, but also a rather obvious one if you go the mall or to the movies on Friday night and see the culture of misfits and retards that our country is producing at an alarming rate (myself included, though my parents did a good job). The point here is not to insult them (because much of it is not their faults), but to point out how messed up our culture is where teenagers are merely thought of as being in “adolescence,” the concept of someone in transition from childhood to adulthood, somehow justifying the bane and uselessness that characterizes so much of their “adolescent” existence in teenage years. The problem in this worldview is that there is no cultural right-of-passage that exists in our society largely because no one can really give a definition of adulthood, or more accurately—maturity.

Biblically, maturity means that I take responsibility for myself, my actions, my soul, my wife, my kids, my family, my church, my society, my culture, and my world and say that I’m going to repent from worldly thinking and seek to live for the glory of God. In American culture, however, there is a complete abdication of responsibility in so many arenas of life (especially for men I might add), primarily (I would say) because there is no real prevailing truth to speak of in this world we live in, according to the philosophy of postmodernism which has permeated so much of our culture’s thinking. There’s nothing that anyone can agree on, since everyone has their own worldview/religion (or lack thereof) and we all seem to accept that no religion/worldview is better than another. The problem in logic here is simple, since we’ve all as a culture, bought into the religion of Secularism: that God has nothing to do with how we live; He’s simply concerned with “spiritual” things—we don’t realize the serious lack of sound reasoning here in that we want to claim that no religion is better than another, this itself being a religious statement in essence, since it cannot be empirically proven. That is another tangent I could go on, but I’ll save it for now.

The result is a lot of parents and families that raise kids into their teen years, but nothing is expected of them since we see them as in “adolescence,” meaning we see them as transitioning from immaturity to maturity by some sort of natural process I suppose. Apparently we think the maturity fairy will come in the night to set them free from their purposeless destination and give them a reason to live, instead of the parents imparting this to their children intentionally according to the design of God. A child is so much the product of its environment, especially its parents (though we should never discount the absoluteness of personal responsibility). This is not to mention the staggering amount of children raised in poverty and in disgusting situations where they have no fathers or their mothers are drug addicts, and the children just mimic the behavior of their parents because it is all they know.

The book basically says all this in a slightly nicer way, and gives teenagers a strong push in the right direction by showing many examples of teenagers “doing hard things,” such as helping a political candidate or starting an organization to end poverty. I admit that during junior-high/high-school that I felt much the same way, that I really didn’t have much of an idea what I was doing or any sort of real plan to speak of in life. This was largely due to my culture’s imparting its worldview on me, but I can accept full responsibility for my stupidity here, and ultimately it’s everyone’s responsibility as a human facing God in the end (though each will be judged according to his own areas of authority, such as a father for his children). I was strongly motivated by this book, even though I am not a teenager anymore, and the message is applicable to anyone in need of a kick in the rear. It reminds me that maturity is not something you get when you get your driver’s license or turn 21, or something stupid like that that our culture teaches. There’s plenty of old people we could say are in a state of perpetual adolescence, if you will. Maturity is something that is obtained through the grace of God as he molds his children, and something that is so greatly facilitated through parents leading their children into it. I’m thankful my parents taught me this. I also wish to do the same with mine someday, Lord willing.

Critics and Laziness

I find it extremely easy to be a critic, someone who throws rocks at the houses others have built. It’s really convenient to sit in your recliner and make judgments over people, churches, organizations, pastors, etc. It’s really handy to critique a bad teaching or a church policy (such as a “seeker-sensitive” model), all done while sitting on your rear, and completely consign someone or something to the junk drawer of embarrassing, shameful, or cheesy Christian subculture. It’s a common practice among those that would wave the flag of American evangelicalism, or conservative Christianity. But I find a lot of it is complete crap, simply because I’ve done it so much and have sensed the emptiness and deception involved here. It is empty because it leads nowhere but to cynicism about church, Christianity, and those that may actually be doing a lot of good. It is deceiving because it makes you feel like you are a great Christian simply because you can poke holes so easily in another’s theology or church government or whatever.

What I’m not saying is that the standards for where you spend your church time should be lower, or that you should simply think it’s ok that people are spreading a lot of nonsense in churches that is not biblical or good. But I am saying that we probably shouldn’t be as concerned with judging the person and work of others, but more with judging ourselves and repenting by working hard to build something good, or by contributing and serving somewhere where it is needed.

I find it extremely difficult to be a builder of something, someone who helps build a house instead of standing back and throwing rocks at those that are working. I believe that is what Proverbs speaks of when it calls out the “sluggard” and the “scoffer.” It is someone who won’t pick themselves up off the couch, but will bark criticisms and scoffs at others that have put their hands to something. And it is someone who makes constant excuses for their own laziness: “There’s a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets” (Pr. 22:13)

While I do not advocate an attitude of ignorance and dismissal about those silly caricatures of what you could call “robust Christianity,” I also think that I should be hard-pressed to find much time for devotion to throwing rocks at them. Instead, I should pray for them, and perhaps do something to reverse the tide. I should be too busy loving them to tear them down.

On the other hand, they used to burn heretics…just kidding.

Preaching and stand-up comedy...

Churches that are really successful usually seem to have a common attribute in the pulpit. It is that of speaking into the culture and answering the heart cries of the people, the core questions that underlie everyone’s lives and ambitions. One example is in Seattle, where Mark Driscoll preaches to the un-churched, those that in our day and age are greatly spiritual (in that they believe in some sort of transcendent nature of the universe), but also greatly lacking truth. So he preaches hard the truth of Scripture and the exaltation of Jesus to ground all worldviews and to funnel them into the core of God’s truth. Another example is in Dallas, where Matt Chandler preaches in one of the centers of the Bible belt, where everyone has heard a lot about Jesus, but there is rampant false teaching, empty Christian platitudes, dangerous theological pitfalls, and straight-up non-sense everywhere you look. As 2 Corinthians 11 puts it, there are many “different Jesuses”. So he preaches against pop-Christianity and easy-believism, those that seek to make being a Christian just another activity you do on the weekends and pronounces the truth and the reality of Christian life according to the Scriptures in the midst of the mess. He preaches with alarming honesty about his own depravity and shortcomings, and invites all to be honest with God and themselves and stop hiding behind the façade of religion and Christian cliché, to simultaneously cut to the heart of Jesus’ humanity and exalt his deity, and to offer healing to the broken spirits of those that have been picking at the rotting meat of false piety and deprived the fresh meat that Christ offers in himself.

No other profession or job seems to be so dependent on relevant and constantly updating evaluation of current times and thinking than that of preacher. Mark Driscoll makes the comparison that the only job today similar to preaching is that of the stand-up comedian:

Stand-up comedy and preaching are the only two mediums I can think of in which someone walks onto a stage to talk for a long time to a large crowd. Dave Chappelle, Carlos Mencia, and Chris Rock are genius at capturing an audience using irony and sarcasm.

And this is pretty true. I can’t think of another job like that. But, they are drastically different on one point: the comedian performs the same material hundreds of times and only has to come up with a new act every once in a while so he can sell more tickets and more CDs of his material. A preacher must week-in, week-out come up with “new material” for his next sermon. Not to say the preacher deviates from preaching boldly the Gospel every time (which he should), but this puts a much higher demand on the preacher than on the stand-up comedian, and the burden of hard work bears much heavier on the preacher to fire an arrow to the heart of the culture and its thinking every time he stands up to speak. Not to mention the temptation I’m sure exists to water down the message and just try and appeal to the audience that is listening and make them laugh or feel warm and cozy inside, despite the wicked hearts that constantly beat in the chests of the community.

All that to say that preaching 200 years ago is drastically different than it is now. Even 50 years ago, or last decade sees vast swings in the methods of preaching and the sins and erroneous philosophy of the given time period it is given in. Read Wesley’s sermons, Spurgeon’s sermons, Paul’s letters, and then listen to those of Billy Graham, or Mark Driscoll, or Matt Chandler. There are drastic differences in the people that are being preached to in these times and places, and the sins and certain types of foolish thinking that is espoused in each of these periods that requires loving correction. 18th Century Britain is far different than 21st Century America, and people think differently all over the world. In every instant of time some new ism or heresy is being promoted that the entire community seems to grasp onto. Successful preachers throughout history recognize this, and aim their guns, so to speak, at these targets in an attempt to correct the wisdom of the world. This doesn’t mean that the Gospel is substituted by human philosophy or likewise, but it does mean that people need to be communicated to in their own culture, time period, epistemology, and vernacular. This I believe is part of what Paul meant when he wrote:

I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

(1 Cor. 9:22-23)

Now I am obviously no preacher, but I do enjoy listening to preachers and the method in which they perform their craft, though this is not my only reason for doing so. God forbid I just aim to criticize and pick apart the hard work of men God has called to proclaim the word of God, though I could raise many an issue with Joel Osteen’s preaching, and much of the silliness that is broadcasted on Christian television.

But my point is that I think it wise to seek a church and a preacher that speaks into the culture in which you are, and that it should be a high priority (if not the highest) to any Christian looking for a church to attempt to find where the truth of Jesus and his Gospel are emanating into the surrounding community from the pulpit, and where lives are being transformed by its power that only it possesses. It is something surprisingly difficult to find done well, but I hope we are ever-mindful of its importance.

p.s. speaking of Joel Osteen, below is a humorous and deadly accurate video by Mark Driscoll on this topic...enjoy.

On Blogging...

There is a funny sort of thing about Christian bloggers, or really anyone who writes, or even every person in general. We think we’re important and we assume that simply because we say/write something that seems right or insightful, or something that we saw on a bumper sticker or a random quote we read on Wikipedia that may or not may be right, that we are somehow tapping into the grand truth of the universe. Like we all suddenly become Mark Twain just because we can regurgitate cheesy and/or stupid theological musings simply because they are pithy and sound nice and neat to our ears

i.e. "Hate the sin; love the sinner."

Actually Gandhi said that, and it's not exactly Biblical. Or, some people say really stupid stuff that has no bearing on reality and in the end are just words. Or, there is just flat-out horrible Bible teaching, even in the idle words of obscure middle-school girls’ websites. Consider the following that I made up (though it’s loosely based on some of the non-sense I’ve read, and exaggerated a little for effect):

“Bible study was so fun and Bobby told Suzie that he likes her…somebody tore my Jesus fish off my car, must have been what it was like for the early Christians when they were persecuted for their beliefs…God is loving, and he/she loves us so much and I just know that he/she is behind me and supports my alternative lifestyle and I just hate all these fundamentalists always talking about God’s wrath…the cross is like investment banking, because God saw how valuable we could be, and he chose to invest in us to show forth all of our potential”.

It’s very tricky sometimes, because I find that clicking through friends’ blogs and the links they provide to other blogs, and reading snippets of some of these dumb blogs (just because I get bored sometimes), that often this type of language is, to make a gross understatement, sourced from people without much theological clout. Meaning that there is a certain type of person that just says “God” or “Jesus”, or any number of Christian terms and clichés that no one knows what they mean, every now and then and we assume that they are great saints of the pen among Augustine and Luther and that they deserve to be read and given a chance to voice their opinions.

Part of this frustration of mine is due to the perversion of technology that is our world today. Everyone has a blog, everyone has a website, and everyone has a little podium to stand on to voice their retarded agenda. And while this is an amazing breakthrough for technology and revolutionary for those that would use it for the benefit of humanity and the advancement of the Gospel, it also opens the door for any wing-nut that wants to say something. Sometimes it seems like going back to the days before the internet and the printing press may be a good idea, since with new opportunity for good thought and dispersal of good material, comes the same opportunities for evil discussion and pointless words being written. And while I do not condemn the open forum that the internet provides for people to voice what they think, this does not mean that everyone should speak and it does not mean that everyone is qualified to write about Jesus or anything of importance. Mostly, blogs are just little nuggets about what you did that day, how your job is going, or about spilling your fears and emotions, or about spreading gossip and rumors. While there may be some good that can come from some parts of that, I think the majority of it no one would miss if the plug was pulled (certainly my own crappy writing). There is also a certain corner of the blogosphere (what a nerd I am for using that word) that is greatly beneficial, guys such as Tim Challies and Justin Taylor, who are involved in the evangelical world of theological instruction and apologetics. But I also find the blogs of high-school/college-age dudes and girls that want to gush about their boyfriends or their iPods and throw in two words about God every now and then for good measure. Not to sound melodramatic, but I think this just may really show the condition of the fallen human heart, or it may just be a blog about girly emotion and crying, or perhaps both. But that’s not really my point, though it gets on my nerves. My point is that I find it a bit annoying, just enough that it gets under my skin, that anyone can log on, and post anything, good or bad, clever insight or repugnant tripe, or some devilish mixing of the two. (I realize that this is immediately hypocritical since this is all written in one of these blogs, but I still feel it is a valid point to be made. But of course this blog, like so many blogs should just be deleted and forgotten about, so whoa on me for even bringing it up. I fear I condemn the very thing I am doing, but there’s irony for you.)

But perhaps most annoying is people that throw in grand evangelical and biblical truths, or some romanticized twisting of a profound reality like “God loves us so much”, at the ends of posts with no explanation of what this means. Do we really comprehend the gravity of what God loving us really means? Is it because we’re such winsome and lovable people, or solely because God is holy and separate from us, and loves us despite of us spitting him in the face and crucifying him on a Roman cross? I would suggest that the majority of random “Christian” blogs (perhaps even this one), belonging to rich, whiny college kids with no jobs would show forth the former.

But do not misunderstand what I’m saying. I am not suggesting that I am somehow above the mess of common Christian blogging. No, I grudgingly realize I’m often somewhere in this pile of rubbish of non-important people with stupid opinions. I whine about stupid crap all the time. I am lazy, and I’ll be the first to speak ill of myself to reveal my sins, but I think I do however have the insight to recognize what I am and my great deficiency in knowing God and loving Him and having any right to voice anything, and hopefully having the wherewithal to try to get better by God’s power, to rise out of the trash heap of foolish human thinking and speculation and perhaps touch a lowly-dangling truth of God. Rarely have I done so, but I am optimistic for the future because God is great and can do anything even with a fool such as myself. And I would not dream of attempting to be so bold as to say that any of these people I don’t know are not truly followers of Christ. I merely make the point that most of this mess of today’s blog-technology-culture is done out of some peculiar, humanly attempt to show forth our own glory or some sick desire to get people to read it and say “wow, I wish I were that person.” And I realize that people are always in the process of growing and getting better and learning new things from God, and that at times we can really make fools of ourselves in what we write and say. We need correction from God and to be spoken to on the level we are at to exhort us to step up to the next. That’s the most amazing thing about God I find, and it’s really the heart of the incarnation of Christ, that God would actually stoop down and speak to us as His children, something John Calvin referred to as God’s “baby talk” to us. Please note that you now know I’m a strong Christian because I just referenced John Calvin, from a work I’ve never read and most likely will attempt to read and somewhere in the middle get so overwhelmed and lost in the sea of archaic language that I will put it back on my shelf and say something stupid like “I just don’t have time to read it right now, I’ll get back to it later when I can really focus,” as if my life is really that packed with important agendas (maybe they will be soon). But meanwhile I can put it on my blog and act as if I really have studied it deeply and therefore am some super Christian and impress everyone rather than just referencing what I’ve heard someone else say. Perhaps this is precisely what I am talking about. Funny how that worked out in the end.

Men and Worship

I don’t think we ever really grasp the weight of what we claim to believe as Christians. We make statements routinely like “God loves me,” or “Jesus rose from the dead,” or “God will judge sinners in the end,” as if they are old hat and just commonplace to say these things. Now they may be commonplace in a culture such as ours that has been so profoundly influenced by Christianity, in our little church world that we live in. When we make off-hand comments like “let’s go worship God in the church building,” there’s a lot that we take for granted and that we subconsciously downplay I think. Do we really understand what it means that we worship the King of the universe? Would this change how we worship? Can we imagine physically standing in the presence of Christ and still mumbling the words to the songs we sing and the prayers we recite with little to no emotion? I can’t, and yet I still fall prey to this often. I’m as conservative theologically as anyone, but most of these kinds of churches can generally tend to be pretty dull. This goes for all aspects of worship, not just music. It’s really confronting at my church since it’s not huge and we meet in a recreation center gym. It is tempting to just try and be silent and not stand out, and just sort of go through the motions without getting too excited or involved. It would seem a little startling and tacitly unthinkable to yell out “Amen!” to the preacher, and I think he senses this also in the congregation. But Bill made a comment last time I was there that caught my notice and made me think of a verse in 1 Timothy where Paul expresses:

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.

(2:8)

This verse is in the context of praying and giving thanks for all people, even those in high positions that have God-given authority over you (2:2), even those that are false teachers (1:3), even blasphemers (2:13, 20), persecutors (2:13), and insolent opponents (2:13), all of which Paul formerly was but was delivered by His mercy and grace (2:13-14); and certainly the women (wives, mothers, children, etc.) in the church (2:9-15), of whom God has made men stewards and leaders. This letter is written specifically to the church in Ephesus, of which Timothy was a pastor, and Paul commanded that men raise hands to the Lord Jesus, the mediator between God and all men. So Paul was commanding that men take the lead in the church, to initiate a worshipful response to God and in so doing encourage the women to follow likewise, not adorning themselves in trashy and inappropriate apparel and thereby dishonoring Christ and the appointed stewardship and leadership of godly men in the church, but

in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.

(2:9-10)

It is not my intention to get into the issue that vs. 2:9-15 bring up, which is that of women in the highest position of authority in the church (pastor, teacher, elder, etc.), but suffice it to say that women are repeatedly told to respect the authority put over them in the church. So is the command to men in the same passage, to make intercession and prayer for those in authority over them and to lead well their wives and families by looking to Jesus, the mediator between us all and God the Father. This is why Paul planted all of his churches, including the one at Ephesus, and why he was appointed by Christ

a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

(2:7)

Paul did this to instill in men leadership and a sense of responsibility for the direction and well-being of the church, including the office of overseer (3:1) and teacher (3:2) of the family of God. Women are likewise told to submit themselves to this and to learn quietly (2:11) in this context. Obviously this is one of the most hotly debated verses in all of Scripture, but again it is not my intention to get into that here (perhaps another post).

My point is that what Pastor Bill commented on briefly brought this to mind, and convicted me that I and fellow guys do need to feel a sense of responsibility for how the church responds in worship. In most “conservative” churches, where generally the Bible is taught well, there is not much liveliness in the congregation on Sunday. People tend to try and stay quiet and unnoticed, presumably from a desire to not stand out and to not draw attention away from the worship of God in the sanctuary. But I would submit that this is not necessarily the right way to go (even though I am grossly aware of my rampant failure here). What does it say about us as worshippers of Jesus that it often seems lifeless during what is supposed to be our celebration and heartfelt thanksgiving to our great God and King? Do we fully grasp what the redemption of our souls implicates? When we stand with our hands in our pockets, mumbling words to songs, checking our watches because God forbid the service goes long, and having a general attitude of complacency, do we equate this to actual knee-bending, on-your-face worship to the exalted Lord of Heaven, or is it just a “worship service” with neat and/or cheesy guitar songs, a few pithy statements made about God’s love, some prayers scattered throughout, and a cheap and inaccurate imitation of what the Reformers had in mind for the worship of God? Do we really worship during “worship”, or is it just another day of complacency that we call the Holy Sabbath?

Are we really interceding for others, offering prayers of thanksgiving for God’s blessings and appointed leaders, and are the men in the church really leading their churches and their families and their wives, pointing always to the great Mediator and lifting holy hands to Christ to intercede for this broken and desperately needy world? I haven’t been. Lord God help me repent and to follow the leadership appointed above me and those that would be entrusted to me, to always look to the Mediator in prayer for all people, without resisting or getting angry about it (2:8), but sensing the need and putting the joyful burden of responsibility on myself. I pray others would do likewise. Amen.

Dead man

Two days in a row! I don’t know if that’s ever happened. But I guess I just wanted to add a little more to what I wrote yesterday. I want to try and expound on why I think I feel this way sometimes.

I think the main reason, if there be no other, is the presence of sin in my life. I notice that when sin flares up a little more than usual in my life, that I consequently notice that I feel more distant from God and/or God feels more distant from me. But I think it’s more of the former than the latter—I AM more distant from God when I sin. I hate it. I don’t know why I do it. I don’t know why I can say in my mind, “don’t get pissed off in traffic, there’s nothing you can do about it, just take it easy and drive,” and then almost immediately fly off the handle and want intensely to kill the dude going 30 in the fast lane with his blinker on and no intention to change lanes. I store up this hatred inside me when I get where I’m going, and it just kind of eats away at me slowly until I get to where I am, where I just feel lost and without direction.

But God is always there, faithful to the end. Scripture says that even when we are faithless, God is faithful (2 Tim. 2:13). How true it is! God promises to finish that which he began (Phil. 1:6), and no one—not even us—can snatch us from the hand of God (Jn. 10:29), for salvation belongs to the Lord (Ps. 3:8), not to us. Now that’s some rapid fire doctrine right there. I can’t explain how mysteriously sometimes the grace just hits me and I come to my senses and I praise God for what he’s done for me in Christ. He leads me back to the path of righteousness, and I find true joy and rest in him.

Why I do not live daily and hourly in this joy, I cannot really comprehend. I don’t know why I stray and sin and think that I am somehow finding happiness in disobedience, when all it brings is empty despair. I don’t know when I will learn to stop trying to feed the old dead man, and start feeding the new living man (Eph. 4:22-24). It makes no sense to try and revive the dead man, because he will never get up and walk anywhere. But in my foolish mind, I think I can somehow put him on my back and make him dance like a puppet, when all that happens is that he becomes exceedingly heavy and burdensome and I can’t take the weight any longer, so I eventually stumble and fall. He’s not alive, he’s dead, and you can’t make a dead man dance with any amount of willpower. I don’t know why I am blind sometimes to the freedom and life that Christ offers. I wish it were easier to live as the man God made me to be, but it’s a constant struggle with this freakin’ dead man I am morbidly obsessed with on my back. God give me, and others that may struggle with the same, the faith, strength, and courage to throw him off and bury him a thousand feet deep in the Earth so that we may not continue to stumble but be renewed to press onward to the path of righteousness.

It's been a while...

I can think of so many things I could write about since I've taken such an extreme sabbatical from writing anything in this blog, which most people rarely do very consistently I've noticed. I could talk about the past year of my life and the dramatic and drastic turns it has taken. I could talk about some random theological topic. I could talk about some Bible verse that spoke to me this week. I could talk about some sermon I heard that made me break down and cry because it so resonated with my soul. But I’ll just try and convey what my current state is, perhaps just in the past few minutes.

I’m just really tired. Sometimes I just get really tired—tired of nothing. Sometimes I just get tired of feeling like there is nothing to plan, to think about, to write. Sometimes I feel like God is just silent in my life. Sometimes I feel like I have absolutely no plan in life, like my life is going nowhere. But they’re really just feelings, because my life is going somewhere currently. I’m getting married pretty soon (in February), and I am intensely excited about it. I know it’s God’s blessing in my life, and I thank him all the time for Emily. But sometimes, intellectual knowledge just doesn’t seem to be enough for me. I currently live away from her, and so much of my time is spent on the phone or writing instant messages and emails to her. It’s like I have a relationship with computers and phones. I’m really tired of it. But I don’t want to sound like I’m just finding things to whine about, since perhaps so many wish they had what I have, a beautiful woman to anticipate being with. But no sane person would ever aspire to a long-distance relationship. No one would ever aspire to a weekend emotional rollercoaster from the mountain of initial giddiness of seeing her on Friday night to the leveling off of Saturday afternoon routine, to the valley of Sunday sorrow upon leaving her or watching her drive away. It’s taking a toll on me, and my soul is worn-out.

But this isn’t really what I wanted to talk about. What I wanted to talk about is…I’m tired of feeling like my life is in limbo, in a sort of constant pause-mode. Not only is this illustrated by the intangible space I live in of engagement to marriage, it’s indicative of the intangibility I feel oftentimes in the life of my soul. Sometimes I feel like my soul has no solid ground to stand on, like I’m just a mind floating around in the space of human philosophy, where I have to lean on my own understanding of this world and just “do the best I can” with my mind and wading through the ever-deepening ocean of humanity’s agenda, through the filth and temptation, through the religion and speculation. I’m sick of this feeling. It feels like God is absent, like I’m a blind man trying to find a jungle path with no one to guide me but other blind men. And the memories in my life where I know I’ve felt the hand of God leading me are wonderful to think upon, but for some reason are no help to me when I get lost again. They can’t comfort my broken spirit because they are just memories. And cognitively I know that others feel this all the time, but for some reason intellectual knowledge doesn’t really help me much. Theology sometimes irritates me more when I itch from frustration, because I know only God can sooth. Only God can satisfy and fill the vacuum in my heart, as Blaise Pascal would say.

And it may be nice to hear affirmation and consolation from others, but it doesn’t help me find that distant hand of God. At least it doesn’t seem that way.

So this really has no point, other than to complain about being unsatisfied with life apart from God. And also to say that there is really never an end to the majesty of Jesus and his ever-deepening presence and influence in the life of a saint. We never reach the end of Him and say, “well I’m satisfied, I can move on to other things now.” God is eternal, and 5 years ago I could never imagine I’d be where I am today. And I’m sure 5 years from now I’ll look back and say, “wow, God has made a lot of progress with me.” But on this page of my life, it’s difficult to take my eyes off this line and out of the book and see the bigger story. It’s difficult to know God is there sometimes, that he is Emmanuel, God with us.

But he is, if we believe his promise. But that’s probably the most difficult thing in this world—to live with faith in God’s promise is something every Christian is challenged with as a corequisite to being on Earth. Abraham did it, but he also failed miserably at times. As did Jacob, and pretty much everyone in the Hall of Faith chapter of the book of Hebrews (11). Read Genesis and you’ll realize that these heroes of our faith were normal everyday people like all of us, but God is the one who did mighty things through them. Perhaps this is my consolation, that God will finish the work he began, and that he will make good on his promises to me, and to all of us that know him. But between the realm of heaven and the dust of Earth is a grand chasm only crossed by faith. Believing and residing in the chasm is a difficult and painful way of life. I currently feel defeated, but I know that feelings are fleeting, so I don’t put much stock in them. But thanks for listening anyhow.