Open Walk

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2011-08-14T16:24:00.001-07:00

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Origin of the Christian Church for Contemporary Readers

2011-06-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

This story takes place in three big steps. The first is centered on Jesus, His teachings and crucifixion.

Part One - Jesus

Politically speaking, the Jews and the Romans in the middle east had worked out a mutual living agreement. Basically the Jews would respect Roman Law -- pay taxes, etc. -- and the Romans would respect Jewish Law -- let the Jews prosecute those who broke Jewish Law.

Both the Roman and the Jewish societies developed multiple levels of hierarchy and although we today use different terms for the roles, the manner of dividing up jurisdiction into multiple levels today is very similar to the Roman method.

That is, Romans had the Emperor and Senate in Rome who decided things at the highest level. But they didn't try to handle local (outside of Rome) issues in any detail. Instead, the empire was divided into regions each having its own government. Pontius Pilate was one such individual and he had jurisdiction over the relatively small area of interest to this story.

The Jewish hierarchy, on the other hand, was organized around religious principles and spanned a much smaller geographical area. The Sanhedrin pretty much at the top of the Jewish hierarchy. It was somewhat like a local court or Senate in that each city had such a group. Each such group was composed of several members, commonly 23 but larger in some jurisdictions, and met on a daily basis (other than the Sabbath) to hear and decide local issues. It is the Sanhedrin that heard and then convicted Jesus but, because their powers were limited (by the Roman rulers), they had then to go to the Romans for the death sentence. But I'm getting ahead of the story.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, was a group of normal individuals that shared a common school of thought, mostly on religious matters. They were, at times, in conflict with the Sadducees who maintained the Temples. And, as is probably obvious, the Pharisees would also be opposed to anyone else who differed from their beliefs.

Indeed, it would be the Pharisees who were the key players in fomenting the arrest of Jesus: what He was preaching was in direct opposition to the beliefs of the Pharisees. Worse, Jesus was getting a lot of traction -- many Jews were listening to him and undoubtedly beginning to question, probably openly, the Pharisees and even the doctrines of Jewish law that the Sadducees followed in the running of the temples.

Jesus was becoming a real threat to their way of life.

People were listening, challenging the statements of the Pharisees and the practices of the Sadducees.

So the Jewish elders, provoked by the Pharisees and perhaps with the tacit or not so "tactic" support of the Sadducees, accused Jesus of making the false claim of being a king. They took him to the Sanhedrin (council) where He was, not surprisingly, convicted.

But a conviction alone would not be enough to silence Jesus. That much was clear. Even a prison sentence wouldn't suffice -- Jesus would undoubtedly continue preaching His message that was so threatening to the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Jewish way of life.

So, the Jewish leaders took Jesus to the Roman powers to secure the death penalty.

They started with Pontius Pilate, a "prefect" of Judaea. But Pontius Pilate said that, because Jesus was from Galilee, He was outside of his jurisdiction. he sent the case to Herod.

At the trial where Herod presided, Jesus was almost completely silent and said little against the accusations of the (Jewish) leaders. But rather than deciding the issue -- maybe Herod realized what a "hot potato" this was -- Herod sent the case back to Pontius Pilate.

And so Pontius Pilate, at the end finally of his first full hearing of the case throws up his hands and basically says to the Jewish leaders he can find no fault in Jesus and nothing deserving of the death penalty. But after further conversations with the Jewish elders for which we can only imagine the content, Pontius Pilate sanctions the death penalty.

History says Pontius Pilate sentenced Jesus to death.

And so, Jesus was crucified -- a particularly vicious and degrading way of killing someone and intended, therefore, to demonstrate not only the guilt of the victim, but also the power of the state and its low opinion of the convicted.

Jesus was silenced and, by the manner in which He was executed, the state (Rome and Jewish parts in agreement) sent a very strong message about what they thought of what Jesus had been preaching.

The disciples, now in deep fear for their very lives, scatter and only slowly and secretly start coming back together. And as they do, they preach only in small groups, not in public, and only amongst friends who are, therefore, completely within the Jewish community.

Part Two - Paul

Jesus had stirred up quite a ruckus and had many enemies who, even after his crucifixion, were determined to quash His message. Paul was one such opponent who supported the efforts to round up and stop those heretical followers of Christ!

But, during a trip that Paul took, He was visited by an angel and given a task to perform, one that was quite different from what the disciples were doing. Specifically, Paul was to take Christ's message to non-Jews.

That visitation completely reversed Paul's thinking. Previously he had been opposed to Jesus and His teachings but, from then on, Paul would preach the message he had just opposed. He was a convert in the truest sense of the word.

But there was a key difference between what Paul was told to do and what Jesus had been doing.

According to Jewish belief, only Jews could get to Heaven. Jesus had preached His message solely to the Jews and for the purpose of telling them they did not have to conform to all of the Jewish "law" to get in, nor that following that "law" would guarantee their entry. Instead, Jesus said that it was enough to simply believe. The actions and practices dictated in the Jewish law were beside the point -- the point was a person's belief, not whether or not he conformed to the Jewish law.

(On this point, I've taken a slight divergence in a different essay to say that while faith is important, Jesus wasn't saying you could sit around on a log your whole life and get into Heaven because you believed. My observation was that Jesus said conformance to Jewish law wasn't the issue, faith was. But Jesus did not say you could do whatever you wished, nor did He say you could get to Heaven even if you did nothing your whole life. But, again, I'm diverging. Let's get back to the story.)

Paul's teaching on the other hand was to non-Jews, to the Gentiles. In telling his message, Paul might have said something like, "You don't have to follow Jewish Law to get to Heaven. It is your belief that is important, not whether you eat ham or put dairy and meat on a single plate."

Paul said you don't have to be Jewish to get to Heaven whereas the disciples took that as a pre-condition.

Realizing that the core essential in his message was the same as what the disciples were teaching but that one part of his message was still in conflict, Paul went to Jerusalem to meet with the disciples. He hoped to convince them that their message were essentially the same.

And by this time, the disciples had gathered enough believers and no longer felt the need to stay under cover. Paul met with and convinced the disciples that he had, indeed, been visited by God's angel and that he been given a legitimate dictate to carry Christ's message to non-Jews.

The disciples were convinced and gave Paul the go-ahead -- to teach those who were not Jews. The disciples on the other hand would continue to teach the Jews.

In that way, the "work" of getting The Word out was divided. The disciples remained in the middle east and taught in the Jewish community while Paul went out, traveled the Roman world, gained followers who traveled farther out still and carried the message to wider and wider audiences.

Part Three - The Christian Church

Over time and, with a very large world on which to draw for the making of converts, Paul and his followers were numerically and geographically far more successful -- because they preached to the world -- rather than the disciples who limited their audience to only Jews and only in the immediate area of the middle east.

As such, it was the followers of the Pauline doctrines that, over time, coalesced into the beginnings of the Christian church(es) we see today. And because Rome was the center of power in that part of the world, the Pauline-style church became centered there in what today is known as the Roman Catholic Church.

But as we all know, it would not remain the only "Christian" church.

One of the big splits occurred when a King wanted to do something the church would not allow. Specifically, King Henry VIII of England wanted a divorce but the Roman church had said, "No." Not to be denied, Henry decreed with his power as the King of England that Rome was wrong and, therefore, that the Church of England (that would grant his divorce or its leaders put to death) was the "one true church." Thus, the Church of England (Christian) church split away from Roman Catholic (Christian) Church.

And in time and through various circumstances, each of the so-called Christian churches we know today, from Baptist to Latter Day Saints, and from state-sponsored Lutherans in Sweden to Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on doors around the world, to small groups meeting in homes with no particular identifying label, all these would fork-off from some similar but now "you've got it wrong" other faction.

It's worth noting that "Catholic" means "general" or "common" but, when it comes to the Christian church, there is none that can really claim to represent all.

Skeptical of Sources

2011-06-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

In studying various interpretations of The Bible including Bob Enyart's "The Plot" which has inspired a couple of essays here, one question continues to nag: Do I trust The Bible to be "the word of God"? That is, how much of it is to be accepted as God's message to us: 100%, 50%, 10%, none?

The problem I'm having is not unique to The Bible. I have the same skepticism of all religious works because they were -- and here I need to include several words -- recorded, transcribed, written by man. And while I do grant 100% that those doing the recording were inspired, deeply and profoundly inspired no doubt, it remains that the ink was applied to paper by a human being.

And human beings are fallible.

Let's take The Bible including Old and New Testaments for a moment. This work was assembled from various sources and the early Roman Catholic Church eventually gave its approval to a particular collection. And while that particular collection has been translated into many languages, interpreted by scholars and lay persons for thousands of years, it remains a collection that was debated, argued and eventually voted upon by those with a strong vested interest, the early Christian church.

Life has taught me to give my trust sparingly, with much reservation, through a skeptical eye and, most essentially, with a clear understanding of the other person's motives (where possible).

And the Catholics were assembling the books that would provide the teachings of the foundation of their beliefs as well as the core of their daily actions.

As such, I have no problem understanding why they have never considered including some or all of The Koran in the Catholic Bible. The Koran is from a different religion, contains ideas that are contrary to teachings in The Catholic Bible and, well, it's in just plain in very significant conflict with The Bible. The two don't belong together.

That same razor was applied in deciding what to include or exclude from The Bible when the Roman Catholic church assembled the work. What supported their ideas, their history and most essentially their faith was included. What contradicted it or was seen as extraneous was omitted.

So, when I read The Bible, it's like playing with a stacked deck of cards: it is supposed to come out a certain way. That was the plan. That's why it includes the books it does.

And who assembled it? Men -- granted they were operating with profound inspiration, but it was still human beings that made the selection.

So today, when I think about Bob Enyart's ideas and read the Biblical quotations he uses to support his conclusions, while I may agree that his conclusions are very interesting, I still have to question the material with which he begins, The Bible.

And perhaps worse, the more I read of the differing interpretations, the less I tend to trust the underlying material.

Stated simply, if scholars have been studying and debating Biblical issues for more than two thousand years -- the Old Testament goes back well before Christ -- and they still cannot agree, and in light of the fact that so-called "Christian" churches have fragmented into dozens of factions each with their own slightly different beliefs and practices, then I have to seriously question The Bible as a unifying work. Certainly it has not accomplished that. On the contrary, its ambiguity is why all these factions exist.

All of this ultimately boils down to a question of faith.

Do I believe The Bible is The Word of God, or is it inspired by God, or is it simply an example of humanity's search for meaning and purpose?

Alas, I tend to the latter.

Insofar as The Bible teaches me about humanity and it's yearning for meaning in the apparently infinite cosmos, it is a useful tool, a good speller, a valuable set of lessons.

But it teaches me therefore about humanity.

Does that diminish my faith in God?

No, not in the least.

I still feel God's movement in my life. I know His interactions, His influences, the opportunities He places before me.

Some people of faith talk about having a personal relationship with Jesus, with God, with the Holy Spirit. Yes, I understand that and would have to say that is what I experience and believe. I, too, have a personal relationship with ... I will say "God" because that feels most appropriate, but "Holy Ghost" is another very good term for what I feel because the interaction is subtle, very subtle. "Jesus" doesn't feel like the correct noun to use for what I feel.

But I do have a personal relationship.

It's something I feel on a daily basis, if I'm paying attention, or that I notice afterwards when I reflect on a certain situation and what possibilities were open to me and to others.

God is there, operating in the moment, and opening doors of opportunity.

It is then up to me to listen with my heart and, feeling His presence, choose the door He is hoping I will choose.

I'm sure He smiles when I make the right choice, or sighs when I do not.

But then He moves on to the next opportunity, as must I.

God Changes His Mind?

2011-05-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

The main tenet of Open Theism is that man has free will and, consequently, God does not know what we are going to do.

There is Biblical evidence that can be interpreted to be in support of this view. The evidence suggests that God has changed his mind ... at least, that's one possible explanation for what we are about to read.

But it may not be the only explanation.

Before looking at alternatives, however, let's see the evidence.

This example has three parts, all from the Old Testament. It begins with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

Genesis 1:29-30 (New International Version)

In a nutshell, everybody and every creature is vegan. No meat, no eggs, no fish. Just plants.

That's what God commanded.

"And it was so."

Presumably some time passes with everyone munching on leafy greens, nuts and fruit -- er, except for that apple tree over there, of course.

Next, we thumb forward to chapter nine, still in Genesis, for the first change.

Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

Genesis 9:3 (New International Version)

"Okay, you can eat the animals [and bugs!] now," seems to be the message.

God seems to have changed his mind. We're not told why -- that's where the "interpretation" comes in -- but clearly the vegans have now become not just carnivores but, more so, they are now "omnivores." They are permitted to eat anything. (If you read further, the next verse in the Bible prohibits sushi -- uncooked flesh -- but that's a different point.)

So, the barbeque gets fired up, burgers are torched and then buns warmed before adding lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise or, if you'd prefer, mustard, pickles and onions.

Finally, we turn to Leviticus for yet another change, this one directed to the "Nation of Israel" where the Mosaic dietary Laws are spelled out.

[God said,] There are some that only chew the cud or only have a divided hoof, but you must not eat them. The camel, though it chews the cud, does not have a divided hoof; it is ceremonially unclean for you. The hyrax, though it chews the cud, does not have a divided hoof; it is unclean for you. The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a divided hoof; it is unclean for you. And the pig, though it has a divided hoof, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are unclean for you.

Leviticus 11:4-8 (New International Version)

In the vernacular of contemporary America, God seems to be saying, "But lay off camels, hyraxes, rabbits and pigs. In fact, don't even touch them if you find a dead one."

So, omnivore-ism is out, or at least it's "out" for God's Chosen.

The barbeque in the backyard can still be Kosher but only as long as there's no ham in that "hamburger".

Taken collectively, these three quotations from the Old Testament appear to show that God has changed his mind about what is OK to eat. And they seem to say He has changed his mind more than once.

Open Theists may point to these verses as an example of where God has changed His mind.

But did He?

Is there another explanation, if we can be so presumptuous as to guess at God's plan, motives and thinking?

(I will be "so presumptuous" -- God gave me a brain and I'm quite certain He expects me to use it. [And to hopefully, for my sake, come to the right conclusion.])

Another explanation for these changes is that God is giving us different messages at different times -- and to different groups -- because we're not ready for the whole story from the "get-go". Instead, He is maturing us, growing us, and He is supplying the "lesson" one step at a time as we are ready for it.

This seems to be an entirely reasonable explanation.

It's not that God changed His plan because we did something unexpected, but rather that God is expecting us to change, to learn, and because of that, His lessons in what to eat are part of His plan on how to "grow humanity."

If you're an Open Theist, you might balk at this "alternative interpretation" but, well, there it is. Since we can't know the mind of God, we can only speculate at His reasons.

But that doesn't mean the idea of Open Theism is wrong. On the contrary, this interpretation still supports the idea that God doesn't know what we're going to do.

You see, if God knew what we were going to do each step of the way, His intervention, His "changing of the rules" about what to eat, would've also had to have been part of His plan.

But why didn't He start us out on the mixed diet from the very beginning?

Because we had to learn something first. We weren't ready for it. Something in the human creature needed to change first.

So, God knows we will -- or should -- change and He's prepared to change the rules when that happens.

Did He always know what we would do ... or at least that we would do it but He didn't necessarily know when we would?

If God always knew what we would do, then there is no reason for Him to "build in" this intervention. That is, if the intervention is pre-planned, then not even God has Free Will in the matter. It's all cast in concrete. It is going to be A, then B, then C, and so forth through all of time, like a movie that plays out to its predictable end no matter what we in the audience do.

So, if you know everything that's going to happen in a movie, if you know every line, every look, every clash of sword and spurt of blood, why bother watching? (If you say, "Because it's exciting," you're just confessing that, at some level, you don't know what's going to happen. If you truly knew, there would be no reason to watch or listen.)

That gets us to the central nub of Open Theism.

And if everything in life is predestined, then why bother to even let it play out?

What's the point of that?

So, here's the bottom line at least as I see it: Predestination doesn't make sense -- why would God figure everything out ... and then make it happen?

To watch?

But he knows what's going to happen!

He knows, without a shadow of a doubt, what's going to happen.

Why bother tipping over that first domino if you know exactly what's going to happen?

Oh sure, it looks cool to see one domino hitting another after all that time spent setting it up, but at some stage, doesn't it become rather pointless? I mean, if there's no one to entertain -- remember, God knows exactly how it's going to play out if everything is predestined -- then why actually bother to do it.

So, I throw out the idea that everything is predestined on the basis that God would find it so predictable (!) that He simply wouldn't bother setting up the dominoes much less tipping over the first one.

God crafting a totally predestined universe just doesn't make sense.

It can have no purpose, no meaning, no reason to play out.

Predestination just makes no sense.

So, I discard the idea.

And if predestination is out, then that means God doesn't know.

By definition, if predestination is out, then God cannot know what will happen.

And if God doesn't know, then Free Will is back in play.

Now be careful: God may still have a plan, and He still may have lessons to teach us, and He still may "play out" the rule changes as we learn, so the Biblical quotations I've used here aren't necessarily God changing His mind. They may simply be new lessons He is delivering as we learn.

But we are changing, and God doesn't necessarily know when, or even if for sure, those changes will happen.

Free Will must, therefore, be at play.

It has to.

God may not "change His mind" but, then again, He cannot know which of the near infinite set of choices in front of me today that I will actually choose.

He has to wait and see what choices I make.

And when He thinks I'm ready, He provides the next lesson.

But will I "get it"?

That's another story.

By Faith Alone?

2011-05-09T09:02:00.001-07:00

I'm studying Bob Enyart's the Plot, the premiss being that God not only responds to what humans do, but also that God may, over time and in response to what we do, change His mind. That is, He may promise that if we do something, He will then do something, but if we don't hold up our end of the bargain, then He is not obligated to do what He promised in return.

The Book of Acts documents a significant plot shift, as Bob terms it, wherein God opened His gates for Gentiles. And not only that, but God did not require the Gentiles to perform according to Mosaic Law. They could, instead, get into God's good graces "by faith alone".

This got me to thinking about that phrase, "by faith alone." Is that actually what God meant? Are we understanding this correctly?

Here's my understanding of what I'm reading in the Book of Acts.

First, Jews can get to Heaven (or "everlasting life" if you'd prefer that term) according to three conditions. First, they have to believe in God. Second, when they sin, they have to sincerely repent, to be truly sorry for their actions and, presumably, [try to?] not do that again. And third, they have to live life according to certain rules -- the Laws of Moses and the Scribes who later codified those Laws into huge tomes of rules and regulations.
Gentiles, on the other hand, only need satisfy the first two conditions, believing in God and sincerely repenting of their sins. Gentiles, however, don't have to follow the Laws handed down by Moses and then amplified by the Scribes. Gentiles get a "pass" on adherence to the Laws. (Ham and swiss on rye, anyone?)

But this is where my thinking got snagged on something. It hinges on not repentance, but upon a person's actions thereafter.

For example, let's take some sinner -- you or me, as you prefer -- and let's say that sinner realizes he/she has sinned, is sincerely sorry, repents from the bottom of his/her heart and basically says, "I was wrong, please forgive me" and perhaps most significantly adds, "I won't do that again."

That last part, the "I won't do that again," that's an action. That's doing, or in this case *not* doing something.

Now, back to the main thought.

When someone says, "By faith alone," how does that bear on the idea, "I won't do that again"?

If it is, literally, "by faith alone" then the presumption must be that if that person goes out and sins again, well of course they'll need to "sincerely repent" again -- but at what point does repetition of a sin cast doubt on the adverb "sincerely". I mean, if you keep doing something bad over and over, at some point *I* begin to doubt that person's sincerity of saying, "I'm sorry." (Of course, I can't speak for God and whether or not God questions their sincerity. But it does start to strain what I think of them. So maybe God does too.)

My conclusion from this is that while the Gentiles were excused from Mosaic Law, they are not given a pass to Heaven "by faith alone." They aren't given "carte blanche" to behave as they please. If they mess up, they still need to sincerely repent.

But when?

As comedians will tell you, timing is everything. What if someone sins but then dies before they can repent? Maybe they do something horrible -- run over a relative who has really made them mad but, in the process, wreck the car and become unconscious, lay in a hospital room for six months -- not brain dead, let's say, but still unconscious -- and then their damaged heart gives out and they die.

Will they enter Heaven "by faith alone" because they (once?) believed but stumbled?

Or are they toast, and probably rather well-done toast at that?

My guess (!) is that "by faith alone" is an over-statement. I think it goes too far.

My admittedly meager understanding of what I am studying in the Book of Acts is that God wants us to 1) believe in Him, 2) try not to sin but when we do, to sincerely ask His forgiveness and then try not to do that again, and for the Jews only, to 3) live according to the Mosaic Law.

"By faith alone" doesn't mean our actions are irrelevant. On the contrary, what we *do* is very important.

"Faith alone" is not sufficient. Actions matter, too.

The Gentiles don't have to conform to Mosaic Law, but nonetheless, there are still some things they are not supposed to do.

Murder is a bad act. Don't do that.

But that's not doing something and, OK, I can agree to not do certain things.

But what about actively doing things?

Am I expected to do things, too?

This is where "by faith alone" really comes into question in my mind.

There are good acts as well as bad and -- I think -- God is looking for us to do those good acts.

I think He expects it.

He even went so far as saying so!

Specifically, Jesus said we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

If I love myself, I take care of myself. I wash, brush my teeth, eat (reasonably) healthy, conform to local laws when driving the car, see my doctor for annual checkups, and so forth.

Love is not passive. Loving means we do things.

And if I love someone, I will take steps to help them. I will ask, "How are you feeling?" If it looks needed, I will take them to the hospital. Even the act of just listening while they unload their troubles to compassionate ears is an act of doing. (Look up "active listening" if you don't agree. Listening, really listening, is not a passive act. It takes energy. It is very much a "doing" action.)

On the other hand, doing nothing when a so-called loved one is in danger when we have the potential of protecting, of saving, them from harm ... not doing something is unthinkable.

Of course, you will try (doing something) to save them.

You love them!

To "Love your neighbor" means you are willing to act, to do, for their well-being.

Love is not passive.

It means "we do" for others as we would "do" for ourselves.

So do we get a pass to Heaven, "By faith alone"?

Nope, I don't think that's what the Book of Acts is telling us.

That phrase is an incorrect simplification. It over-simplifies God's expectations.

What you do matters.

If you're a Gentile -- that is, you're not Jewish -- then you don't have to follow the laws of Moses or the huge tract of "if this, then that" rules created by the Scribes.

But you do have to "do".

Doing is important. It matters.

Contractural Agreement

2011-04-29T12:56:00.000-07:00

A contract basically says that if one party does something, then the other party promises to do something in return. It implicitly acknowledges that the first party could choose to do otherwise but, if they do as stated, then the second party will then respond in a certain way.

"You cut my lawn and I'll pay you ten dollars." (Can you still find someone for only ten bucks?)

Notice the sequence: the second party watches to see what the first party does (first). This is because it is not certain what that first party will do. So the second party waits and watches. Only if the first party fulfills the terms of the contract, then and only then does the second party act.

"You cut the grass, then I'll pay you ten bucks."

But will they?

Most of us wait and see. When they later knock on the door, we go out and see how they did. And if the lawn looks good, we pay.

That's the contract.

The key point is, they might not. They might do something else. So we wait and see.

God makes contracts with humanity many times.

Here are two examples from the Old Testament.

"If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned."

Jeremiah 18:7-8 (New International Version)

He basically says, "I know I said I was going to destroy you but, if you change your ways then I will change my mind. You go first humanity and, if I see you change, then I'll change, too. But you go first so I can see."

And conversely, he goes on.

"And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it."

Jeremiah 18:9-10 (New International Version)

And in Jonah, He repeats the offer and, thereby, underlines the fact of humanity's Free Will.

"When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened."

Jonah 3:10 (New International Version)

Notice also this is what the New Testament says as well. That is, if you do something evil but then repent -- and it has to be a sincere repentance with a sincere effort to "sin no more", then you will be forgiven.

Jesus said so.

The action is up to us and, as we change, so will God.

God truly doesn't know what we will do. He's waiting to see.

So, what will you choose to do in the next five minutes?

Hint: God doesn't know!

____________________
* Note: Bob Enyart's The Plot put these verses in one place (pages 2-3) and provided the stimulus -- that God's story has experienced unexpected "plot twists" -- for this blog entry. I expect to find many more such nuggets as I continue to read Bob's work.
Recently, I attended Sunday service at the Denver Bible Church. Bob is the pastor there and, after worship, I joined him, his wife, his brother and others for lunch and discussion. It was a most enlightening day.

The Power of Prayer

2011-04-27T09:00:00.001-07:00

If you believe that praying for something works, that praying for God to intercede and save a child's life, or to help warring factions agree to a cease fire, or simply that God will help you find a way to help others this day, then you are an Open Theist.

In each case, you are praying for God's intercession. You want His help. You are asking Him to do something that otherwise might not have happened.

Put simply, you are hoping -- praying -- for change.

Some theologians say that, because God is all knowing, He therefore knows everything that is going to happen. He knows whether or not that child will die, whether a cease fire will or won't happen, and that God knows what you will actually do today regardless of your prayer for His help.

In other words, that everything is predetermined.

But if that's the case, what's the sense of an intercessionary prayer? Why ask for God's help when everything is precast and unchangeable?

Personally, I believe in the power of prayer.

Years ago and not long after my father died, our extended family went through a very trying time that threatened to split us apart. Suffice it to say, the split was so deep I feared I would have to choose between my marriage and my family of origin.

So, in my anguish over what to do, I prayed for guidance. And, I think of it as the Holy Ghost, moved within me and guided me to an answer I might not have otherwise found.

The answer was simple: family, both of origin and of marriage, are stronger than this deeply dividing issue. Affirm the unity of the extended family and, through that, an answer that preserves the extended family will be found.

Now, as you may know, compromises are rarely to anyone's liking. Each faction usually has to give up something to reach a compromise. And some may even see it as a capitulation.

In this case, that's how it came out. It was a compromise, an undesirable and poor one, one that some said was the same as giving up.

But the extended family was preserved.

God, through the Holy Spirit, moved in our lives and guided us to a workable answer.

I'm not saying that everything is fine, that all ill feelings were healed, that everything was fixed. On the contrary, the hurts were deep and remain painful to this day, and almost certainly for the rest of our lives.

But the family was saved.

We talk, we share, we love.

Our prayer was answered.

God interceded.

Addendum

While it's true that outcome may have happened without the prayer, it's important to note that neither side of this argument can be "proven".

But if our lives are no more than the watching of a movie whose every frame and word are predetermined, then why would God create such a thing? If He is the author and knows what's going to happen, would He sit and watch it unfold -- remember, He would know each frame, so why bother? And if He isn't going to watch, then what's the sense of creating, of fabricating it in the first place?

When the Bible says that we are created "in His image", that cannot mean we look like Him. Of what use would God have for eyes before He created the universe and its stars? What good would two hands be before there was dirt and rock to be mounded up into mountains?

"In His image" cannot be literal. Hands and eyes on God are nonsensical. He doesn't need them.

Rather, it is a figurative statement. We have some of His qualities, some of His abilities.

And we have them because He gave them to us.

We have the power to choose, to make up our own minds, and to ask -- or not -- for His help.

And He also has that power. And sometimes as we are told, He may answer our prayers with an understanding but firm, "No."

We learn to accept that sometimes "God's Will" will be done.

But the very act of acknowledging that also carries the implicit acknowledgement that we too have a will, that we have choices we can make (or not) and acts to perform (or not).

That is God's greatest gift to us, the power to choose.

We can choose, and act, as we see fit.

And we can also choose to ask for His help when something seems beyond our immediate power.

The future is what we make of it.

God made it that way.

Divine Intercession

2011-04-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

Just as a parent is sometimes surprised, or horrified, at something his/her child may do, so too is God sometimes pleased and sometimes unhappy with our choices.

So imagine, if you will, the lush Eden with the Biblical first two humans, Adam and Eve or, if you would prefer, then imagine a verdant area in Africa with some early humans.

Regardless, here we have these humans running around, exploring and figuring out what they can and cannot eat, discovering that they need sleep, enjoy sex, have babies that cry but are, nonetheless, wonderously cute and cuddly.

And imagine God looking down at his creation and watching these human creatures to see what they will do. Remember, He gave them free will so he really does not know what they will do. And he's curious to find out.

So, He says to Eve, "Don't eat the apple."

Imagine his surprise and undoubtedly disappointment when she does exactly what He specifically forbade.

And imagine a parent telling a child, "Here are some crayons and paper. Don't draw on the walls."

I'm sure we all know how that's going to turn out.

So what does the parent do? Some will scold the child and some will punish. Regardless, most will learn not to mention such possibilities and rely, instead, on the child's somewhat limited creativity and his/her slowly dawning sense of right and wrong. Given the choice, most children (and most adults) will choose "right" over "wrong". There are exceptions, of course, but that's what discipline and guidance are for.

So, too, does God watch and respond to what His children do.

Reading the Old Testament, there are many instances where God metes out punishment.

Noah's flood could certainly be considered a rather extreme example. So what's going on in that and similar cases? (Here I'm also thinking of Sodom and Gomorrah's destruction.)

Assuming a good parent, are there cases where a child's behaviour warrants a very strong, we might even say extreme act?

I think most would agree that if they saw a three year old about to pick up a loaded revolver, we would be moved to immediate, rapid and very strong action.

And what of a parent's action to block access to a child's friends who are, as we might say, headed in the wrong direction? If one of a child's friends takes drugs, would you fault or condone a parent's action to disconnect their child from that influence?

Parents sometimes take strong steps for their child's well-being.

And so does God.

Strong steps.

Many psychologists say that the best way to raise a child is to use both rewards and punishments, as befit the situation. Punishment alone is liable to alienate the child and drive them away from the parent that would otherwise act as a guide as the child learns about the world. And although rewards are very positive reinforcers of the behaviour we would like to see, we know that we won't witness all the good acts, that we cannot, therefore, reward all of them, and so the child must somehow learn different reasons for doing good instead of bad. Rewards alone are not enough either.

At a particularly bad time in the life of the world, God sent His Son to give us a message.

That message was that, no matter what we did, if we would just say we were sorry -- and we truly meant it -- that all would be forgiven.

Jesus said we should love our Father who loves us, and that we should love each other in that same way.

He said that those ten rules had grown complicated over the centuries with all sorts of Laws but that all those were missing the point, that people had lost sight of what is really important.

And that is to love one another, and to love God as God loves us.

He gave us the free will to do so.

It's there.

All you have to do is use that free will, to accept that God truly loves us and sometimes intercedes in our best interest, and to love Him for that caring involvement, and to love -- and treat -- each other the same.

Denver Bible Church, Bob Enyart, Open Theism

2011-04-10T16:28:00.000-07:00

Bob Enyart of the Denver Bible Church is a proponent of both Open Theism and Bible-based Christian teachings. But to me and my admittedly incomplete understanding of both, "Bible Church" and "Open Theism" seem to be at odds with each other.

I mean, doesn't the Bible teach that God is all powerful and all knowing? Doesn't that mean that He knows what we're going to do every step of the way? And if that's the case, how can an 'Open ended' future -- a future where God doesn't know what an individual may or may not do -- then be in agreement with predestination where everything has already been decided?"

But Bob's pastorship of a "Bible Church" and his writings on Open Theism argue he has found a way to marry the two.

"How can he do that?" I wondered.

Thus, with a business trip to Denver that included a Sunday morning, the opportunity was before me to try and find out.

Denver Bible Church is small and has no building of its own. The congregation meets in the gymnasium of a Christian school, the Maranatha Christian Center, 72nd and Oak, in Arvada Colorado, a northwest suburb of Denver. There were about 50 in attendance the Sunday I visited and we sat on folding chairs for the 10:50AM service.

Pastor Bob's sermon series on Matthew was up to chapter 21 on this Sunday. Among other things, this is the chapter where, in verses 12-13, Christ "cleans the temple" by throwing out the vendors. And later, in verses 18-19, He curses a fig tree which immediately withers and dies.

To my thinking, these two incidents are at odds with the traditional picture of Jesus as the meek and peaceful healer, preaching to the multitudes and performing miracles with fish and loaves of bread.

But in the first of these incidents, He violently wrecks the tables and benches of vendors seeking profit from those who would come to worship. He throws them out of the temple!

And worse, in the second incident He kills a tree!

This is not the Christ I learned as a child.

These are passionate, even violent, acts!

"May you never bear fruit again," are the words in the 19th verse in the New International Version.

"Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever," is how the King James version puts it.

And even The Message translates it as "No more figs from this tree!"

(Bible Gateway may be a useful web-based resource for such comparisons.)

In these incidents, Christ is active -- violently so.

He is forcing change.

He is an active agent, causing things to happen. He is not passive, not waiting, not accepting the status quo.

And to my thinking, this is the heart of what God expects from us.

He expects us to act. To do. To create change.

Open Theism says the future is not written. Instead, it is up to us.

Today, there are limits to what I can accomplish. In politics, it is unlikely that I can, single-handedly, turn around the horrific national debt our misguided leaders are saddling us with for generations to come.

But I can, through my words and actions, demonstrate my own fiscal responsibility, vote for those who say they will do the same, and then monitor their actions and through letters and emails, hold them accountable to their word.

In Christ's time, He didn't have those options, nor did He fight that fight. He chose a different battle.

But He went and took action.

And in so doing, He changed the future.

He took action. He opened His mouth and challenged the status quo. He used His hands to overturn the tables and benches in the temple and I dare say His Aramaic words were laced with passion that day.

He made history, but not by sitting back and waiting.

He spoke, He moved, He did.

The future was not pre-written. Instead, He made the future.

Today, we make the future, you and me.

We can speak. We can act. We can do things to cause change.

And remember that if you don't, someone else will.

It's your life. God gave it to you. How will you use it?

---

Thanks, Bob, for bringing Christ -- a very different Christ -- back into my life.

Tomorrow is a new day and, through my work, I will come into contact with others. I pray the Lord will help me see the possibilities that are open before me, and to help me find the energy and the wherewithal to act on them.

Consider the Numbers

2011-02-22T09:25:00.000-08:00

Astronomers tell us there may be as many as 500 billion (500,000,000,000) galaxies out there. Of those, our home, the Milky Way is fairly typical. It is estimated to have 200 to 400 billion stars.

Obviously, the total number of stars in the universe is, well, astronomical.

Now, let me change direction for a moment.

Many will say that The Bible is God's spoken word. Others will say the words are inspired by God.

We read those words today in English or some other contemporary language. Few read the Old Testament in the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek of the Dead Sea Scrolls. And, for the New Testament that was assembled by the early Christian church, again, few of us read that in the Koine Greek which was more like a common, street vernacular of the Roman market, not a scholarly writing of great finesse and precision.

It therefore strikes me as arrogant -- in the extreme -- for humanity to think that 1) out of all the Universe, we are the only sentient life, 2) that God singled us out to be the chosen species on the chosen planet of the chosen star in the chosen galaxy, or 3) that in our fledgling understanding of the Universe that God created, that we could be so arrogant as to believe can understand His purposes and 4) that He would send us, and only us, His words, and that 5) we would be able to understand those words across the centuries as our civilizations and science evolve.

Put simpler, I think it incredibly naive of humanity to believe that "God's word" in the Bible can be anything more than a coarse speller, as in first grade "speller", for our education.

The Bible is a good starting point, to that I'll agree.

But the Universe is so unimaginably big -- and God created all of that -- that I find it hard to believe my tiny little brain can begin to fathom even the slightest inkling of what God might be, or what His purposes are, or that I might be able to get some idea of what my place in all this might be.

How can I possibly think that any substantial part of God's infinite comprehension concerning our tiny corner of a solar system off in one tiny part of just one of those hundreds of billions of galaxies ... how can I think that I can understand that?

So while I don't reject The Bible, I do scoff at the idea that out of those hundreds of billions of galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars, that there is only one planet with sentient life, or that humanity -- out of all that -- is God's highest creation.

The hubris of such an idea leaves me flabbergasted.

I have to believe there are an immense number -- albeit separated by so much space that they will never become aware of each other -- of sentient and technologically competent species in the Universe. And I believe they, too, will develop a concept of an Almighty Being similar to ours -- I think that is inevitable for any thinking creature.

And I have no problem thinking they will have their own versions of The Bible complete with God's inspired word. And, for those species such as ours that just could not "get the message" in any other way, God might also have sent an emissary, a Son, to guide them to the right track.

But when we nit-pick the meaning of the contents of our Bible or start to try and figure out What Would Jesus Do, why then we're just making stuff up out of thin air.

The Bible contains guidelines. Guidelines are the broad statements of what should usually be done, not hard and fast rules to control each step of the day.

Get your faces and minds out of the book. Life is out there, not in the book.

God gave us minds and the ability to figure out what engenders life, and what endangers it.

The Bible and Jesus are there to help, but they aren't the focus.

Life is.

Live, breathe, go, do, fly, prosper, explore, multiply, expand.

That is what God built into us, that is what our most basic and fundamental drives are all about.

He gave us those drives.

As the Nike ad says, "Just Do It!"

I Was Born ...

2008-12-21T06:10:00.000-08:00

I was born on my birthday six days after my father died. I would be 49.

And lest there be any doubt, I don't mean born again. I mean born for the first time ... on my 49th birthday.

That may seem rather old to be born but, well, that's how it happened to me.

You see, on that day I received my life. My father surrended it, gave it over to me. My life became mine to live on that day.

I'm being poetic, of course. What really happened was that, on that day, there was no longer any question in my mind of whose life I was living. I realized, for the first time, that it was undeniably mine.

In fact, it had been mine for quite some time and for the most part I had lived it, but up to that point I'd never really felt as if it were mine. It had always felt borrowed, like something on loan that I'd eventually have to give back, and that it would be carefully inspected, dents and rips noted and, ultimately, approved or disapproved.

On that day, it became mine because on that day I felt it was mine, all mine, that it belonged to no one but me.

I understood deep in my gut that whatever my life had been, is now or was to be, it was mine to do with as I chose. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, the three men in that rotten potato were mine to choose from. I could become a murderer, a drunkard, a sodomist. I could be a preacher of God's wrath, of God's love, a vehement atheist or anything in between, or in a totally different direction if I wished.

On that day, the rubber band that bound my life to his gave way.

It was no longer his to take back, nor his to judge.

Good-bye, Dad.

The road ahead is there, and I'm taking the steps to see where it leads.

And I have no idea what I will become.

It was a wonderful day.

Of course, there are limits.

I can't fly by flapping my arms, I can't run the four minute mile and I still can't play the piano very well.

But I could take flying lessons (glider or powered?), I could run marathons (while my knees hold up) and, if I wanted to invest the time, I could learn to play the piano much better (probably jazz).

Because I can choose how I live my own life from here on, every moment of every day is mine to choose. Should I take a shower today, exact murderous vengence on someone who's done me an injustice, share my time, my love, my self with my now adult children and young grandchildren? Or should I go and listen to an old friend, a rival for my wife's affections, in the midst of his series of strokes and declining health. Shall I dust, vacuum and mop the house today or go see friends and shoot a Bullseye pistol competition?

It's mine to choose every moment, every nuance.

And I can, and will, judge the values he and my mother and others gave me and decide which to keep and which to discard.

Work can be good but only insofar as what I am able to do for others through it. That can be money to buy food and shelter, braces for the grandchildren, safety and warmth for my wife, doctors when we're sick and maybe a sunny beach occasionally when we're not.

I don't think my father ever felt this. He never had this freedom passed to him, or he never received it, nor ever took it.

When my sister who is nearest to my age became pregnant in her 18th year, I remember Dad yelling at her, "You've made your bed, now sleep in it!"

That's how he lived his life, too.

He lived with his mistakes.

In that sense, he was a fatalist.

I reject that.

Yes, it's true that we can't change the past, but it's also true that we can do things to minimize, to moderate and sometimes to heal the past.

He was a surgeon. That's what he did. He fixed things.

Why didn't he understand that life is not about what happens to us, but rather about how we deal with those events, what we do about, and with, them?

Life is for the living, the moving, the pushing, the shaping, the trying, the giving.

It is always out there ahead.

I put my hands in the stream as it flows, and I change it.

Flow, and change.

Mine to choose.

Awesome!

(A cold beer sounds nice.)

Magic, Miracles or Myth?

2008-11-13T09:02:00.000-08:00

The second question I've been pursuing is did [Jesus] perform acts that we, today, would agree are miracles? To answer this, I've been hoping to rely on sources outside of the New Testament because I am uncertain of its historical accuracy. Because it was written by Christians and for Christians, and because it has been translated and its contents adjudicated multiple times, I just don't feel it to be an un-biased source.

And given my limited understanding and expertise, I've decided to rely on scholars and, through their publications, try to understand their sources and follow their arguments. In this regard, the book "Jesus Outside the New Testament" by Robert E. Van Voorst has been the primary work I've been using. I have other sources but none have been so closely focused on the issues that interest me.

Sadly, after as careful a consideration of this book concerning sources other than the New Testament, I must conclude that for my second question about Jesus's miracles, the New Testament is going to be the only source of information.

This is because all other sources treat Jesus as either a relatively unimportant criminal figure -- the Romans deemed Him a troublemaker within the Jewish community -- or a revolutionary -- Jewish sources refer to Him as a magician and a deceiver who diverted many away from the true faith.

Worse, all of these sources are well removed from Jesus's time and location. Pontius Pilate, for example, apparently reported nothing to his superiors on the man or His execution. The written sources outside of the New Testament all start to appear near the end of the first century (circa 100 C.E.), and scholars speculate that those may be based primarily on traditions they heard from the Christian communities of their era.

Did Jesus perform miracles as the New Testament says or was He simple a magician and deceiver as Jewish sources claim? The answer there remains to be seen; I am continuing my reading and study.

But it does seem clear, from all three sources, that Jesus did exist and that He founded what we refer to as Christianity. There is enough evidence to conclude that Jesus was no myth, that He was a real person, and that He churned things up considerably in His time and His part of the world, and that the beliefs He preached have passed through the millenia.

An interesting aside has come from understanding the tone of some of the Jewish sources and, therefrom, to understand perhaps some of the sources of fear and hatred the Islamists feel toward non-believers. Because the early Christians were a division within the Jewish community, the Koran may simply make no differentiation between them. And some of the Jewish "law" is unquestionably brutal in dictating death by stoning and such.

Ignorance is truly a dangerous condition.

Holy Roman Catholic!

2008-11-06T07:20:00.000-08:00

Bill O'Reilly, executive producer and anchor of The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News, is, to put it lightly, completely unafraid to say what he thinks and, if people don't like it, he'd almost certainly say "Tough."

In his book, A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity, he writes about his childhood and the experiences that shaped who he is today. And concerning his Roman Catholic background and continuing faith, he writes about "free will" on page 88.

"Christianity teaches that free will defines a human being, separates us from the animals. Human beings have the power to choose which actions to take. ... ... If there were no evil present in the world, then there could be no choice. ... ... And in Catholicism and other Christian religions, the actions of Jesus demonstrate how to [choose good over evil]."

Right on. Thanks, Bill!

One Down, Two To Go

2008-10-21T07:52:00.000-07:00

Not surprisingly, there are no sources about Jesus written during His lifetime. Indeed, the earliest gospel is thought to date from about 70 C.E., thirty odd years after the crucifiction. And Thallos, the earliest non-Biblical source, wrote only of one aspect of Christianity, the darkening of the skies at Christ's crucifiction, and that only that same number of years later at a minimum, and what we know of Thallos's writings is itself only second hand.

But there enough sources and with a wide enough basis both inside and outside of the Bible to give strong support to believing that Jesus really did walk the Earth and become the basis of what we refer to today as Christianity.

Even so, that belief, that Jesus existed, is not universal. The written evidence is, as noted, all coming from several decades after the crucifiction. Although there may have been written records present to keep the beliefs true during that time, it is more likely that oral history was the common mechanism for passing down the stories and beliefs across those decades. Whether or not they were elaborated upon during that time cannot be said with certainty, but it is a strong possibility.

Indeed, Robert E. Van Voorst writes, "the Christian doctrine of the virgin birth ... does not become a leading Christian theme until near the end of the first century." (p.67, Jesus Outside the New Testament.) Van Voorst's observation says that beliefs about Jesus and His life took on different weights over the years. Was the idea of a virgin birth present from the beginning or was it a fabrication that, over the years, became accepted as gospel? Unfortunately, there simply is no way to know.

To a certain degree, then, belief that Jesus existed is, itself, somewhat a matter of faith. There is some evidence but not much, indirect in nature, and written well after His supposed lifetime.

Regardless, I have an acceptable answer to the first of my three questions.

Did Jesus exist?

I will say, Yes, there is sufficient evidence that, with a little faith, I will assume it is so.

And with that question laid to rest as best as it can be, I will now turn my attention to the second question: Did He perform what we would term "miracles" that would only possible for someone with divine powers?

My quest continues.

By Faith Alone

2008-10-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

In a list of attributes of second-century Christianity, Robert E. Van Voorst writes (Jesus Outside the New Testament, page 21),

"Christians accept their key teachings by faith, not by philosophic reasoning."

And, alas, the latter is exactly what I'm trying to do, to reason Jesus as deserving of the claims Christians make.

But as Mr. Van Voorst points out, Christians are Christians because of their faith, because of their belief, not because of their reasoned conclusion.

Something like, "Cogito ergo sum" -- I think therefore I am, won't work for Christianity. Either you believe or you don't.

So where does that put those of us who believe but don't believe? Just how much of the Christian doctrine must we accept?

So here I am again, banging my head against this theological wall.

I can only accept so much of what the Bible-thumping evangelicals espouse. Yes, I agree the Bible is God-inspired. But I also believe it was written by men, men with cultural prejudices, men with agendas, men with messages for specific circumstances that have otherwise been lost to the ages. And the messages in the Bible have become obscured.

For my three-part quest, I must (again) acknowledge that, ultimately, this will become a quest of faith. Either I will find that I do believe most of the claims for Jesus, or I will find that I don't.

But there is an abiding faith, nonetheless, that remains. And that is the faith I've written about earlier in this blog.

It is the simple, unavoidable "faith" that, because the universe does not seem to be infinite, there must be more. And I choose to call whatever that "more" is, God.

And I sometimes feel God moving in my life. It is undeniable. I have that "faith" because it is alive within me.

If God's name is Jesus, I can only hope He will accept my poor attempts at rationalization as human foolishness.

And I pray He will continue to move in my life, to guide me, to push me, to correct me, to abide within and be part of me.

Three Part Quest

2008-10-10T10:14:00.001-07:00

I'm on a three part quest to answer the following questions.

Was the individual we refer to as Jesus Christ a real person?
And did He perform acts we, today, would agree are miracles?
Was He human-but-not-human? By that I mean was he born of a virgin birth (conceived by the Holy Ghost), did He "ascend" after His death leaving behind no Earthly body, and does He now sit (figuratively) in Heaven with a special role?

These are, it seems to me, the core-essential questions to be answered by anyone seeking a reasoned rather than a purely emotional acceptance of the Christian faith.

And while it is true that the New Testament gives an affirmative answer to all three, I don't trust that source because of the unprovable claims that it is, depending on who is speaking, either the Word of God, or was inspired by God. In any event, the history of the selection of the books of the New Testament, the never-ending discussions of what this or that actually means, and the fact that those books were a) written for cultures with very different values which may not fully relate to our values today, and b) have been translated and re-translated into similar but still different versions (King James, New King James, Standard Edition, Revised Standard Edition, New International Version and so forth), all of this leaves me distrusting of the New Testament as my sole source.

So, I'm on a quest to answer these three fundamental questions through sources outside of the Bible, or to find external sources that confirm enough of the Biblical account that raise my trust of the New Testament sufficient to use it as a basis for my beliefs.

My bookshelf contains several reference works on the Bible but for these purposes, they are all useless. I need "other" references, historical references that are not based on the Bible. Although I am interested in events that are claimed to have taken place about two millenia ago and it is certainly fair to ask if any such sources exist, it turns out there are a few. Not many but, "a few."

But my scholarship as well as my resources are very limited. I will have to rely on others who have studied these extra-Biblical sources.

To begin, I'm starting with "Jesus Outside the New Testament" by Robert E. Van Voorst. For my purposes, it seems like a good selection. It is readable, well annotated, and strives for as much accuracy in assigning dates as seems possible.

Although I have quite a bit of reading, study and contemplation ahead of me with this one book, I can say that I am pretty much convinced that the answer to my first question is "Yes, the person we refer to as Jesus Christ was a real person." There seem to be a great many references to Him in non-Biblical records to consider Him not a fabrication of the early church, and not a conglommeration of several individuals living at about the same time.

Instead, and so far in my reading of this first book, I am leaning toward a "Yes" answer for the first question, did He exist.

Looking back at questions two and three, however, I now see they may be substantially more difficult to answer through reason and from historical records. Indeed, although the question of whether or not He performed miracles is going to be difficult to prove outside of the Bible, the answer to the third question, is He for lack of a better term, extra-human, is going to be purely one of faith.

But answering the first question is a necessary prerequisite to answering the second. And, in time, maybe that answer will lead to the faith required to accept an affirmative answer to the third.

We'll see.

But lest you think I've lost my faith, let me quickly add that something, I'll call it "The Lord", acts in my life every day. I see it daily.

He is with me.

Thank you, Lord, for your incredible patience as I use the reasoning mind you gave me to answer these questions of faith.

In His Image

2008-08-18T13:09:00.001-07:00

Okay, you all probably know this one [Genesis 1:1]:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And you'll probably recognize this also [Genesis 1:14-16]:

And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.

To me, this says a lot of things but, in particular, it says that before God created everything, there was nothing. No Earth, no stars, and with no matter there was no up, no down, and with no reference points and nothing in whatever the "it" was before all that was created, there was no left or right either.

It could even be argued that, before God created it, there was no space.

No space, no time, no dimension, no nothing.

So here's my problem.

If I skip forward just a few verses to Genesis 1:27, I then read,

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

So, what did God look like? Did he have two hands? Two eyes? Hair? A nose and two ears?

What for?

What did God have those things for?

There was nothing to manipulate with those two hands.

There was no light by which His eyes could have seen anything, much less there was nothing -- no "thing" at all -- to see.

And certainly there were no smells and no sounds. What would have made them?

Before there was form, before He created the Heavens and the Earth, God had no need of a physical nature.

So when it says that God created man in his own image, what does it mean?

Clearly, this line in the Bible cannot be taken in a literal sense. God had no "image", no appearance, no physical manifestation. Before the beginning of the beginning, he hadn't yet created any of that.

My first point is that, when we draw pictures of God and give Him hands and feet, a face with a nose and gently loving eyes, that's all a fabrication of our imagination. God doesn't look like that because God isn't look-able. He was there before anything we know ever existed. He doesn't have a look.

Secondly, I am forced to conclude that this part of the Bible has to be taken figuratively, not literally.

And if one part has to be taken figuratively, then why not another?

If one part of the Bible is figurative, then why not the next, and the next and the next?

To put it bluntly, then, so what good is it?

What good is the Bible if nothing can be trusted to be literally factual? What good is it if nothing it says can be trusted as the truth?

The truth.

The truth is what we're after.

And there are truths that transcend words.

Sometimes you know them through a person's look.

Sometimes you discover them through a person's acts.

There is truth, and sometimes it can be expressed in words, but writing those words down is not what makes them "the truth".

The truths I speak of are truths you know -- Robert Heinlein invented the word "Grok" for this.

You "Grok" the truth.

And the Bible contains many truths.

The Bible is a guide to discovering them.

In Eastern teachings, the Buddha taught that the finger pointing at the moon was not the moon. If you concentrate on the finger, you will miss the moon.

The Bible is the pointing finger.

It's purpose can only be fulfilled if, in reading and study, it becomes transparent, invisible, and you can then "see" what lies beyond.

When the Bible says that God created Man in His image, this ability to transcend what lies around us is what it means.

God transcends everything -- every thing -- and that potential is in us all.

Transcend the turmoil that surrounds you.

God gave you the ability to do that.

Let it go. Transcend your troubles.

God-Stuff

2008-07-02T08:28:00.000-07:00

Carl Sagan, in his Cosmos television series about the universe said, "We are star-stuff." He meant that the atoms that make up our bodies were generated in the nuclear furnaces of stars and that, over billions of years, those stars exploded, cast their products out, and those parts were captured into new stellar systems. In our case, those atoms coalesced into our Sun and planets and, on at least one of those, life arose and through a long series of evolutionary steps, you came into existence.

That's quite a story!

And if your belief in God is like mine, you believe that this was all part of His plan, that He made the universe and the physical laws that determine how matter, energy and time interact with just this eventuality in mind.

That's His plan.

Wow!

When I contemplate just how awesome He must be to conceive of such an intricate creation, I feel infinitesimal. I am such an incredibly tiny fraction of things -- in the "I am this much of the universe" number, how many zeroes are there between the decimal point and my first significant digit do you think -- and the details of my life are such minutae compared to the interactions of all the atoms in all the space and time of the universe, that I wonder how God is even aware of my existence, much less the details of my life, my day-to-day struggles, or the specifics of what I pray for.

But, in spite of my almost unimaginable insignificance in all this, He does.

He knows, He cares, He listens, He takes the time to consider and plan, and He answers our prayers.

Wow!

That got me to wondering: How might this work?

I don't mean the mechanics of prayer and how God interacts with the universe. I know that's beyond my ability to comprehend. One atom can't understand the workings of the universe.

But perhaps a collection of atoms can develop an understanding of some of it, of one small area of the universe.

What I'm wondering has to do with God and the size of the universe and, assuming we aren't the only living creatures in all this vast expanse, how is it that He hear everyone regardless of how far apart we all are in the universe? How does He keep track of all the issues to say nothing of their interactions, sort it all out and decide what to do? How does He figure out which prayers to answer, which need to be deferred, and which get a simple, "No."

Well, I've had an idea in my head for a while. Perhaps it's similar to one you've had, or maybe it's totally "off the wall." You can decide what you think but I like it because it puts an amazing number of pieces together. Ideas that seem disjoint all suddenly come together.

Here's the core of it: We are God-Stuff.

You and me, the Earth on which we walk, the planets, the suns, the constellations and galaxies, the whole universe for all its dimensions of space and time, even the big bang itself are all parts of God.

Let me ask you something.

Do you listen to your body? Do you know when something is wrong with it? Do you take care of a cut finger, a hurt toe, feed a hungry stomach and scratch the itch?

Of course you do, and so does God.

Do you exercise to strengthen your body, to improve your health?

Does God?

Does God do deep knee bends, jumping jacks, push-ups and lift weights?

Does He work to strengthen His body?

You can bet your life He does!

And do you sometimes do less exercise because something hurts?

Are you an advocate of "No pain, no gain?"

Just how much pain will you tolerate before you stop?

And what about God?

And after you rest and your sore muscles heal, do you try again?

I itch, he scratches.

I hurt, sometimes He stops, sometimes He goes on for a while.

... because sometimes we choose to go hungry for a while, to say "No" to that urge to eat.

... because sometimes God says "No" to our requests; He has a higher goal in mind and knows that, "No pain, no gain."

Here's a phrase from the Bible: "Children of God."

"Child" has several meanings, of course, and in this one we're not saying God is our biological male or female parent. Instead, we're saying we are related to, we are connected to, Him. The parent-child relationship is present, is what we mean.

Well, I take care of my physical self just as I assume you do.

We are God-stuff. We are as much a part of Him, if not more so, than your hand, your leg, your stomach, your heart or even your brain that reads and considers these words.

Here's a statement: "God is infinite."

Scientists may argue about whether or not the universe is infinite. Indeed, it seems to be pretty much agreed that the universe we know all started with a bang, a Big Bang. All matter, all dimension, all time started then. And scientist's theorize that if there's enough dark matter out there to make the expansion stop and a collapse to begin, eventually there will be an end as well. There will ultimately be a anti-Bang.

If that's true, then the universe as we know it is finite. It has a beginning and an end.

But what caused the Big Bang in the first place? What was before? We can't know. There's no way we can find out. But that doesn't mean there was nothing. It just means the universe as we know it started with the Big Bang and what came before wasn't our universe and there's no way for us to know.

And what will happen as a result of the anti-Bang? Again, we can't know and, whatever it might be, it won't be our universe.

Do this: breathe in -- that's the expansion.

Now breathe out -- that's the collapse.

The universe, like the filling of your lungs, expands and grows, and then you exhale and it goes back down.

Of course your lungs don't suddenly appear and disappear in the process, and neither does God. Instead, your body, your lungs contain the space, they house the atoms and molecules and, in time, they don't.

In, out, Expand, contract.

I know that analogy is a bit weak compared to the Big Bang but hopefully you get the idea. It's cyclic. It happens again and again. Each mix of molecules inside the lungs is unique, but it is also similar to the mix that was there the last time. Each breath has a beginning and an end, each breath is finite, but God keeps on breathing. He is infinite.

We are God-stuff. The universe is made up of God-stuff.

Every atom, every nano-meter of space, every femto-second of time, is God-Stuff. You, me, the driver of the car that just went past my window, the passengers on the bus headed west on Thunderbird Rd in north Phoenix Arizona in the United States of America in North America on Earth in this solar system, this galaxy, this round of Bang and anti-Bang, all that is God.

God hears my prayers because I am part of God. I am one with Him.

Of course, I am an indescribably small part of Him, that is true. But from the smallest atoms of the universe, from the smallest possible measurement of a tiny unit of space, from the most infinitessimal instant of time to the awesome span of all atoms, all space and all time, we're all part of God.

And if we'll all parts of God then it should come as no surprise that each of us can conceive of God, at least to the extent of our local neighborhood and how it seems to work.

Can my finger understand me? No, of course not. But if my finger had a brain, it could recognize that if it sends a "that's hot" signal, my body will snatch it back from the stove. And in like manner, I cannot understand all of God but because I do have a brain -- my wife would say half-a-brain -- I do have some understanding of how He is manifest in the reality in which I find myself.

God hears my prayers, I'm sure. He's answered many of them.

And He has done awesome things in my life for which I never asked, of which I may not even be aware, and which are sometimes for my own good even though they hurt like hell.

When you pray for a miracle, God may cause it to happen.

But you can also do things to cause that same miracle to happen because, after all, you are God. Your hands are God's. You can make things happen.

He's big, He's complicated beyond our ability to understand, but He's also right here. I can pat Him on the arm. I can shout to Him because He's all around me. And in ways I cannot hope to understand, He can change the world around me.

And sometimes He does that simply because I ask.

I itch, He scratches.

And sometimes He does that because I try, I push, I pull, I fiddle with it, I work at it.

I itch, and if I scratch that itch, isn't that really just some of that God-stuff scratching back?

What will you do with your God-stuff today?

Would you like His help in figuring that out?

All you have to do is ask.

He's right here!

There Is No Satan

2008-06-10T12:14:00.000-07:00

Where does evil come from?

"The devil made me do it," is sometimes heard. The comedian Flip Wilson made it one of his catch-phrases.

But I disagree. There is no devil, there is no Satan.

Instead, I'm convinced that evil is a necessary condition for Free Will; that is, without evil, Free Will has nothing on which to operate, no alternatives from which to choose. In order for Free Will to be of any use, "good" and "evil" had to be created.

Let's make "Free Will", which is the central premise in this, completely clear. "Free Will" means you have the power, the wherewithall, the free and unencumbered ability to make a choice.

If you are walking down the road and come to a fork, you can choose to go right or left. In making the choice, you exercise Free Will.

But if you are walking down the road and the road just keeps going on and on and whether or not it follows the straight and narrow or meanders first through dark adn scarey places and then returns you to sunlit, flowered hilltops, if there is only one path to follow you aren't making any choices. If there is only one path to follow, then in "walking down that road" you have no opportunities to use your Free Will. And if all the roads placed before you are constructed in that choiceless manner, your Free Will is of no use.

To use this gift of Free Will, you have to be able to choose. The road has to split and, facing it, you have to be in a quandry. What should I do? Which way should I go? You have to be able to choose either the left fork or the right fork, or to jump the fence and cut across Farmer Brown's field.

Then your Free Will can be expressed, then God's gift of Free Will can be used.

When God gave us the gift of Free Will, he had to also grant us the possibility of choosing good or evil. Both possibilities, "good" and "evil", must both be in front of us. We must have the choice.

God had to create both "good" and "evil". They are a necessary precondition to the exercise of Free Will.

And "Satan", therefore, is nothing more than a personification, of taking a quality and giving it human characteristics, an identity so that we can talk about it.

The "devil" doesn't make us do things. Be honest: we choose to do things. And sometimes we choose to do horrible things, some worse than others. For those who do horrible things that we deem as "criminals", we lock them up, ostensibly for rehabilitation but, in reality, so they can't harm anyone else.

We choose to do evil. It is our choice.

There is no devil sitting on my shoulder. Instead, he's very much a part of me. He has to be because he's an essential component of my Free Will.

Similarly, that angel on my other shoulder? He's not there either. He is also inside me, a necessary element of my makeup.

God had to give me both that devil and that angel so I could use His gift of Free Will.

Now, here's the biggee. Are you holding on?

For the same reason that there can be no all-bad Satan, by the same token there can be no all-good God. (I didn't say "there's no God". I said "there's no all-good God.")

Ask yourself, how could an all-good God create evil? It's a contradiction in terms. It just can't be.

God gave us both "good" and "evil". He had to be the one that did it. After all, that's what we mean when we say "God" in the western, one-god view of theism. He is the omnipotent being and everything, every quality, every "every" is His creation.

So, God must know both "good" and "evil" as well as left and right, up and down, existence and nonexistence, yesterday, today and tomorrow.

God is "all" and He must know "all". That is His omnipotence.

So God created us in a way that let's us conceive of an all-good God as well as an all-bad Satan. Those perceptions of ours, of good and evil, are the essentials that make "choice" possible as we move through our lives.

Although we sometimes think of God and Satan as opposites, they really are just the two sides of the "choice" coin. They are simply two views of what we perceive as the ultimate core for making choices, for exercising our Free Will. We have to see the choice, and the choice has to be truly there, in order for us to really have Free Will. Without a choice, if it's all fake and there are no forks in the road, then there is no choosing, no Free Will.

But, by the realization that occurs with "I think, therefore, I am," so to can we say, "I think, therefore, I choose."

In any given situation, we can see the good possibilities. We can see the evil possibilities. We can scratch our heads, ponder the pros and the cons, the benefits and the detriments. And then we can choose.

The real God made us that way, the ultimate God, the God that encompasses all possibilities.

This all encompassing, all knowing, omnipotent God gave us Free Will and the forum in which to exercise it. He makes the good and also the evil possible so that we can choose.

And in so doing, He surrendered His power for all knowing. He can no longer predict what we will do.

He gave up part of His omnipotence. He agreed to take His hands off and allow us to run the show. (But that doesn't mean He won't intervene if we ask Him!)

He chose to not only pass along His ability to choose, but also to sit back, withhold His future actions, and leave things up to us.

We get to choose.

Does this frighten you?

I think it should!

What an awesome gift gift but what a terrifying consequence!

The world and its future is ours to choose.

Yes, there are laws of physics that apply and our powers of choice must operate within the confines of the reality in which we exist, but we know how to split the very elements of existence, we know how to poison ourselves, we know how to go to other planets.

God set up those laws, and gave us the ability to master, to use, to exploit them.

He had to give us those abilities, and the possibility of learning them, of accumulating knowledge for millenia to master the intricacies of the physical world so that we could make the choices that determine, for good or evil, the future.

God granted us one of His most awesome abilities, the ability to choose.

You get to choose. I get to choose. Sometimes those choices conflict and we, you and me, get to choose how we will resolve our differences, sometimes by word, sometimes by one of us acquiescing to the wishes (choices!) of the other, and sometimes by violence. (I'm not being a proponent of violence in putting your choices into action. I'm simply stating that some do choose that method, not whether it is good or bad. That choice is simply the reality that some choose.)

So, the choice is yours, and the choice is mine.

I choose. You choose. And collectively we enjoy the benefits or suffer the consequences of our choices.

"The devil made me do it," is a nothing more than silly denial of responsibility.

You get to choose. Right and wrong are both there before you. The all-encompassing God gave you the ability to choose. He has assembled this reality so that, before you are possibilities, both the evil and the good, and then He lets you choose.

This ability to choose is a gift of this penultimate God.

That ability to choose, that's God's most awesome gift.

The Bible says He made us in His image. This doesn't mean He has two arms, two legs, a mouth, nose, eyes and ears because all of those are needed only in the physical realm in which we exist. God doesn't needs hands to fabricate the universe. He simply wills it into Being. (He's omnipotent, remember?)

The "image" of Him in which we are created is in the powers He gave us.

The power of observing, evaluating, weighing, choosing and then operating on this reality, those powers are our God-gifts.

He granted us some of His God-power and, by then leaning back and letting us go, He also granted us Free Will to determine our own lives and our own futures.

And one of the choices He granted us is to believe, or not believe, in Him.

That, too, is a choice He gave us the ability to exercise.

So I choose to believe in God, in both His omnipotence, and in His choice to give us the gift of Free Will and to withhold His guiding of every little thing that happens. I believe He turned much of that over to us.

And I do believe that, if asked, and if in His judgement He decides to intervene, He can do anything we might ask.

And, of course, He might also choose to answer our requests with a simple, benevolent, loving as a father to a child, "No."

Lord, help me to see both the good and the evil before me; I know that sometimes one hides inside the other and what sometimes appears to be good can turn out to be evil. I wish to find the good, to do the good, to further the goodness. Help me to find it in the possibilities you lay before me. And give me the strength to realize it. And, Lord, in those times and places when the evil is thrust upon me, help me find the good that lies within them, and to accept all of this, the good and the evil, as necessary to Your Gift.

Thank you for the gift of Free Will. And help me -- sometimes it terrifies me, Lord.

Amen.

Okay, I'm Convinced

2008-03-31T11:28:00.000-07:00

I've searched the New Testament. I've studied commentaries, read blogs and corresponded with some of the authors. And I've googled the web, searched out those who disagree, read and cross-checked their statements.

And I've come to one undeniable conclusion: Jesus would never sanction, advocate or even "turn a blind eye to" the use of life-threatening force.

He was against it. Period.

For those who might think otherwise, and for those who are uncertain, here are the statements I found most compelling. You may check them as you wish. (http://www.biblegateway.com/ is easy to use.)

First, I included only the New Testament in my biblical searches because I wanted to know Jesus's view. (Greg Boyd's blog has several thought-provoking entries on the Old versus the New Testament God, but my interests were about Jesus and what He espoused.) I searched the New Testament for the words "defend", "defense", "knife", "knives", "protect", "resist", "sword", "violence", "violent" and "weapon" and studied the results. I read of Jesus over-turning the tables in the temple. I studied how different books handled the same incidents and how different translations presented those same issues.

And I've even been studying how the Bible came to be, which books were written when, by whom, which are more about Jesus and which are more about His church.

And it is clear that finding Jesus in all this can be difficult.

And by no means am I any sort of Biblical scholar. On the contrary, I am just a questioning individual using the gifts at my disposal, and hoping, praying, that I've found the truth of the matter.

For the question at hand, and perhaps this is why I've become so focused on this one issue, the answer is there. It is clear, unambiguous and with no contradictory examples. Jesus was the consummate pacifist.

To show you why I'm now convinced of this, I'll take the single most troubling incident first. It is quoted, in part, by others who use it as defense of their use of violence. Sadly, they quote only a small section and, in taking it out of context, they lose the meaning. Here are the critical verses. (If you are in doubt of my excluding of other verses, please conduct your own researches.)

Here is Luke 22, verses 36-38 and 49-51 from the New International Version.

³⁶He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. ³⁷It is written: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors'; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment."

³⁸The disciples said, "See, Lord, here are two swords."
"That is enough," he replied.
...

⁴⁹When Jesus' followers saw what was going to happen, they said, "Lord, should we strike with our swords?" ⁵⁰And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.

⁵¹But Jesus answered, "No more of this!" And he touched the man's ear and healed him.

In an earlier blog, I wrote why I thought Jesus told His followers to arm themselves: It was because Jesus wished them to appear as outlaws to facilitate His arrest. Jesus was working to fulfill the prophecy (about being amongst the transgressors). He intended to get himself arrested, tried, convicted and executed and, thereby, fulfill the overall prophecy. Swords were essential to the look he needed to project.

And while it is true that Jesus did say "... and if you don't have a sword, ..." implying that some of His followers may already have been armed, that does not mean Jesus encouraged the practice. On the contrary, the only statements and actions we have from Jesus are those which immediately follow when he halts the violence with, "No more of this!" and then immediately heals the victim.

These verses are sometimes quoted out of context to suggest Jesus was telling his disciples to prepare to defend themselves by force. They have also been taken to mean that Jesus condoned the use of swords because some of the disciples may have already owned them.

Well, I have to now say that those conclusions just don't seem warranted. Jesus' words and actions are, without fail, to the contrary. Nowhere do we find Him condoning any such practices or actions.

Indeed, the clearest statement we have in these regards comes earlier in the same book in Luke, chapter 6, verses 27 through 38.

²⁷"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. ³⁰Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. ³¹Do to others as you would have them do to you.

³²"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. ³³And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. ³⁴And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full. ³⁵But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ³⁶Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

³⁷"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. ³⁸Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

Jesus holds us to a very high standard.

The question then remains, how will I measure up?

And that, dear reader, is something none of us can answer until the time comes.

And when it does, dear Jesus, I pray you will be there at my side.

Amen.

Reconciling Old versus New Testament God

2008-03-19T14:15:00.000-07:00

Greg Boyd is an advocate of Open Theism as am I, but He is also a strong believer in the authority of the Bible. I am more skeptical of its authority but convinced, nonetheless, it has extraordinary value. I'm just not sure which parts of it I should apply in which situation in my life.

So when Greg's blog, "What's at Stake in Trying to Explain the Violent God of the Old Testament?" appeared, I read with great interest what he had to say. And although I agree with his general conclusion over what we, as individuals, may have to risk in attempting to reconcile the Old with the New Testament God, I also think Greg missed the boat because Free Will provides the key that unlocks this apparently contradictory behavior by God.

So I emailed Greg.

Subject: Old vs New Testament God, and Free Will
Date: Wednesday 19 March 2008 13:36
From: Ed Skinner <ed@flat5.net>
To: "Greg Boyd" <gboyd@whchurch.org>

In the discussion of Old versus New Testament God, you've neglected the role of Free Will which, I believe, plays an absolutely essential role.

In the old testament, as you have noted, we see a violent God but in teh New Testament, Jesus brought us a kind, loving God.

What happened to the old curmudgeon, the grumpy-gus? Where did the old mean God go and where did the new loving God come from? Are they one and the same?

And so to the question of did God change, I have to say, "Yes." It is a necessary consequence of man's Free Will and of God's responses to our actions.

God gave man Free Will. In granting that gift, God had to give up His ability to predict what man would do. He had to because if He didn't, we wouldn't have true Free Will.

God truly doesn't know what we will do at any given moment.

While I think most would agree there is a long term plan for the universe -- scientists call the process entropy and it ends with everything cold and dark, no life -- and in the shorter term there are certain eventualities called "day" and "night", seasonal changes and so forth, man's Free Will does, nonetheless, have its limits. We aren't Gods, but we do have one God-like ability: Free Will. We don't know what we will do in the future, and neither does God.

Free Will grants us certain abilities that God cannot predict. I won't argue the details as I think you'd agree we are free to make choices.

So, here's this creature, made by God but, like many parents know of their children, they have minds of their own which the parent cannot always predict. So when the child does something the parent doesn't like, the parent tries something to change the child's behavior. Perhaps sitting down with the child and appealing to their logic will work. Or sometimes the parent has to tell the child the rules and, when the child asks "Why", the parent must respond, because of the child's limited ability to understand the adult world, "because that's the way it is." And sometimes, parents resort to stronger methods and, whether or not we agree with that extent of response, the point is that the parent *responds* to the child's behavior and uses different approaches to see what works. Sometimes an appeal to logic is sufficient. And sometimes the child is sent to the corner for "time out." And sometimes the parent simply reaches in, grabs the child's hands and removes the loaded gun from the child's grip because to do anything less would be disastrous.

I believe the Old and the New Testaments simply show us that God gave man Free Will, that it is an awesomely powerful gift, so awesome and so God-givenly powerful, that God Himself doesn't know what we will do, nor how we will respond to what He does.

And so when we do things contrary to His wishes, God tries things to try and guide our behavior. He reasons with us, He scolds us, He spanks us, He banishes us to wander in the desert for forty years.

In the New Testament, we see a watershed event, a realization by God (yes, that means He is fallable -- because He gave us this awesome power called Free Will truly means He cannot outguess us) that maybe (!) sending his Son (Himself in human form?), and sacrificing Him, and through Him the message of His abiding love, that maybe through that, we might finally *get* the message.

And that message is, of course, that no matter what we do, He still loves us, and is ready to receive us into His loving arms.

This gift of Free Will makes us, to a very real degree, God-like, not in the ability to work seeming miracles (but some did), but rather in our God-given ability to do as we please. It is another facet to the phrase "made in His image."

The parent accepts and marvels at the extraordinary creativity and exuberance of the child. What the parents sees, He had not imagined the child could, or would, do.

He loves us, wants us to be happy, will grant [some of] our requests for help, and He is fascinated by us because we truly are His children and because He gave us true Free Will.

Fascinating!

Yes, But In That Moment ...

2008-02-11T12:17:00.000-08:00

In the New International Version of the Bible, Luke 6:27-30 says:

²⁷"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. ³⁰Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.

I've read all of the translations available at the above website and there can be no doubt of Jesus' intended meaning: If you are struck in the face, present your cheek to receive yet another strike, and if someone steals your coat, give him the shirt off your back, and never ask for either to be returned.

Yes, that's about as clear and unequivocal a statement as I've ever found.

To follow His way is to be a pacifist.

No question.

But let me now tell you what has again raised the conflict in my mind.

On a recent business trip, I received a grandfather's testimony. The story centered on his grandson and it involved abuse, abuse so severe it may only be through the miracle of an answered prayer that the boy still lives.

Here is an extract of two paragraphs that begin to tell the story (for a complete copy of this particular article, click here):

"The compelling first flight of Air Compassion for Veterans illustrates the program's impact in life and death situations. A 2 1/2 year-old boy named Alex Searles was beaten and abused while his father, Jason, a Marine sergeant, was in Iraq. The child's mother had met a man on the Internet and developed a relationship with him, then went to Texas, taking Alex and his eight-month-old sister Ashleigh with them.

"When the boy had difficulty breathing and wouldn't stop crying, the couple took him to the hospital and were then arrested and jailed for injury to a child. Alex's grandparents, Bill and Sherry Searles, flew to Lubbock, Texas, from their home in Melbourne, Florida, to get temporary custody and make travel arrangements for Alex. Bill learned about the ACV program through a friend and was able to schedule a medical flight on a Learjet to Florida".

But a much more in-depth description of the abuse and its subsequent developments are available, after registration and sign-in, through the grandfather's blog-like diary at http://www.carepages.com/ServeCarePage?cpn=AlexSearles&extrefid=tlcinvite but be forewarned, what happened to this defenseless child is criminal and the story is graphic. There is a photo gallery as well as many diary entries to read.

As I sat and listened to Bill, I tried to imagine myself in his shoes and how I would feel, and more to the point here, I asked myself, what would I have done, what would I do in a similar situation?

And when Bill paused for a moment to get his emotions in check, I confessed, "If I had been in your position, Bill, I tell you truly I would now be in prison for killing the person who committed these horrible acts."

So, here is the conflict: What would Jesus have us do when faced with such evil?

To resist evil through the use of force is clearly contrary to the above passage from Luke. I'm sure Jesus would pray for both the little boy and also for his abuser.

But if the abuser appears in my presence and begins to harm the boy, what then? Do I stand between the abuser and shield the child? If the abuser pushes me out of the way, do I again put myself in harm's way? And if the abuser raises a weapon to put me out of the way permanently, do I, at that point, take this passage to heart and turn the other cheek and, in so doing, allow evil to have its way? Do I, through inaction, allow evil to have its way?

Or, do I resist? Do I resist evil, especially when I might be able to stop it? And if I resist, how strongly do I resist?

Just how universally do I apply this passage from Luke?

Pacifism in the face of violence to oneself is one thing. But what about when the threat is to others?

Let me ask you a question. If you had been on-board the second plane that struck the World Trade Center, if you knew what was probably going to happen in the next few minutes, what would Jesus wish you to do? Would you charge the terrorists knowing they have weapons and that you will probably be killed for naught just because there is some small chance you might be able to stop the murder of thousands of innocents even though your life is probably sacrificed no matter what?

We could pray that the Lord would give us answers to such questions but, for myself at least, I would rather pray that I am never faced with situations such as these.

Lord, keep me from such terrible tests.

And regardless of that, I also know that no words will suffice to rule if and when such a situation comes up in my life. No amount of preparation, of study, of contemplation will prepare me.

When faced with evil, what will I do?

When faced with such evil, I cannot tell you now what I will do then.

It is impossible.

Instead, I pray that should such a situation arise in my life, that Jesus will be there, that He will stand beside me, take me by the hand, and show me the Way.

God, help me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Because I am sure that, before that moment, there is nothing to say or do that will guarantee my actions.

All I can do now is pray that He will be with me then, and that He will give me His guidance.

Free Will is a terrible responsibility.

Lord, help me use it as You would hope.

In your hands, Lord. I'm in your hands now, and also then, and then forever.

Amen.

Fate of the Universe versus Our Fate

2007-12-15T10:40:00.000-08:00

Scientists are undecided.

Some say the universe is open-ended, that it will expand forever, and that entropy will ultimately win. Others say it is cyclic, that it started, and will end, with a bang.

Definitions vary a little but, basically, entropy means that the universe will eventually run down, like a toy car exhausting its battery. The far distant future of the universe will be like that, the first group says, dark, still and unmoving. All the stars will have burnt out, all the energy will have dissipated and the temperature of everything will be at absolute zero.

For those that say the universe is cyclic, they say that the universe is expanding right now but, due to the continuing effects of gravity, that expansion is slowing. Eventually, this theory says, the combined effect of the matter we can see and the supposed "dark matter" that we cannot will cause that expansion to reverse and that the stars will then begin moving back toward each other. Ultimately, billions of years from now, the universe will collapse into itself and ... well, no one knows what happens after that. Maybe everything just disappears, or maybe it just pops back out again in another Big Bang and the whole thing starts over again.

I must confess, I find the first theory incredibly depressing; everything runs down, everything dies, no life, dark, dead.

My theological feelings have always inclined me to the second theory, the cyclic universe. And in that I also find a kindred thought for those who believe in reincarnation. Both theories, the reincarnation of life and the cyclic nature of the universe, share the same life, death and rebirth theme. It seems that on both a personal level and also in the cosmos, if we don't get it right, we come back and do it again, and again, until we get it right.

But this too nags at me. That is, if the universe truly is infinite and the cycles of Big Bang, expansion, contraction and Big Bang really do go on forever, then it's possible we never will "get it". It's possible that after uncountable eons and cycles of the universe itself, we won't have learned what we are here to learn.

And that depresses me.

No, depress is too mild. ... It causes me extreme despair.

If the universe is to exist, cycle after cycle, while we keep trying but failing to get it right, and the whole thing is just to go on forever, well, I have the same problem with that as I do with the theory of the universe that says everything is just going to run out of gas and freeze. It really bothers me.

The only way out of this dilemna, it seems to me, is to simply remove sentient life from the universe. Once we're out of the picture, the universe has served its purpose. It is no longer needed and whether it turns black and cold or cycles on and on, it won't matter because, well, because it's not needed anymore. The universe might as well just go away -- God can, well, turn off the lights. The universe can simply blink out of existence. We're done with it. It was the "ground" on which we learned the lessons we needed to learn but, yeah, thanks, you can turn it off now.

The fate of the universe is, in this sense, a non-issue. It really doesn't matter. What matters is whether or not we, each of us, each of the souls that have lived, are living now, and will live in the future, whether they are the same souls repeating over and over or whether we just get one crack at this, what matters is, Will we get it?

So, to move from questioning the fate of the universe, to the fate of humanity, and thence to the fate of this one soul with a keyboard beneath his fingers, I have to tell you I don't know what "it" is.

But I do know that whatever "it" is, I'm absolutely convinced it has to do with you, and with me, with the driver of the car that just went past my window, with the passengers onboard the airliner that just flew overhead, with a child in China, a kid in Argentina, a teen in Iceland, an angry young man with an assault rifle, two lovers locked in each other's embrace and oblivious to the world, hurt people, angry people, two individuals married for a lifetime with decades and decades of shared experiences who still argue about what's happening in the world outside their door, it is about forlorn people, hopeless people, happy people, laughing people, people watching children play, people patiently sitting with someone who is leaving this life -- have you ever seen someone with a deep and profound faith who, in their final days, know they will soon be with the Lord they've loved for so long? The effect they have on those around them is indescribable but oh so ... ... ecstacy is the only word that fits.

"It" has to do with how we relate to each other, with the effects we have on each other, with the ways in which our lives not only touch but more so in how we choose to impart something of our life to another life, one soul giving to another.

The universe is the notepad on which we do our lessons. The universe is the forum in which we express our lives, but the fate of the universe has nothing to do with ours.

The "it" that matters is something else. "It" has to do with you and me. Never one, always at least two, sometimes many many more.

...

As we often do, we had take-out Chinese last night: house special chicken, Kung Pao shrimp and Mu Shu pork with extra crepes. After ordering by phone, I put the discount coupon -- they always have a coupon -- in my pocket and drove to the restaurant early so I could sit at the bar and have a drink before the order was ready.

It was chilly last night so I ordered hot sake instead of my usual cold beer. Sitting next to me was a man with a round glass of red wine. Sipping our drinks, we had, at most, ten minutes and we did nothing special except, you might say, explore the mutual wonder of our separate paths in life. I'd been here, he'd been there. I did this, he did that. No religeon, no politics, no right or wrong, no good or bad. Just "is".

And then my order was ready. We shook hands, I paid and left.

"It" was wonderful.

Thank you, Lord.

It's About People

2007-12-05T10:18:00.000-08:00

In a friend's blog and in response to an on-going exchange about living in the USA versus elsewhere (see the replies to his Thursday, Nov. 29, 2007 entry), I made the following comment:

Dude, you're right. You *NEED* to travel. No question about it. After I wrote code for 20+ years I got really, really tired of "relating" to a CRT for 9-10 hours a day. So I "jumped ship" and started teaching software instead of writing it. Now I program programmers and, yeah, it's a lot more rewarding.

And one of the big advantages is that I've been able to travel, mostly in the US but, over the 15 years after the first 20, I've been "off-shore" many times. (And about as much as I care to -- airplanes and hotels get rather old after that much travel.)

But the off-shore experience, the living life elsewhere effect is something that will change you, and it affects the core of your being in ways impossible to express. If I had my choices, here's where I would go and what I would do.

Sit by the side of Loch Ness for a month and watch for Nessie. The weather is awful. Good. It cleanses the soul. I like the Scots a whole lot. I found them Earthy, human and in a oddly stodgy manner, not afraid of their juices: at one moment they'd seem very British but at the next, a single malt would be sitting before you from an unknown source and everyone would be looking to see what real self the alcohol would liberate.

And there be a bonnie lass or two in the Highlands, I'm sure.

Then I'd go to Fortaleza, Brazil to warm up. I haven't been there but an air traffic controller friend came "this close" to moving after spending many, many months. (ATCs are control freaks just like us computer hackers, you know?) John wasn't a surfer. Instead, he went for the sun and sex and my gut tells me it may have been a consequence of the latter that changed his mind. He's back here now but not talking too much. Something about the wife of someone of position down there. Sounds like poor judgement but the brain isn't located in that part of the anatomy so, ... ... Maybe the surf is good, too?

Back across the pond to Stockholm. Get a place in Gamla Stan, the old city at the core. Shoot for the summer and make a friend of someone with a sailboat. On a nice day you can sail out to one of the unpopulated islands in the Baltic and spend the day watching the clouds. If you're lucky, you might even see a Russian periscope as they run a practice drill on your little Eden. And yes, there are blue-eyed blondes in Sweden. And there are some stunning reds with skin like cream, and brunettes who, with a simple smile, will make you sigh. Never mind that the food is either beef and potatoes or fifty variants of Herring you'd rather not eat. Bring your own lunch.

One of the towns in Cinque Terra, Italy but watch your pocket in the cities you'll pass thorugh to get there. We're talking some serious pickpockets in Italy but, once you've run the gauntlet, stop and watch them "hit" the other foreigners. It's quite entertaining. Once in Cinque Terra, ignore the dirt and trash. Instead, watch the people live. It's slow. Each person has a lifetime to live and they savor each moment. I could die there but they'd ship my carcass away and defeat my whole purpose of spending forever there. But until I keel over in the dusty street, yeah, I could spend a lifetime there. Change your last name to Corleone, Mike, and maybe you'll find a doe-eyed brunette walking some lane one day.

Prague. Old. Ancient. But they have a strong sense of self and even in the Communist era, weren't afraid to push someone else's buttons. Yeah, I like their sense of Don't Try To F*** With Me!

Spend some time in Israel, not because it's right or wrong, but because its land is and has been contested for millenia, its religeon has divided the world over and over, and because seeing and experiencing all that will knock off all the sharp edges you never knew you had. Israel and the whole middle east is, unquestionably, an unsolvable problem. You'll learn to accept, and you'll want to know how to shoot a gun. Israel will do interesting things to your head.

Bangkok Thailand (child porn capitol of the world) -- eat, eat and eat. If you can swallow it, get it. If you can't, marvel at those who can and then order something else.

There must be another dozen places to go in southeast asia. Just pick a couple -- I don't think you can go wrong.

Xian China. Go see the terra cotta soldiers -- I can't, for the life of me, fathom just how really long that culture has been around. But spend most of your time in the city watching the people. They have lives, children and struggles. Watch the life. Pick one individual, see the minutae of their movements and try to imagine what they think, feel and want. You may then understand why the PRC causes me so much concern and simultaneously, gets so much of my respect. China is awesome. Beware. It's not bad -- it's just big beyond belief.

Then, it's time for a break. Head for Japan. Stay in Tokyo. Find the intersection that's in all the movies with the bronze statue of the little dog. Forget the statue and, instead, watch the teenage meat market that takes place there on a Saturday night. Talk about juice, Wow! Go to the Ramen Museum in Yokohama for a couple of meals. Better, go there for just about every meal. No wait, you need to walk down the street and pick a place at random every day. No, you should go to Kyoto and check-in to one of the monasteries that accept foreigners. Stay a couple of days without speaking a word. Instead, sit, eat vegan, and sit some more. Then go back to Tokyo to frizz up your brain. Go where the punk teenagers go and watch from afar. They don't like foreigners and they really don't like Americans so keep your distance but there's just something about a teenage girl with Gothic makeup wearing a white tutu that has to be seen to be believed.

Then come back to the US and spend a month in Mobile Alabama. God help you but you need to do it. It's part of the education.

And then, after all that, you'll know why some people pray to God every day for help.

That was written in a nearly in a stream-of-consciousness manner; the words just came spilling out with very little editing.

What matters in this are not the words but rather what drives the words. And what drove this was feeling, a gut feeling about the sanctity of life, about our nature and the reason for our being.

Some might say I've been lucky to have travelled to many places in the world. Others would say it's a blessing. But I believe it has been a God-sent education.

In one of the rooms of our house is a small frame hanging on the wall. Therein is a neatly calligraphied statement:

Life is not a rehearsal.

Whenever I see it I say to myself, "That's right. It's not a rehearsal, it's a tryout."

Fortunately, this "tryout" (for what comes after) comes, at least for me, with an education and the travels I have made, whether overseas or to the corner supermarket, are part of that.

Many of the important lessons were learned by walking foreign streets and alleys and watching people where they live.

I've seen individuals and families around the world, good people and bad, good parents and bad and, through their similarities and their differences, I've learned things about myself, about others. And after a lot of chewing on the ideas, talking with others and lots and lots of reading about God and about life, about why we are here, animate and with the ability to think, choose and do, I'm convinced of a couple of things.

Life is Holy.
It is a gift.
We are granted Free Will.

Some take that Free Will and go in one direction. We are, indeed, permitted to waste our lives, to destroy ourselves and to poison future generations, even to exterminate all life on our planet. It is permitted.

But that is not what is hoped.

Instead, I am utterly convinced that God hopes we will cherish life, encourage it, embellish it.

Life is to be lived, and enjoyed, and in ways that promote it.

But we do have to choose to make it that way.

When I learn of what is happening in the world, I am sometimes terrified of this gift of Free Will. But I know that the destruction of life, while enabled by Free Will, is not the Lord's hope nor wish.

We can choose to act, or not act, to the promotion or to the diminuation of life. The Lord, if asked, may also choose to act and, perhaps, answer those prayers.

But it is our Free Will, acted upon from moment to moment, that shapes the world of humanity. It is His Will that we be free to choose.

In my travels, I have discovered that I live in the world of humanity where we make choices, perform actions and directly and indirectly, in large and small parts, affect each other.

To an extent that sometimes seems very, very small to me, the current state of the world, at least one small corner of it, is my doing. And to an extent I cannot possibly fathom, the future state of the world is also, to some extent, the product of my doing through my actions, through my contacts with others, through my actions or lack of actions, with total strangers walking past me in the old or the new airport in Shanghai, across the counter at MacDonalds, or within my loving arms.

God help us, please. It's hard and confusing. The simple, straight-forward answers you have provided us through your Son are so often drowned out by the complex din of the world. Please let me hear your words again, show me the opportunities that arise before me, help me discover the ways in which I can further your hopes, wishes, dreams and desires this day, this hour and this minute.

Amen.

Godlines

2007-11-09T07:57:00.000-08:00

Guidelines from above:

Master what you can.
Help each other.
Try not to hurt anyone.
Accept.

Jesus and Violence

2007-10-11T09:22:00.000-07:00

As they say, I'm conflicted.

On the one hand I have the wherewithall, both mental and physical, both of which are God-given abilities, to protect myself. It is true, of course, that I can choose to use those abilities for good or evil and so the question arises, when, if ever, should I use force for the purpose of doing good?

And I'm not talking about using muscle to help someone to their feet.

I mean violent force.

When, if ever, is it "good" to use violent force?

Jesus certainly seems to be the consummate pacifist. His example seems clear. Indeed, one of the rare times he mentions weapons (Luke 22:38) is when he expects to be arrested and, so say some apologists, he wants the disciples to look like a band of criminals to facilitate his arrest. When he instructs the disciples to get swords and they say they have two of them, he responds, "That is enough."

Jesus' tone of voice in that phrase would have told us quite a lot about his feelings concerning weapons but, sadly, the printed word just does not convey it. We don't know if he means, "Weapons are evil and I don't want to hear anymore about them," or "Two swords are sufficient to make us convincingly look like a band of criminals," or even, "That's a trivial detail; let's get on to more important things now." The available commentaries on this verse have different opinions. My bottom line has to be that I just don't know.

I can rationalize the use of defensive violence, as opposed to offensive violence, on the grounds that if I fail to protect myself and am killed, I can no longer work to propogate, to promote The Way.

But I find no support for that rationalization in the New Testament. Clearly it is not in the written record of Jesus' teachings.

Interestingly, that reference to swords does not appear in The Jefferson Bible which otherwise includes those statements and stories Thomas Jefferson felt were directly attributable to Jesus. Unfortunately, Jefferson did not include a commentary on why he omitted this particular verse.

But all that accepted, I still cannot get rid of the gut feeling that life is precious, that life is God's work, that The Way says we should resist evil and promote life.

In the NIV, John 2:13-17, it says,

¹³When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. ¹⁵So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"
¹⁷His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."

Some commentaries suggest this act of passion, this aggression, was an aberration and that Jesus would eschew such acts in spite of His actions that day.

But the fact remains that the Bible records this story of Jesus' actions and, indeed, that it was even foretold. That is, to fulfill the prophecy, Jesus had to behave in this manner. To repeat,

¹⁷His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."

But Jesus fulfilling the prophecy is one thing. My using force or violence such as Jesus did, is another. I am not fulfilling a prophecy. I am not Jesus.

So, when is violence good, if ever? When is it not a sin to use force in resisting evil? Should we all go, without resistance, to be fed to lions?

Some say, "Yes." Some say complete pacifism in the face of evil is part of The Way.

But I have to then ask, if I don't take medications to fend off disease, I may die. If a wild animal, maddened by rabies, attacks, am I supposed to surrender my life to it? Or am I only supposed to be a pacifist with other humans? What about non-violent aggressions such as verbal or written accusations that are intended to harm my well-being, or being unjustly tried in a court of law -- shouldn't I defend myself?

What constitutes violence? Is physical violence the only violence?

I think not.

Watch the immediate effect of verbal abuse on a child.

Witness the consequent effect that shows much later in that child's life of the damage to his/her life.

No, violence is not just physical. Violence can be perpetrated in many different ways without being physical.

I don't think Jesus would condone verbal abuse.

I do agree that he would have attempted to combat it with gentle persuasion but, faced with it again and again and again, would he have acted out as he did in the temple? And regardless of what he might have done, isn't the very continuation of life based on innumerable instances of acts every day directed toward the resistance of the destruction of life?

Ultimately, it must become a question of degree, of which acts constitute good resistance and which acts constitute bad (evil) resistance (to evil).

Certainly wars and fighting often just go on and on as each side retaliates for the other side's previous retaliation. It only stops when one side either chooses, or is forced (!), to stop.

Is the forceful cessation of war a sin?

Or should we just allow ourselves to be killed?

When extermination of all those who believe as you do is the avowed goal of a militant group, when and how do you resist or do you just let them in and bow your head to their sword?

And, to go to the next degree, when does "defense" turn into "offense"? I'm thinking of the US reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Specifically, when evil has shown its intentions and continues to foment such works, when is life served by travelling to evil's lair and exterminating it?

- - -

Oh Lord, the world is so complicated and your gift of Free Will so terrifying in its awesomeness.
Please Lord, shine your light brightly so my cloudy eyes may see,
shout your words so my deafened ears will hear, and
guide my feet to the climb that will lead me to The Way.
And take pity on my frustrated and confused mind: strike me dumb with Your truth, I pray.

Amen

Who's Goin' to Hell?

2007-09-24T09:50:00.000-07:00

Growing up I can remember how contentious, even confrontational, some of the churches seemed to be. "We are the true Way," some would say while others seemed to claim, "Only by ascribing to our beliefs will you enter Heaven."

For the longest time I really worried I was going to the wrong church and would burn in Hell for it.

And then a long time passed.

I grew up, got an education, started a family, moved across the country, had a career, went a year with no income, had grandchildren, suffered tests of faith, experienced betrayals, had great joys and, as you might say, I generally "had a life."

Over all those years, I've met and talked with people of many different faiths, and to many of no particular faith, and to those without faith, without a belief in an almighty being or beings. A great many of these very different people living in different countries and having different faiths, or none, were married, had children, they worked to support their family, sometimes had passing difficulties with their spouses, struggles at the office, sickness of loved ones, the passing of parents and so on, all the things I think of as normal, everyday life.

I admired some of these individuals. Some were, I'm sorry to admit, better people than myself. They loved more, gave more, sacrificed more than my sometimes selfish self. Their lives, their efforts, their love and caring were inspiring and I often hoped and even prayed that, should circumstances arise in my life similar to those they had experienced, I might do as well, as lovingly, with as much caring as they obviously had in their heart.

Some of those Christian denominations I heard as a child -- and which I am sad to say I still hear today -- would say that these people are going to Hell because they haven't accepted Jesus Christ as their only true savior.

Sorry, but No, I can't accept that.

Consequently, I've struggled for many years with the contrary statements in the Bible that seem to support that viewpoint.

Are those statements to be taken literally? Were the ancient words that have passed through one or more translations portrayed in a manner appropriate in contemporary life? Given that my world is so different from those in Biblical times, is it reasonable to expect that I can really understand what the different passages meant to the ancients, to those living in different lands, under different governing forces, ... Is it truly possible for me to understand their hopes, desires and fears?

My world is so profoundly different than theirs. There is so little commonality between my life and theirs that I have to admit serious doubt to my having any real appreciation of their fears, hopes and beliefs.

And yet, reading the Bible, reading the words written in those days by, and in many cases, for those people (such as the New Testament letters written to specific churches and addressing their specific problems), my only window to the Way is through those very words.

It's all so confusing.

At least it was until one day, sitting in my room at the Fengyi Hotel in Wuhan, the Peoples Republic of China, and gazing out at the streets below and trying to imagine the more than a billion Chinese in families of different structures, struggling to raise healthy and strong children who would be heedful of right and wrong, I opened the Bible I had brought with me to China and read in Romans 2:13-16:

¹³For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God's sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. ¹⁴When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. ¹⁵They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them ¹⁶on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.
New Revised Standard Version (The New Oxford Annotated Bible)

Here was an answer to what I had been told was the otherwise doomed fate of the dozens of good people I had seen that very morning as I walked down a side street next to the hotel.

What matters is what is in a person's heart, his unspoken but heartfelt words!

Using the example I know best, if someone adheres to the thoughts and heartfelt wishes Christ had which come across the years to me through the Bible, then they will be saved.

... but they don't have to know Christ's name or have read or heard His teachings. They don't have to have gone to the right church. They don't have to have been baptised by triune full-body immersion, sprinkled with water from the Jordan River, or been blessed by the Pope, a Cardinal or even a parrish priest.

What matters is what a person holds in his heart, his "secret thoughts".

It is these "secret thoughts" that determine each person's fate. Those are known only to the individual and, ultimately, to He who will judge. No one else can possibly know.

There is no way I or any other person on this planet can ever know the secret thoughts of another. The church they go to won't tell me. The name of the God they worship won't tell me. Even the presence or absence of an espoused faith of any kind won't tell me. There simply is no way I can ever know, or judge, who will be saved.

Anyone from any church, any synagogue, any mosque, any house, hut or cave, can be saved. What matters are their "secret thoughts", known only to them and to the Lord.

Today, I espouse and try to live, a Christian way of living. I pray for guidance and strength to do those things that will please the Lord and I look to Christ for the example of how to regard and treat my fellow beings.

Will my "secret thoughts" someday find the Lord's acceptance?

I can only pray for the Lord's forgiveness of my shortcomings, try to do what I think is right, fair and what furthers His hopes for the world around me, and beg His forgiveness for my failings and, finally, trust that my life is ultimately in His hands.

Science says that the Universe had a beginning. It seems to follow then, that it will also have an end. And my life also had a beginning and, it certainly seems, it will also have an end. Between its beginning and its end, a great many things are for me to decide. This is the gift of Free Will, a God-given power of awesome, and sometimes terrifying, potential.

But my human-power has its limits. Within the confines of the amount of Free Will that God has granted me, I pray I will do as will please Him.

And beyond those limits, I can only trust in His plan, and pray for His mercy.

Amen.

Do I Believe ... ? (Part Two)

2007-09-22T11:09:00.000-07:00

Do I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God?

Yes, but in a sense we all are. We are all His creation, after all. But I know what most people mean and I'm being evasive.

The fact of the matter is, I just plain don't know. I read what the Bible says and I hear what others believe but I'm not completely convinced either way, neither "pro" nor "con".

I guess it just comes down to a matter of faith and, for that, I believe that Jesus had a very special message to deliver, an extraordinarily important reason for being at that time and in that place, and that what he did and said is still incredibly important for us two millenia later.

Following Christ means life-style, attitude and actions modelled on His teachings. In that sense, I am very much a follower of Christ, often failing but always trying to steer myself back to the Path, the Way, the Word.

But do I believe He is the Son of God?

The faith-filled part of my mind would say yes while the fact-filled part would have to add, "Part of me is uncertain."

I don't really know whether or not Christ is the Son of God. But I do know what He wants us to do. Indeed, I feel that knowing within my very bones. I know what His intention is in my life. It comes through when I stop. It comes through when I listen. It comes through when I stop what I am doing and listen to what He is telling me through my feelings.

In my most difficult moments in life, when I could not find the answer to what should I do in a given situation, when I've stopped and given it up to the Lord and then quieted myself and waited, He has always given me the answer. In a few moments, the answer to my dilemna has always come and has always been accompanied with a profound sense of, "This is what's right."

In each of those moments, I knew these were God's answers. They were often very difficult to do, often accompanied by strong objections from those around me but, in every case, I knew they were right.

Thank you, Lord.

I am utterly convinced that what matters is what we do, how we act toward each other, what we do to enhance, promote and spread life. What matters is attitude and efforts.

Faith demands action.

That action can be powerful, it can be simple. It can be lengthy and drawn out, it can be over in a moment. It can be an act, a deed, a word, a gesture or a look but, whatever it is, it makes a difference.

Doing God's work.

I don't know if Christ is the Son of God, but I do know what He wants me to do. And it will take all my life to do as much of it as I can,

... God willing and granting me the ability.

Do I believe the Bible is the Word of God?

Perhaps, but since God created the three dimensions and time and energy and matter and the physical laws that cause matter to clump together and form stars and planets and galaxies and galaxies of galaxies, I have to confess I am dumbfounded to think that I might be able to understand even the tiniest bit of what God might have to say. Indeed, I am astonished that the Bible is as readable as it is but I also have to confess that I feel terribly presumptious to think I might possibly understand the smallest portion of His Word and His Intentions.

Some of what I read in the Bible leaves me confused, but I've learned to live with that. Life itself, after all, can be very confusing. Given enough time and scholarly study I could understand many parts much better, and I've learned to listen with interest to those who are experts, but I do note they sometimes disagree and, at that point, I say to myself, "God is infinitely bigger than we can understand. Sometimes I just have to accept my ignorance, and then go on the best I can."

The bottom line is I read the Bible and take from it what I can for my life, and I have no choice but to leave much of it behind in mystery.

God gave me two hands to manipulate things, two feet to carry my body to where there are things to be done, eyes to see and ears to hear. Every fiber of my physical self is here to accomplish something.

Some study and thought are needed to decide what to do and reading and studying the Bible are part of figuring that out but I am not here only to study. I am also here to do, to build, to make, to encourage, to enhance, to promote life in every possible way.

Do I Believe ... ? (Part One)

2007-09-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

Here is my answer to a predictable question.

Do I believe in God?

Yes, without any doubt whatsoever.

This is both a felt-belief and a reasoned-belief.

For the reasoning belief, I believe in God because life is finite, we are born and then we die, because everything I experience is cause and effect and I cannot fathom that being infinite. It is all start/stop and, hence, it needs an initial push to make it all go. Hence, God.

And science tells us the Universe, at least what we know about it, is also finite. It started with the "big bang" but why did the "big bang" happen? Again, I'm back at the cause and effect issue.

From the standpoint of reason, I can see no other possible explanation except that we, and the Universe, exist because God willed it.

But I also believe in God from my gut. Years ago I would've said that I had faith that God existed mostly because I needed Him to exist. The idea of a Universe and life without Him, was terrifying. I could not bear the idea that all this exists without some agent and, more importantly, some purpose.

In time, however, my belief would become more confident and the trigger for that would be God's involvement in my life. In more recent years, I've become aware of God's interactions in the events of my life. I see His touch. I recognize His guidance.

And in an oddly contradictory way, I am both thankful, and scared, by His presence. I am thankful for the ways in which he influences my life and the events surrounding it. Sometimes He helps, and sometimes He lets me learn.

And the fact that God intercedes in my life is also what scares me because it means that although I am in control of many things and to a very large extent, the master -- or victim -- of my actions, it also means that there are things, plans of His, that are beyond my control.

I've had to learn acceptance to deal with that fear, and it has not been easy. Indeed, God has handed me a couple of lessons that are taking at least decades to master, and possibly they won't be completed before the end of my life.

But in all this, in my every day movements and actions, I see His touch.

I almost hate to say it but sometimes it can be as simple as a green traffic light that moves me through an intersection, presumably to the time and place I desire. But I also recognize that the green light and my passage may be there for the benefit of others, that my driving through the intersection at that time and place has some far-reaching effect on someone else's life and that, by my getting through the intersection, they are delayed for some significant reason.

And there are also the apparently inopportune red lights that come up on my hurried drive somewhere. They too can be from God.

Just a couple of days ago I was trapped in the midst of a titanic traffic jam on Interstates 240 and 40 leaving Memphis. A semi-trailer truck had overturned and blocked all lanes of eastbound traffic. In the far-right lane I inched forward at first but eventually everything ground to a complete halt. At one point, I sat in place for a full 30 minutes and, by the time I merged left and eventually got around the accident, an hour and a half had gone by.

In that time, I had many choices. I could have behaved like the driver two cars ahead of me when someone tried to pass us by driving on the grass shoulder. He moved his car far to the right and blocked them. Soon, several cars were blocked behind him and, ultimately, they had to merge into the regular traffic lanes.

I was greatly annoyed at those attempting to pass on the right and was sorely tempted to help block these drivers but the (God-sent?) thought occurred to me that perhaps these drivers truly did have emergencies that warranted their driving on the shoulder to bypass the traffic jam. Or maybe their job was in jeopardy already and the traffic delay put "food on the table" in similar doubt.

So I simply accepted (!) that I was in no particular hurry that day and that I could simply watch the human behavior being demonstrated before me.

And I must say that, with the 90 minute total delay, those drivers on the shoulder saved themselves, at most, less than a minute because even passing a dozen cars on the right still left them in a completely blocked-in area. Ultimately, they had to merge all the way to the left to get past the blockage, and that effort took almost exactly the same time for them as it did for me.

God put a lesson in human behavior before my eyes and, hopefully, I learned something of what He intended for me to learn.

In a larger sense, I'm am profoundly convinced that God crafts many of the choices we find before us and, through the choosing and the actions we perform, He provides the classroom and the tools through which we learn.

Thank you, Lord, for the opportunities You place before me this day. I pray You will guide me so that I may learn from them as You intend.

Amen.

Christian Open Theist

2007-08-30T11:30:00.000-07:00

I am a Christian Open Theist. That means I have a powerful belief in the example, message and role of Christ, and that I believe God gave us true Free Will, that the future is not pre-ordained, that to a very large extent, what happens is up to us.

For the philosophers and theologians, let me add that I also believe that God is omniscient. God knows all the possibilities that are open to us in each moment, and He knows the far-reaching consequences of the choices we might make. But I also believe that He allows us to make our own way.

Greg Boyd has compared this to one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books where the reader chooses the storyline and, consequently, the ultimate outcome of the book. But note that the author wrote all the possibilities. The author doesn't know which storyline a given reader will follow, but he still knows all the possibilities. I believe our lives are like that. God wrote the book but our individual storylines are up to each of us to choose.

And like a Choose Your Own Adventure book with both "good" and "bad" endings, I believe we are free to make the choices that will either make God smile or cry. This means we can mess it up, kill each other, destroy the Earth and all possibility of life on this planet. That choice is truly possible.

I hope (and often pray!) that God will help us find the insight to avoid those awful consequences but I do believe, nonetheless, that it could happen. I do believe it's up to us.

I also believe that God has hopes, that He would like to see us choose life not death, joy not sorrow, richness and vibrancy not grey sterility. Indeed, one of my frequent prayers is that God will help me see the possibilities that come before me to engender, to promote, to improve life.

I am, therefore, always open to the possibilities that come before me each day and I frequently pray that God will help me to encourage the good ones, and to discourage the bad. And on those days when "encourage" and "discourage" are too weak and stronger actions are needed, I fervently pray that God will help me to recognize, and act, appropriately.

Christ chose to speak. Christ chose to act. And Christ chose to sacrifice.

Lord, help me choose what will please You.

Amen.