I came across two very good articles on the Supreme Court decisions on DOMA this past week and wanted to pass them along.
Click here and here
MM
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Heroic Perversity
If you’ve watched any news this week, you probably heard about the courage and heroism of NBA player, Jason Collins. In a recent SI article Collins made it publicly known that he would like to claim his perverse sexual desires as a central aspect of his identity. In other words, he announced he is gay.
In Collins’ interview with sports writer, Bill Simmons, Simmons commented that he suspected someone in the professional sports world would “come out” this year, but he wasn’t sure who, and that Collins was a great person to do so because he’s well spoken and has a reputation as a hard worker and a good team mate. He even said Collins is a “good guy for the locker room.” (I guess there’s no need to comment on the irony in that statement.)
So apparently Simmons’ point here can be paraphrased by saying it’s good when a responsible, hard-working, well-spoken person announces he’s gay. That way people learn that the way one chooses to handle his sexual desires has no moral significance, and that as long as he is a courteous, responsible citizen, how he chooses to respond to his sexual urges with other willing people is no indicator of his character. All those who have struggled with urges toward adultery, promiscuity, and incest will be relieved to hear this.
Collins even got a call from President Obama who applauded him for the courage he’d shown. I have a hard time seeing what part courage plays in a celebrity making an announcement that will make him an instant hero in the eyes of the major media outlets and the mainstream culture, but this is likely because I’m yet to reach that point of moral enlightenment which recognizes the great virtue in following through with one’s inner urges wherever they might lead.
But if Collins really is an example of heroism, I’ll bet it won’t be long before we see some superheroes coming out, next to whom he would look like Robin to Batman. Not long ago those on the vanguard of moral liberation were working tirelessly for the cause of justice, to set free those who had been ostracized and discriminated against simply for wanting to live out their unorthodox sexuality. Today their work has been done, and yesterday’s victims are today’s heroes.
But the project is not complete. There are some today who are demonized and criminalized simply for trying to live out their natural-born orientation. They are those of a “cross-generational orientation” (known in a more insensitive and less enlightened time as pedophiles). One day, perhaps in the near future, a hero will muster the courage to come out from the stagnant, stifling, closet of traditional morality and pedophiliac prejudice. Maybe Bill Simmons is hoping it will be a courteous and well-spoken athlete to break the stereotype. And maybe that hero will get a call from the President too.
Monday, March 25, 2013
The Clash of Hope and History
Most of us are incorrigible optimists. And I don’t just mean the happy, bubbly people who could see the bright side of a sewer trench. Most of us, no matter our temperament, have a sense that the world will ultimately be good. We may not have all our future plans clearly mapped out, and we may be in the midst of struggles right now, but the majority of us have an inarticulate but certain sense that in the future the world is somehow going to be made right. In a word, we hope.
But hope is a curious thing in this world so filled with seemingly hopeless tragedies. We suffer directly as we or our family members grapple with pain and terminal disease. We witness the immense suffering of others in seeing them lose children to deranged school shooters or (for tens of millions in the third world) to poverty and starvation. Even if it were possible to prevent every crime and provide all with food and medical care, we would still eventually grow feeble and die, and that doesn’t meet anyone’s definition of all right. And yet we still have it in the back our minds that everything will be all right? So where does hope come from?
It’s as if we live amidst the constant clash of two worlds: The world of hopeful desire on the inside of us and the world of hopeless facts on the outside. The question is, which of these two worlds is the real world? Thoroughly cynical people, who, interestingly, usually still try to live as if there’s a future to hope for, accuse Christians of being childish and willfully ignorant. They say we live in a dream--that there’s no real difference between our belief in Heaven and a child’s belief in the Easter Bunny. Neither are grounded in objective facts. We’re said to be “escapists” who retreat to our inner fantasies about God and Heaven because we don’t have the good sense and fortitude to face the world as it truly is.
And it’s at just this point that confetti explodes over Christians. The resurrection of Jesus was precisely the moment when the world of hope entered into the world of history: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” (Hebrews 2:14-15)
At Easter, and all through the year, we want to proclaim to all the stiff-lipped “sensible” people who base everything they believe on the hard facts of history that Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead is one of those hard facts! We thank God that Jesus physically rose from the dead, and in doing so he has "destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (2 Timothy 1:10). In the words of John Mark Mcmillan, he “laid Death in his grave.”
It really happened. Hope and history are one!
Sunday, March 17, 2013
More Than Many Know About St. Patrick
My Good friend Dick Cleary has a most excellent blog site called Viewpoints (click here). A couple of years ago he posted a very insightful piece on St. Patricks Day, which I wanted to repost on Kalon Christian today. I'll bet there are few people who know the real significance of Patrick's impact on the world.
Why We Celebrate St. Patrick
Millions of Americans, many of them descendents of Irish immigrants, celebrated their Irish heritage by observing St. Patrick's Day yesterday. We are indebted to Thomas Cahill and his best-selling book How The Irish Saved Civilization for explaining to us why Patrick's is a life worth commemorating. As improbable as his title may sound, Cahill weaves a fascinating and compelling tale of how the Irish in general, and Patrick and his spiritual heirs in particular, served as a tenuous but crucial cultural bridge from the classical world to the medieval age and, by so doing, made Western civilization possible.
Born a Roman citizen in 390 A.D., Patrick had been kidnapped as a boy of sixteen from his home on the coast of Britain and taken by Irish barbarians to Ireland. There he languished in slavery until he was able to escape six years later. Upon his homecoming he became a Christian, studied for the priesthood, and eventually returned to Ireland where he would spend the rest of his life laboring to persuade the Irish to accept the Gospel and to abolish slavery. Patrick was the first person in history, in fact, to speak out unequivocally against slavery and, according to Cahill, the last person to do so until the 17th century.
Meanwhile, Roman control of Europe had begun to collapse. Rome was sacked by Alaric in 410 A.D. and barbarians were sweeping across the continent, forcing the Romans back to Italy, and plunging Europe into the Dark Ages. Throughout the continent unwashed, illiterate hordes descended on the once grand Roman cities, looting artifacts and burning books. Learning ground to a halt and the literary heritage of the classical world was burned or moldered into dust. Almost all of it, Cahill claims, would surely have been lost if not for the Irish.
Having been converted to Christianity through the labors of Patrick, the Irish took with gusto to reading, writing and learning. They delighted in letters and bookmaking and painstakingly created indescribably beautiful Biblical manuscripts such as the Book of Kells which is on display today in the library of Trinity College in Dublin. Aware that the great works of the past were disappearing, they applied themselves assiduously to the daunting task of copying all surviving Western literature - everything they could lay their hands on. For a century after the fall of Rome, Irish monks sequestered themselves in cold, damp, cramped mud huts called scriptoria, so remote and isolated from the world that they were seldom threatened by the marauding pagans. Here these men spent their entire adult lives reproducing the old manuscripts and preserving literacy and learning for the time when people would be once again ready to receive them.
These scribes and their successors served as the conduits through which the Graeco-Roman and Judeo-Christian cultures were transmitted to the benighted tribes of Europe, newly settled amid the rubble and ruin of the civilization they had recently overwhelmed. Around the late 6th century, three generations after Patrick, Irish missionaries with names like Columcille, Aidan, and Columbanus began to venture out from their monasteries and refuges, clutching their precious books to their hearts, sailing to England and the continent, founding their own monasteries and schools among the barbarians and teaching them how to read, write and make books of their own. Absent the willingness of these courageous men to endure deprivations and hardships of every kind for the sake of the Gospel and learning, Cahill argues, the world that came after them would have been completely different. It would likely have been a world without books. Europe almost certainly would have been illiterate, and it would probably have been unable to resist the Muslim incursions that arrived a few centuries later.
The Europeans, starved for knowledge, soaked up everything the Irish missionaries could give them. From such seeds as these modern Western civilization germinated. From the Greeks the descendents of the Goths and Vandals learned philosophy, from the Romans they learned about law, from the Bible they learned of the worth of the individual who, created and loved by God, is therefore significant and not merely a brutish aggregation of matter. From the Bible, too, they learned that the universe was created by a rational Mind and was thus not capricious, random, or chaotic. It would yield its secrets to rational investigation. Out of these assumptions, once their implications were finally and fully developed, grew historically unprecedented views of the value of the individual and the flowering of modern science.
Our cultural heritage is thus, in a very important sense, a legacy from the Irish. A legacy from Patrick. It is worth pondering on this St. Patrick's Day what the world would be like today had it not been for those early Irish scribes and missionaries thirteen centuries ago.
Buiochas le Dia ar son na nGaeil (Thank God for the Irish), and I hope you have a great St. Patrick's Day.
Born a Roman citizen in 390 A.D., Patrick had been kidnapped as a boy of sixteen from his home on the coast of Britain and taken by Irish barbarians to Ireland. There he languished in slavery until he was able to escape six years later. Upon his homecoming he became a Christian, studied for the priesthood, and eventually returned to Ireland where he would spend the rest of his life laboring to persuade the Irish to accept the Gospel and to abolish slavery. Patrick was the first person in history, in fact, to speak out unequivocally against slavery and, according to Cahill, the last person to do so until the 17th century.
Meanwhile, Roman control of Europe had begun to collapse. Rome was sacked by Alaric in 410 A.D. and barbarians were sweeping across the continent, forcing the Romans back to Italy, and plunging Europe into the Dark Ages. Throughout the continent unwashed, illiterate hordes descended on the once grand Roman cities, looting artifacts and burning books. Learning ground to a halt and the literary heritage of the classical world was burned or moldered into dust. Almost all of it, Cahill claims, would surely have been lost if not for the Irish.
Having been converted to Christianity through the labors of Patrick, the Irish took with gusto to reading, writing and learning. They delighted in letters and bookmaking and painstakingly created indescribably beautiful Biblical manuscripts such as the Book of Kells which is on display today in the library of Trinity College in Dublin. Aware that the great works of the past were disappearing, they applied themselves assiduously to the daunting task of copying all surviving Western literature - everything they could lay their hands on. For a century after the fall of Rome, Irish monks sequestered themselves in cold, damp, cramped mud huts called scriptoria, so remote and isolated from the world that they were seldom threatened by the marauding pagans. Here these men spent their entire adult lives reproducing the old manuscripts and preserving literacy and learning for the time when people would be once again ready to receive them.
These scribes and their successors served as the conduits through which the Graeco-Roman and Judeo-Christian cultures were transmitted to the benighted tribes of Europe, newly settled amid the rubble and ruin of the civilization they had recently overwhelmed. Around the late 6th century, three generations after Patrick, Irish missionaries with names like Columcille, Aidan, and Columbanus began to venture out from their monasteries and refuges, clutching their precious books to their hearts, sailing to England and the continent, founding their own monasteries and schools among the barbarians and teaching them how to read, write and make books of their own. Absent the willingness of these courageous men to endure deprivations and hardships of every kind for the sake of the Gospel and learning, Cahill argues, the world that came after them would have been completely different. It would likely have been a world without books. Europe almost certainly would have been illiterate, and it would probably have been unable to resist the Muslim incursions that arrived a few centuries later.
The Europeans, starved for knowledge, soaked up everything the Irish missionaries could give them. From such seeds as these modern Western civilization germinated. From the Greeks the descendents of the Goths and Vandals learned philosophy, from the Romans they learned about law, from the Bible they learned of the worth of the individual who, created and loved by God, is therefore significant and not merely a brutish aggregation of matter. From the Bible, too, they learned that the universe was created by a rational Mind and was thus not capricious, random, or chaotic. It would yield its secrets to rational investigation. Out of these assumptions, once their implications were finally and fully developed, grew historically unprecedented views of the value of the individual and the flowering of modern science.
Our cultural heritage is thus, in a very important sense, a legacy from the Irish. A legacy from Patrick. It is worth pondering on this St. Patrick's Day what the world would be like today had it not been for those early Irish scribes and missionaries thirteen centuries ago.
Buiochas le Dia ar son na nGaeil (Thank God for the Irish), and I hope you have a great St. Patrick's Day.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Atheists Are Not Honest
A few minutes ago a friend emailed me a link to a horrific news story about a murder-suicide. A 43-year-old college professor murdered his 39-year-old wife, called 911 to report it, and while the dispatcher was still on the line, the man went into his basement and fatally shot himself in the chest. The couple had two school-aged children:
The news of this tragedy was all the more disturbing to me because it all happened on the same road I lived on for three years prior to last summer. Nine months ago, my family and I lived only a couple of miles from where this heinous event has taken place.
This kind of news (which is so disgustingly frequent) always calls attention to one blazingly conspicuous fact: atheists are not honest. The idea that God does not exist has waxed and waned in popularity over the past three hundred years or so. And through the last decade, there has been a wave of prolific writers whose consistent complaint against belief in God and the willful naivety that makes belief possible have put new wheels on the atheist bandwagon. They’ve come to be called the “New Atheists,” though there’s not much new in what they have to say. Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett, among several others, have gained quite a following writing and speaking about the absurdity of religious belief. They deride anyone who believes in God and his moral authority as asinine, superstitious, and willfully ignorant. As Dawkins laments, religious believers in the modern, scientifically enlightened world must be either stupid or wicked.
But the problem with such luminaries is that they cannot stomach the conclusions of their own ideas. As C.S. Lewis says, they don’t remember their philosophy outside school. As bad as I believe most atheists to be, I don’t believe they are fully bad, at least not yet. I would bet that the vast majority of those who identify as atheists would read about this tragedy and respond by saying something like, “What a shame” or “How tragic” or “That’s just wrong.” And like the noonday sun on a shard of mirror, their wretched inconsistency comes to light.
If there is no God and no moral accountability beyond the grave, if we truly cease to exist after our last breath, and if all of reality is made up only of physical elements, then morality itself is an illusion. We don't watch mixed chemicals react in a vat and say, “That’s just wrong!” And yet, if the New Atheists are right, all of life is simply the product of a series of extremely complex, though mindless, chemical reactions. If this is so, words like shame and tragedy, wrong and right, good and evil, have no meaning. Morality is, at best, a social convention like shaking hands or wearing neck ties. It’s taught and expected but has no real meaning in and of itself. There are many who are working hard to convince themselves and others of this, but they still instinctively realize (despite their philosophy) that tragedies really are tragic. Thus atheists are not honest. But as long as their are atheists we should hope they remain dishonest; we would not call an honest atheist honest. We would call him a sociopath.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Doubting Diversity
As most Americans in the early 21st century know, diversity is all the rage. It's the one quality that seems to give moral legitimacy to almost anything in secular culture. I once worked at a secular school which even had a faculty member whose title was "Diversity Coordinator."
I understand where the concern for diversity comes from. To safeguard against the bigotry of civil rights abuse in the old South and other forms of stupidity, many have thought it best to pose diversity as the greatest good. But, all things considered, diversity doesn't deliver.
On one hand it's true that people should never frown on others simply out of a sense of unfamiliarity. And all sane people realize it's wrong to exclude someone from basic human rights or violate a person's dignity simply because the other holds a unique belief or is part of a minority culture. We should all be willing to listen to and thoroughly discern the beliefs and cultures of others--but not as an end in itself. We should be open to learn about the beliefs and behaviors of diverse cultures, to determine which elements in diverse cultures bring us closer to truth!
But acknowledging such a "hegemonic," bigoted idea as truth is blasphemous in the modern church of diversity. As soon as we make a judgment as to what's true, we automatically label all that's inconsistent with it as not true--and that's mean.
I once heard a Hopi Native American woman give a talk to a group of students on the Hopi religion. She said the sun was a god, and some other interesting things. Her ideas were definitely diverse from most others in the room, but what I most wanted to know was, "Is it true?" Of course if I were to suggest it was not--that the sun is really a ball of gas and not a diety--I would have been accused of being "exclusionary."
But what could be the value of diversity for the sake of diversity? I would love to be able to ask an administrator or CEO of some institution who's made great efforts to create cultural diversity, "OK. Your institution is diverse. Now what? Diversity is great, but what is true? What is real?"
But again, all this makes sense when one realizes that truth is not typically a concern for those who place diversity as the greatest good. Diversity means harmony, and if one doesn't accept the idea of ultimate truth, I guess the next best thing to shoot for would be harmony.
Christians, however, don't have the luxury of putting harmony first. When we're tempted to take a dip in the warm-fuzzy, anesthetizing pool of philosophical and religious diversity, we should remember Jesus' words in Luke 12:51-53
"Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother–in–law against her daughter–in–law and daughter–in–law against mother–in–law."
MM
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Happiness and Homosexuality
I was recently reminded of a story in which a husband and father of three chooses to lose his job in order to stay true to his Christian convictions. As he and his wife struggle over the consequences of his decision, the wife says, “I don’t know how we’re going to make it.” He responds, “I don’t either, but some things are more important than making it.”
But if “making it” is defined as individual happiness, and happiness is defined by pleasing circumstances, then the husband’s response is opposite the view of a great many people. A lot of people believe happiness to be the greatest good, which sounds reasonable because it is something we should all want. But happiness is not the greatest good. Doing what’s right, in other words, virtuousness, is a greater good than happiness, and there are times when doing what’s right leads to unhappiness--that is it leads to difficult circumstances. The right thing sometimes requires us either to subject ourselves to pain or forgo some pleasure, such as the pain and forgone pleasure experienced by a man in a difficult marriage when he chooses not to get involved with another woman, even though she offers all the affection that’s absent in his wife.
One perpetually controversial issue I think shows this tension between virtue and happiness is that of homosexual behavior. The tidal wave of gay rights activism that has swept over the western world in the last few decades has largely been driven by the idea that happiness is the greatest good. The argument usually goes something like this: If a same sex marriage would bring two people great happiness without taking away from anyone else’s happiness then why shouldn’t they be allowed to marry? The answer is that people shouldn’t engage in homosexuality for the same reason they shouldn’t engage in adultery. Both bring a certain level of circumstantial happiness, but both are morally wrong.
The reason the proposition that homosexual behavior is morally wrong comes across like a banner at a Klan rally to a lot of people is because their moral compass is of their own making. For many, what’s right means only “what seems right to me.” There is nothing (or no One) outside one’s self by which we judge right and wrong.
Although this is a totally subjective, individualized way of thinking, one thing people with this mindset do appeal to as a universal standard of rightness is the question of whether or not a person’s actions infringe on another against his will. If this is the ultimate moral question then nothing that takes place among “consenting adults” could ever be wrong. The golden rule is to never impede anyone’s pursuit of happiness.
But that golden rule is like a movie-set building. It looks real on the outside, but when you go through the door there’s nothing there. If there really is no objective standard--no Moral Law and Lawgiver--to whom we are accountable, then there is nothing to bind anyone to the idea that my happiness at the expense of others’ pain is wrong. There have been many who have had no qualms pursuing happiness through others’ pain because it seemed right to them. To those who hold a what-seems-right-to-me view of morality, there is a resounding “says who?” that goes on forever in response to any argument about what’s right and wrong.
If it is true that we will not cease to exist after our last breath, but will rather face moral accountability in the highest degree, then there is a right and a wrong way to conduct ourselves sexually, and the difference is not determined by what brings us the most immediate happiness.
MM
MM
Friday, February 8, 2013
Precisely Wrong
Usually when we're wrong, we're not altogether wrong. Most wrong views include some right elements. In a lot of cases, it's more true to say that certain views are misguided or shortsighted or not entirely true.
But sometimes there comes an argument or a point of view that is precisely wrong. Such is the case with an article published in the Salt Lake Tribune last August, which I stumbled upon this morning. It was written by Salt Lake photographer and writer, Ed Firmage Jr. I'm posting it because I think sometimes the truth is seen most clearly in light of its opposite, and Mr. Firmage's argument in the article is a good example of the opposite.
It isn't long and is worth reading. Here's the link:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/54658089-82/truth-mormons-faith-mormonism.html.csp
The main idea is that, "The ultimate truth of Mormonism or Catholicism or Judaism is not what you believe but what you do," largely because, "the abundance of competing creeds, and the vehemence with which each is defended against the others, suggests that we should take our truths with a grain of salt. Rock salt, perhaps."
This point may apply to Buddhism, because Buddhism is more a way of thinking than a belief about the ways God has revealed himself to people. But it is nonsense (though a comforting, community-building nonsense) to say that the questions of whether or not an angel from God really spoke to Mohammad in a cave, or whether God the Father and Jesus visited Joseph Smith in the grove, or whether or not Jesus really resurrected from the dead--that these questions ultimately don't matter.
Either these things happened or they didn't, and the question of whether they did or not is one of the most important questions we'll ever consider. If Mohammad and Joseph Smith weren't really visited by angels, or if the angels who visited them weren't from God, then millions of people are investing their hearts and minds in a lie. That matters.
For Christians, Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15 are at the heart of it all: "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." Christ's resurrection is the engine providing the power that saves us from death. Good deeds without the physical, historical truth of his resurrection is a beautifully painted car with an empty space under the hood.
It's comforting to think otherwise, because if it doesn't matter what you believe is true about God, then none of us have much of a responsibility to seek and discern the truth. We don't have to wrestle with the truth. And, most appealing of all, we don't have to suffer damaged relationships and other hardships because of the truth.
And as for behavior, it is true that there are people who show good behavior while holding bad beliefs. But for the most part, what we believe is true about God, about who he is, the way he has revealed himself, and what he expects from us, directly determines what we do and why we do it. Because Muslims, Mormons, and Christians have fundamentally different concepts of God, our perspectives and motivations for doing good deeds in obedience to God are, generally speaking, fundamentally different as well.
MM
But sometimes there comes an argument or a point of view that is precisely wrong. Such is the case with an article published in the Salt Lake Tribune last August, which I stumbled upon this morning. It was written by Salt Lake photographer and writer, Ed Firmage Jr. I'm posting it because I think sometimes the truth is seen most clearly in light of its opposite, and Mr. Firmage's argument in the article is a good example of the opposite.
It isn't long and is worth reading. Here's the link:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/54658089-82/truth-mormons-faith-mormonism.html.csp
The main idea is that, "The ultimate truth of Mormonism or Catholicism or Judaism is not what you believe but what you do," largely because, "the abundance of competing creeds, and the vehemence with which each is defended against the others, suggests that we should take our truths with a grain of salt. Rock salt, perhaps."
This point may apply to Buddhism, because Buddhism is more a way of thinking than a belief about the ways God has revealed himself to people. But it is nonsense (though a comforting, community-building nonsense) to say that the questions of whether or not an angel from God really spoke to Mohammad in a cave, or whether God the Father and Jesus visited Joseph Smith in the grove, or whether or not Jesus really resurrected from the dead--that these questions ultimately don't matter.
Either these things happened or they didn't, and the question of whether they did or not is one of the most important questions we'll ever consider. If Mohammad and Joseph Smith weren't really visited by angels, or if the angels who visited them weren't from God, then millions of people are investing their hearts and minds in a lie. That matters.
For Christians, Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15 are at the heart of it all: "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." Christ's resurrection is the engine providing the power that saves us from death. Good deeds without the physical, historical truth of his resurrection is a beautifully painted car with an empty space under the hood.
It's comforting to think otherwise, because if it doesn't matter what you believe is true about God, then none of us have much of a responsibility to seek and discern the truth. We don't have to wrestle with the truth. And, most appealing of all, we don't have to suffer damaged relationships and other hardships because of the truth.
And as for behavior, it is true that there are people who show good behavior while holding bad beliefs. But for the most part, what we believe is true about God, about who he is, the way he has revealed himself, and what he expects from us, directly determines what we do and why we do it. Because Muslims, Mormons, and Christians have fundamentally different concepts of God, our perspectives and motivations for doing good deeds in obedience to God are, generally speaking, fundamentally different as well.
MM
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Do We Have To Go To Church?
A friend and I were recently discussing the importance of church attendance and he asked me whether I thought someone had to attend church in order to be right with God. Here's what I said:
As for the question of the necessity of going to church, if we say that attending or having membership in a church is necessary for salvation, then we would be saying that Christ alone isn't sufficient to save someone, without the additional act of our church attendance. So, no, a person's eternal salvation doesn't depend on church attendance, it depends on surrendering one's heart to God.
However, it is God’s design for Christians to be in fellowship with each other. To become a Christian is to be adopted into God’s family. It’s hard to imagine someone being adopted into a family and not wanting to spend time around the other family members. It’s clear in the Bible (Acts 2:42-46, Hebrews 10:19-25) that church life is what God wants to be the normal way of life for his children.
Corporate worship and teaching should also be a main means of making Christians stronger. Church should be the place where we grow deeper in our understanding of Scripture and how to live the Christian life, as well as a place of great synergy where Christians get organized and mobilized in pursing God’s purposes in the world, and are all the more empowered to do so by the mutual encouragement that comes from fellowship. With this in mind, the question “Can someone be saved and not go to church” is a lot like the question, “Can someone eat only crackers and water and still survive.” The answer is yes, but it would be very far from ideal.
This quote from Book I, ch. 2 in Mere Christianity seems to say it about as well as can be said:
“God can show Himself as He really is only to real men. And that means not simply to men who are individually good, but to men who are united together in a body, loving one another, helping one another, showing Him to one another. For that is what God meant humanity to be like: like players in one band, or organs in one body.
Consequently, the one really adequate instrument for learning about God is the whole Christian community, waiting for Him together. Christian brotherhood is, so to speak, the technical equipment for this science - the laboratory outfit.”
As for the question of the necessity of going to church, if we say that attending or having membership in a church is necessary for salvation, then we would be saying that Christ alone isn't sufficient to save someone, without the additional act of our church attendance. So, no, a person's eternal salvation doesn't depend on church attendance, it depends on surrendering one's heart to God.
However, it is God’s design for Christians to be in fellowship with each other. To become a Christian is to be adopted into God’s family. It’s hard to imagine someone being adopted into a family and not wanting to spend time around the other family members. It’s clear in the Bible (Acts 2:42-46, Hebrews 10:19-25) that church life is what God wants to be the normal way of life for his children.
Corporate worship and teaching should also be a main means of making Christians stronger. Church should be the place where we grow deeper in our understanding of Scripture and how to live the Christian life, as well as a place of great synergy where Christians get organized and mobilized in pursing God’s purposes in the world, and are all the more empowered to do so by the mutual encouragement that comes from fellowship. With this in mind, the question “Can someone be saved and not go to church” is a lot like the question, “Can someone eat only crackers and water and still survive.” The answer is yes, but it would be very far from ideal.
This quote from Book I, ch. 2 in Mere Christianity seems to say it about as well as can be said:
“God can show Himself as He really is only to real men. And that means not simply to men who are individually good, but to men who are united together in a body, loving one another, helping one another, showing Him to one another. For that is what God meant humanity to be like: like players in one band, or organs in one body.
Consequently, the one really adequate instrument for learning about God is the whole Christian community, waiting for Him together. Christian brotherhood is, so to speak, the technical equipment for this science - the laboratory outfit.”
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Am I Still Saved If...?
It seems to me that too many discussions about God revolve around the question of whether or not someone or some group is "saved." Obviously, this is an all important question, but it can take us off track for two reasons:
1) We cannot know that. God alone is the judge. We do know from the Bible that one non-negotiable point of Christian belief is that there is no means of salvation apart from Christ, but we cannot know how Christ will apply or make available his saving power to every person. There is no way we can know the countless factors at play in someone's heart and mind by which God will judge the person. God decides who is saved and who is not, and he doesn't make known to us the salvation status of other people ahead of time. There's only one person whose salvation status he makes clear to me, and that is me.
Though it seems tragically clear in the Bible that there will be a number of people who reject God and so are forever separated from Him, I have no way to (and no business in) presuming to know who those people are. This doesn't mean, of course, that we're not called to discern between truth and lies, but we cannot say when someone believes a lie that we know the person will go to Hell. We can say that Hell is a reality and that it is a real possibility, but as far as identifying particular people, only God knows.
2) Centering everything on the question of who is and isn't saved fosters a lazy and shallow way of thinking and living. If the question is "Can I believe something that's not true and still be saved?" or "Can I behave badly and still be saved?" Then it's easy to discuss important issues as a means to finding the lowest possible standard: "If believing a lie is easier or more comfortable than believing the truth, but I can still be saved, I'll just keep believing the lie." or "If I can be saved and still gratify myself by behaving this way even though it’s contrary to God's will for my life, I'll keep doing it."
Ironically, "saved" people wouldn't think like this anyway.
The real question around which all theological discussion should be centered is what is true about God?
Have you ever been troubled by how quick some people are to assume knowledge of someone else's eternal state? On the other hand, have you ever been troubled by someone who takes the idea of Hell too lightly?
MM
1) We cannot know that. God alone is the judge. We do know from the Bible that one non-negotiable point of Christian belief is that there is no means of salvation apart from Christ, but we cannot know how Christ will apply or make available his saving power to every person. There is no way we can know the countless factors at play in someone's heart and mind by which God will judge the person. God decides who is saved and who is not, and he doesn't make known to us the salvation status of other people ahead of time. There's only one person whose salvation status he makes clear to me, and that is me.
Though it seems tragically clear in the Bible that there will be a number of people who reject God and so are forever separated from Him, I have no way to (and no business in) presuming to know who those people are. This doesn't mean, of course, that we're not called to discern between truth and lies, but we cannot say when someone believes a lie that we know the person will go to Hell. We can say that Hell is a reality and that it is a real possibility, but as far as identifying particular people, only God knows.
2) Centering everything on the question of who is and isn't saved fosters a lazy and shallow way of thinking and living. If the question is "Can I believe something that's not true and still be saved?" or "Can I behave badly and still be saved?" Then it's easy to discuss important issues as a means to finding the lowest possible standard: "If believing a lie is easier or more comfortable than believing the truth, but I can still be saved, I'll just keep believing the lie." or "If I can be saved and still gratify myself by behaving this way even though it’s contrary to God's will for my life, I'll keep doing it."
Ironically, "saved" people wouldn't think like this anyway.
The real question around which all theological discussion should be centered is what is true about God?
Have you ever been troubled by how quick some people are to assume knowledge of someone else's eternal state? On the other hand, have you ever been troubled by someone who takes the idea of Hell too lightly?
MM
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Letter To A Mormon Friend: What Must One Believe?
Recently I've been in conversation with an LDS friend. We talked about the differences in essential and nonessential beliefs and the question of what someone must do or believe to be a Christian.
I wrote a letter to him in response to this question. I thought the points that came up are important for all Christians to think about, so I'm posting the full text of the letter, though I don't use his real name:
Joe,
As for your question:
"The question I was asking about what makes someone Christian was more around the concept of unessential doctrines/beliefs like baptism, speaking in tongues, etc that we discussed. If I asked most Christians what you have to do to be saved and be a Christian, what would they say?”
You raise the question that is at the heart of it all: What makes someone a Christian, or what do you have to do to be saved?
As we talked about before, I think we should always make a distinction between those who are level headed, circumspect, and genuinely interested in the Truth, with those who base their beliefs completely on what is familiar and comfortable. I often think of this as the difference between those who seek Truth before comfort and those who seek comfort before Truth. But this is not a dynamic unique to Christians. It’s true about the differences in the way different people think in most areas of life.
Anyway, if you asked a Christian of the first type this question: "What do you have to do to be saved and be a Christian?" many would likely quote Jesus in John 6 when he responds to those who had sought him after the miracle of the loaves and fish:
"Then they asked him, 'What must we do to do the works God requires?' Jesus answered, 'The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.' ” (John 6:28-29).
As you have often rightly pointed out, many take this in isolation from the rest of Scripture and hold a lazy and, I think, heartless view of Christianity expressed in the phrase "all you have to do is believe." This is the mindset that takes grace as a license for indolence; it is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who was killed for standing up to the Nazis, called "cheap grace."
But the essence of the belief Jesus requires--the kind that makes someone a Christian--is made very clear throughout the Bible. Real belief is that which affects the heart and inevitably shows in one's behavior in all aspects of life. This is explained in the book of James: "But someone will say, 'You have faith; I have deeds.' Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder." (James 2:18-19). To me it is an eye-opener that James is basically saying that believing correct doctrine doesn't keep demons from being demons. But real belief in Christ is that which manifests in action. The same point is made throughout the gospels, in the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19, in Jesus' parable of the two sons in Matthew 21, and very explicitly by Jesus in Matthew 7:13-29. I should add to this that the other essential part of genuine Christian belief, the part which you might say is the act of opening the door to God, is confession of sin. Christian faith requires that we admit to God that, on our own, we have not and cannot live the way we should, and are in desperate need of his forgiveness.
Of course, you will find some people who will say one must receive and demonstrate certain spiritual gifts, like speaking in tongues, to have salvation. Others might say that the act of baptism is essential. Other, more legalistic-minded people might measure everything in the negative and say you cannot be a Christian if you drink wine or beer (regardless the motive or context) or if you enjoy secular music, etc. But, almost always, these are the second type of people described above.
More specifically to your question (and our arguments) about doctrine, I think Christian doctrine places on us what we could call incremental accountability, similar to the way a child's accountability with money grows incrementally. An eight-year-old can't be judged too harshly if he spends fifty dollars on a candy bar. He would be wrong for doing so, but he can't be expected to understand the extent to which he is wrong. On the other hand, a mentally healthy thirty-eight-year-old would be judged horribly irresponsible for doing the same thing. So, those Christians who lived in the second half of the first century who wrongly believed that only Jewish people could be Christians or that Christians were required to adhere to Old Testament laws were wrong. It's clear from Paul's letters to the Galatians and Colossians that they were very wrong. But I think we would be even more wrong than they were if we believed this. We are more accountable than they were for the doctrine we believe and teach because we have been given more resources (like Galatians and Colossians, and the rest of the NT) for understanding what is true about God.
When we stand before God one day I don't believe he will judge us by giving us a theology exam. He will judge our heart. He will judge us on the basis of whether or not we trusted him and surrendered ourselves to him as shown by our actions and the motives behind them. But a sure sign of a bad heart is someone who chooses to believe and teach false doctrines even after the opportunities and resources to know the truth have been made available to him.
I'm not just aiming this point at you personally, but, as you know, this is my general thought about most modern, educated Mormons:
For a literate, well-educated person who has seemingly limitless access, not only to the Bible and LDS Scriptures, but also to the tools, the evidence, and the freedom to study them--for such a person to continue to believe that God is an evolved human being, that blacks and Native Americans are not white because they are the cursed descendants of Cain and Laman, that a large-scale civilization with huge cities and elaborate infrastructure existed somewhere in North or Central America less than two millennia ago without leaving a shred of archaeological evidence, and that a man who married over thirty women and passed off as Scripture a document (The Book of Abraham) that is a proven forgery was a prophet of God--to continue to believe these things, even if they were taught from birth, is to be shamefully irresponsible. I believe this is ultimately a matter of the heart. It is evidence that one has placed other things--family relations, culture, etc.--above a concern for the Truth.
So, in other words, what ultimately makes someone right before God is his or her heart condition, not doctrinal precision. But believing clearly false doctrines when one should know better is a sign of a bad heart condition. It is a sign that a person is not fully surrendered to God.
I hope this was in the ball park of your question. Hopefully we can get together again some time and talk face to face. Email is great but not sufficient for conversations as important as these.
Thanks for always discussing,
Mike
I wrote a letter to him in response to this question. I thought the points that came up are important for all Christians to think about, so I'm posting the full text of the letter, though I don't use his real name:
Joe,
As for your question:
"The question I was asking about what makes someone Christian was more around the concept of unessential doctrines/beliefs like baptism, speaking in tongues, etc that we discussed. If I asked most Christians what you have to do to be saved and be a Christian, what would they say?”
You raise the question that is at the heart of it all: What makes someone a Christian, or what do you have to do to be saved?
As we talked about before, I think we should always make a distinction between those who are level headed, circumspect, and genuinely interested in the Truth, with those who base their beliefs completely on what is familiar and comfortable. I often think of this as the difference between those who seek Truth before comfort and those who seek comfort before Truth. But this is not a dynamic unique to Christians. It’s true about the differences in the way different people think in most areas of life.
Anyway, if you asked a Christian of the first type this question: "What do you have to do to be saved and be a Christian?" many would likely quote Jesus in John 6 when he responds to those who had sought him after the miracle of the loaves and fish:
"Then they asked him, 'What must we do to do the works God requires?' Jesus answered, 'The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.' ” (John 6:28-29).
As you have often rightly pointed out, many take this in isolation from the rest of Scripture and hold a lazy and, I think, heartless view of Christianity expressed in the phrase "all you have to do is believe." This is the mindset that takes grace as a license for indolence; it is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who was killed for standing up to the Nazis, called "cheap grace."
But the essence of the belief Jesus requires--the kind that makes someone a Christian--is made very clear throughout the Bible. Real belief is that which affects the heart and inevitably shows in one's behavior in all aspects of life. This is explained in the book of James: "But someone will say, 'You have faith; I have deeds.' Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder." (James 2:18-19). To me it is an eye-opener that James is basically saying that believing correct doctrine doesn't keep demons from being demons. But real belief in Christ is that which manifests in action. The same point is made throughout the gospels, in the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19, in Jesus' parable of the two sons in Matthew 21, and very explicitly by Jesus in Matthew 7:13-29. I should add to this that the other essential part of genuine Christian belief, the part which you might say is the act of opening the door to God, is confession of sin. Christian faith requires that we admit to God that, on our own, we have not and cannot live the way we should, and are in desperate need of his forgiveness.
Of course, you will find some people who will say one must receive and demonstrate certain spiritual gifts, like speaking in tongues, to have salvation. Others might say that the act of baptism is essential. Other, more legalistic-minded people might measure everything in the negative and say you cannot be a Christian if you drink wine or beer (regardless the motive or context) or if you enjoy secular music, etc. But, almost always, these are the second type of people described above.
More specifically to your question (and our arguments) about doctrine, I think Christian doctrine places on us what we could call incremental accountability, similar to the way a child's accountability with money grows incrementally. An eight-year-old can't be judged too harshly if he spends fifty dollars on a candy bar. He would be wrong for doing so, but he can't be expected to understand the extent to which he is wrong. On the other hand, a mentally healthy thirty-eight-year-old would be judged horribly irresponsible for doing the same thing. So, those Christians who lived in the second half of the first century who wrongly believed that only Jewish people could be Christians or that Christians were required to adhere to Old Testament laws were wrong. It's clear from Paul's letters to the Galatians and Colossians that they were very wrong. But I think we would be even more wrong than they were if we believed this. We are more accountable than they were for the doctrine we believe and teach because we have been given more resources (like Galatians and Colossians, and the rest of the NT) for understanding what is true about God.
When we stand before God one day I don't believe he will judge us by giving us a theology exam. He will judge our heart. He will judge us on the basis of whether or not we trusted him and surrendered ourselves to him as shown by our actions and the motives behind them. But a sure sign of a bad heart is someone who chooses to believe and teach false doctrines even after the opportunities and resources to know the truth have been made available to him.
I'm not just aiming this point at you personally, but, as you know, this is my general thought about most modern, educated Mormons:
For a literate, well-educated person who has seemingly limitless access, not only to the Bible and LDS Scriptures, but also to the tools, the evidence, and the freedom to study them--for such a person to continue to believe that God is an evolved human being, that blacks and Native Americans are not white because they are the cursed descendants of Cain and Laman, that a large-scale civilization with huge cities and elaborate infrastructure existed somewhere in North or Central America less than two millennia ago without leaving a shred of archaeological evidence, and that a man who married over thirty women and passed off as Scripture a document (The Book of Abraham) that is a proven forgery was a prophet of God--to continue to believe these things, even if they were taught from birth, is to be shamefully irresponsible. I believe this is ultimately a matter of the heart. It is evidence that one has placed other things--family relations, culture, etc.--above a concern for the Truth.
So, in other words, what ultimately makes someone right before God is his or her heart condition, not doctrinal precision. But believing clearly false doctrines when one should know better is a sign of a bad heart condition. It is a sign that a person is not fully surrendered to God.
I hope this was in the ball park of your question. Hopefully we can get together again some time and talk face to face. Email is great but not sufficient for conversations as important as these.
Thanks for always discussing,
Mike
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