Dr. Bill Fleming, Jr.

A Prayer for New Year's Day

2012-01-01T13:11:00.002-05:00

Gracious Father,

I know from experience that resolutions are worthless. My resolve is far too weak to guarantee fidelity to any resolution I make today. If I could keep my own self-promises, I would have already done it and not be asking from You again.
Though resolve may be weak, prayer is strong. You do not your forget your promises like I do. You will remember the wishes of my heart when my weakness has dropped caused my resolutions to crumble into dust.
Let me not waste Your time with resolutions which I cannot keep. Instead, I ask of You Who made all thing by Your all powerful word and keeps the universe together by the strength of your resolve, to grant these requests on New Year's Day.
-- For all things, Lord, let me be grateful.   I have lived like a grumbling miser, complaining over how little I have while surrounded by unbelievable abundance. I complain about the heat in the sunshine and about the cold in the snow. I complain about thirst in the ocean and hunger at the feast.     Let me appreciate the wonders in even one of life's moment. Let me see Your true nature as a generous, bountiful God who has given me all I need to be happy, and all I can handle of the glories of the earth. Let me appreciate the year before me and replace worry with contentment in Your blessings.
--Grant me a compassionate, forgiving heart. Help me not to seek forgiveness for myself when I will not grant it to others, or for you to relieve my troubles while I give trouble to others. You will not give me grace if I am not willing to give grace.
--Lord, do not give me more joy, but put inside me a realization of the joy you have already given. Don't let me seek what I already have. Your joy lies dormant within. Grand me the wisdom and the childish faith to let that joy come alive.
--Finally Lord, give me the pleasure of your company. The barrier between your reality and my perception lies only in my own blindness. Tear down that curtain and reveal Your Presence all around me. You are not distant from me. The world throbs with the beating of Your heart and teems with the energy of Your life. Help me to hear that ever-present heartbeat and feel that life-giving pultse.
This Christmas, we celebrated your coming. Now, we have packed up the Christmas decorations and put aside the remembrance of Your birth. In its place let me put the recognition of Your constant Presence in the rightful center of my life, and keep it there for all the year.

In Christ's name, Amen.

A close shave

2011-12-14T09:03:00.000-05:00

I was getting a haircut the other day, and the barber started shaving my hairline. He was using an old straight razor.
"Is that hard to learn, shaving with one of those things?"
"Not really," he said. "It's all in the angle you hold it. I wouldn't try it on myself, though."
That did not make me feel better. Nevertheless I asked him.
"Do you still have people come in with a full shave?"
"oh sure. Some men come in once a week for a shave. Others come in once a year, or for a special occasion as a treat."
"Why would a man want a shave for a treat?"
"Have you ever had one?"
Confessed that I had not.
"Well, you won't get it down at the hair styling place at the mall. It takes real barber to give a really close shave."
What the heck, I thought. I'm fifty-eight and never had a close shave.
"Okay, " I said. "Let's do it.
For the first time in my life, I experienced the ritual of a close shave. It was a formal ritual, a rite no less elegant than a Japanese tea ceremony or an Arab dinner, practiced by barbers since ancient times.
First he took a hot, wet towel and wrapped my entire face as he arranged his ritual instruments.
"What's that for?" My words were muffled by the towel.
"The heat makes the hairs stand up on the face. It makes them easier to cut.
'then he put hot lather over my whole lower half of my face, except for the goatee area. Then, with presice, flowing strokes, he trimmed the area next to the beard, the sideburns and the ears. A few long, quick strokes denuded the rest of the foamy area. Finally, he stepped back and admired his work. seeing a few rough spots, he dabbed more hot lather over them, and shaved them again. Finally, he wrapped the whole face again with a hot towel and topped it off with a splash of bay rum. Then, he spun the chair around and showed me his work. "What do you think?" he said.
It was amazing. For ten bucks, I felt like a million. My face was so smooth that fleas could use it as a slip-and-slide.
I was going to say something about grace at the end of this--how a common man can be made to feel like a man through this simple grooming ritual, and how much it is like the cleansing of sin available in God's grace, but that would probably be too preachy.
But I will say this, For one brief moment, I felt once again that I was a young man. At least fifty-five or fifty-six.

A Good Church Closes

2011-12-07T18:14:00.001-05:00

Last week, the session of the Good Shepherd church where I have been preaching voted to close the doors. I had only been with this congregation for a little over two months. During that time, we have laughed, prayed, and wept together. I have become very fond of them.
The reason for the closing comes down ultimately to money and people. The church had been living under a tremendous overhead--more than four thousand a month. When I arrived, the numbers had dwindled to about twenty-five. the lease runs out at the end of the month. We had found a place to go, but when it came close to the time to make a move, many of the original people decided that they were either unable or just too tired to make another move. So next Sunday will be their last.
There has been a steady stream of trucks coming up to the church, picking up items that will go to many other churches. My old church got new choir chairs. A Liberian Christian church will get a piano. A half dozen churches will profit financially from what this church had.
I thank God for Good Shepherd church and all its members. Even till the very end, it never became a depressed, self-absorbed fellowship. the people genuinely love others. They genuinely love Christ. They are wonderful prayers and lovers. they have embraced all kinds of people, from the mayor of the town to the homeless people on the street. They have nothing to be ashamed of as a group.
The really sad part about this closing is that it will make four churches I have seen close in a year. It seems to be a trend.
It is not surprising. We are living in a different world than the one we lived in when I was young. In this world, church is not part of the lives of the majority of people. The social Christianity that sustained a plethora of churches across the country is passing away, In its place is a hard, secular world that is hostile to institutional Christianity.
The only good thing I can say about all this is that maybe it will cause us as Christians to rethink what church is supposed to be. it was never intended to be an institution. It is a life, a way of living. That is why Christians were originally called the Way. We have been building buildings. We should have been building people.
As for the Good Shepherd church, it will never end. It will go on, because the people in it are alive.
Take a fire and spread its' sparks. The weak ones will go out, but the strong ones will start new fires. Scatter a church and the same things happens. Those who were insincere will stay away from organized religion or sink into the background. but when we are on fire for Christ, we will share that fire everywhere we go.
Good Shepherd is gone, but Good shepherd people are just beginning to spread the love of Christ. What a fire they will start wherever they go!

What is Religion for, Anyway?

2011-10-27T16:03:00.004-04:00

Several years ago, I taught an inservice for hospital workers on the subject "spirituality and care giving." It was a challenge. How can an evangelical pastor like myself talk about "spirituality" apart from faith? Is there such a thing as a spirituality that is not directly linked to being Christian?
If we are talking about Spirit with a big S, there isn't. The Holy Spirit is given to those who believe in Christ. This is an important and non-negotiable part of the faith.
If, on the other hand we are talking about something else--the human spirit--then there may be something to it.
The human "spirit" as we commonly use the term refers to the part of us that contains our motivation. It is the part of us that makes us do what we do, whether or not it is in our immediate self interest. The human spirit is the part of us that determines what we do, why we do it, and what we will endure. It is how we answer the basic questions of existence.
Suppose we have cancer. In order to survive, we must endure a painful treatment. Why should a person endure the pain in order to stay in this world? This is a question for the spirit, not the mind or the emotions. It is a question of values. Is living better than dying? Is enduring pain worth the trouble? People answer this in different ways, but the fact that any of us puts up with pain, when we could end it all is proof that the human spirit exists.
Suppose we join the military and go to war. What sense does it make? If all we are is an animal, with feelings and thoughts, the idea of jeopardizing our lives for a good greater than ourselves just does not make sense. It is not an intellectual question of whether we should give ourselves in sacrifice or preserve our lives into the future. It is a spiritual question.
Suppose we have a chance to cheat on our spouse with an attractive person, with the absolute assurance that they would never know. Why should we resist? Why not do it and lie about it? It is a matter of value, not emotions. Emotions tell us one thing, our spirit says another.
My point is this. All people, whether religious or non religious, must make decisions of the spirit. These decisions are neither emotional nor intellectual, since no sane person could conclude that we should throw our lives away based on what we see around us, nor could we imagine a situation where it would feel better to endure pain than not endure it. These value judgments are based on faith in what we believe.
We cannot go a day without spiritual decisions. Each day, we must choose to get up out of the bed, what breakfast cereal is good for our body, whether or not to have a second cup of coffee. These are value decisions, based on what we believe to be important. They are the only reason we do not sleep ourselves out of a job, or eat ourselves to death. They require faith in the future to make them, based on our system of belief.
This is where religion comes into the picture. Our view of God is the basis for our faith system. If there is not God, and does it make any sense to go to church and worship Him? If there is no afterlife, does it make any sense to forgo pleasure here for future reward? Only our faith can give us sufficient purpose to be more than than we are now.
This is very important to us who serve as shepherds and leaders of the faith. We must realize that what we are teaching is hugely important. It affects every moment of every day of everyone on earth. There is nothing casual about it. It is vital. Even if (and I do not for a moment believe this) there is no life after this one, it would still be vital.
It is easy for us preachers to forget this. We treat the Bible as an intellectual exercise, and theology as an esoteric province of the mind alone. We are often guilty of substituting dogma for faith and good feelings for conviction. What we believe is tranformative only when we really believe it. It is desperately important for us to know what it is.
The people who fill our pews know this better than we who fill the pulpits. They do not come to hear us for lectures on the sexual habits of the Philistines or to hear what Moses did to the Amelkites. They come to help them decide whether to stay at their jobs, to keep persevering, or keep their marriage vows. They come to be given something to live for or die for, not to be tickled and teased. Simply put, they come to find God.
That is the reason we have religion, so we can find our way to God. If they don't find Him in church, they will look for Him somewhere else.

"Pilates, Now!"

2011-10-18T18:05:00.000-04:00

On my way to work this morning, I passed a large, beautiful uptown church. I could not see it's name or or it's denomination. What I could see though, was big banner on the front yard declaring "Pilates, Now!" Pilates, in case the reader is uninformed, is some kind of aerobic exercise class.

How curious! Most of the time, churches want their name known. After all, they are lighthouses to the world, beacons of hope and faith in a world of darkness and despair. But in this case, the most visible thing about this church was that they offered Pilates classes.

Here's the Church and Here's the People

2011-10-14T19:25:00.000-04:00

Presbytery was last Tuesday. Presbytery meetings are pretty much the same as the last thirty-five years of report I have seen--the same old stuff about rotating pulpits, student sermons, examinations that are virtually interchangeable. Perhaps one day we'll just record the whole meeting and play it back at the next meeting, thus saving us the trip. I doubt if anyone would notice.
However, there are always one or two bits of business that makes this enjoyable expediency impossible. Those are the few minutes of presbytery where something gets done. One in this case was the report on small, struggling churches and how we can help them.
Helping small churches is a lot like trying to get rid of poverty. Churches begin, grow old, and die just like everything else. The church universal continues forever just as the Bible says, but as it does it sheds its individual cells, just like our bodies do. God's church survives. Individual churches do not. They fall like autumn leaves.

Preaching Naked

2011-10-05T16:03:00.000-04:00

Preaching is the art of simplicity. It is the task of taking the most complex and perplexing theological concepts and turning them into something that children can understand. If we are not being told that our preaching is too simplistic, that we are appealing to children and spiritual babes, then we are not doing a very good job.

John Wesley, it is said, read his sermons to his chambermaid and if there was something she could not understand, he cut it out. Paul understood this need for simplicity when he said "I was determined to preach nothing among you but Christ, and Him crucified." Jesus originated this call to simplicity when he invited the children to come to him, and when he spoke in stories and parables. There is no Biblical warrant for speaking over the heads of people, nor is there any warrant for using the pulpit as a stage for theatrical oratory.

Birthday Blessings

2011-09-17T10:07:00.000-04:00

Today is my fifty-eight birthday. That means I am middle=aged, if I live to be a hundred and sixteen. Not that I feel it. In many ways, I feel younger than I have ever been . Aside from gray hair, slowness of body and forgetfulness of mind, I could still be twenty five. It's an exciting time for me right now--I am beginning a new job, writing books, making new friends, and learning new things all the time. Instead of winding down, I am just winding up. I am looking forward to the future, growing spiritually and in happiness. I plan to write at least nine books before I dea, and to influence at least one more generation.
Besides that, I as I hurtle into geezer-hood, there is so much to look forward to. Such as

Seventy Virgins

2011-09-14T14:39:00.002-04:00

Who can forget 9/11, 2001? What a horrible day it was. We all watched, transfixed as the horror unfolded, as we watched the destruction of the twin towers, the attack on the pentagon, and the crash of flight 93. The hardest part of it was trying to understand why these people did what they did. It made no sense that a man who was sane enough to learn to fly an airplane could be insane enough to crash it into a building, killing himself as well as hundreds of others.
As the drama unfolded, we began to understand something of their motivations. They were driven by religious fanaticism. Some people will kill for politics, but they will die for religion. When a person believes in an afterlife of heaven, they will be willing to give their lives for it.
As more came out about these men who performed this unspeakable act in Allah's name, it became obvious that they had come to believe in a very worldly vision of that afterlife. They were like the famous Hashishim (assassins) of the Crusader period, who were brainwashed by their fanatical leader into believing in a literal, worldly afterlife of eternal gluttony and sexual depravity, a place where they would each receive seventy virgin brides.
Seventy virgins. If it weren't so serious it would be funny. I should think that if such a place existed it would not be heaven for terrorists but hell for virgins. Imagine seventy eternally young women being left with a one scruffy old man for company! Imagine that these women never aged, either physically or mentally, but remained perpetual teenagers forever.
I have never had seventy virgin wives, but I have lived with three teenaged daughters at the same time. If that is someone's view of heaven, I would rather skip it. Imagine the mood swings, the petty jealousies, the competition for attention they would go through, and you in the middle, trying to please them. Imagine the headaches when your virgins find out that Achmed next door has a charge account at the heavenly mall, and Achmed's virgins can buy whatever they want. Imagine the time they would spend primping and preening. Seventy virgins would have to come equipped with at least seventy one-golden bathrooms.
Speaking of bathrooms, what about that one long, continual feast? There are very few things I could eat for all eternity without getting tired of them. Would they be immune to obesity and to indigestion? Would they ever complain of having the some old thing day after day for a thousand years? We can even grow tired of steak and pizza.
There is a universal principle in life that says once a worldly pleasure has been experienced, it is never quite as good the second time. Pleasure is in newness and discovery. Even seventy virgins bearing grape clusters in their hands will eventually get a little bit old in a century or two.
It seems to me that those terrorists, even if they got their reward, in time would grow to resent it.
Or suppose they did not receive seventy virgins. Suppose they received one virgin, a beautiful young bride who never grew old. It sounds good, buy how long would it stay good? Not long, After a while, no matter how attractive the woman may be, you would want to engage in some good conversation. Unfortunately that is not what servile young virgins are usually about.
There is an old joke about a rich man who went to heaven. He complained to St Peter at the gate that it was unfair he could not bring any of his riches with him. St. Peter relented and declared that just this once, he could bring something he owned on earth into heaven. The man quickly returned to earth, opened his secret vault, and filled his robe with gold bars. He returned to the pearly gates, where Peter asked him what he was bringing through customs. The man showed him the gold bars.
St Peter laughed. "Foolish man," he said. "You could bring anything you wanted from earth, and all you brought were paving bricks!"
There is no end to our foolishness when it comes to heaven. What we think is so valuable here is worth nothing there. What is worth nothing here is unbelievably valuable there. Our foolishness is in trying to lay up worldly treasures in heavenly places--whether it be paving bricks or seventy virgins--when what they have in heaven is so much better.

New Experiences in Worship

2011-09-04T13:33:00.001-04:00

Well, it's been a month since I left Oak Ridge--five Sundays. During that time, I have not set foot in a church. Oh, I have gone to church, but it just so happened that none of those churches have had buildings. Only one of those churches has been ARP, or anything like what I have been used to. They have all been--shall we say--unique.

First, let me say that this is not a critique of any of these churches. I am no more qualified to critique the worship service of another church than I am qualified to criticize the Portuguese of a Brazilian pastor. I am not familiar with that language. Every church ministers to a different culture and speaks a different language of faith. It is foolish for me or for anyone else to think I know better than these congregations and who speak with God every week. No two churches are exactly the same, and so no two churches will use exactly the same style of worship and music. To judge another church is frankly arrogant.

Dancing with God

2011-08-16T10:38:00.003-04:00

There are two kinds of people on earth--those who dance and those who don't. I fall into the latter category. When you have the physique of Mr. Potato Head, you really don't look right on a dance floor.

As a non-dancer, I frankly don't understand what dancing means to those who do. Whenever I hear that songs "I Could Have Danced All Night,” I wonder how she could have done it, and why. We Presbyterians are generally rhythmically deprived anyway.

Four Visions of the Church

2011-08-14T14:10:00.001-04:00

The vision of the Christian Church is to establish an ancient dream in a modern world. Jesus said "Upon this rock, I will build my church."
Two thousand years later, we cannot even agree on the shape of the edifice that was supposed to go on that rock. Will it have stained glass windows and arches? Will it be a plain wooden box? Will it even have walls? There has never been a definitive answer to that question. We can only speak of a variety of answers--thousands of permutations and designs.
I believe there are four basic church shapes, based upon the intentions of the people who dwell in them. The true church lies somewhere in between these four shapes.
These shapes are a continuum between two intersecting axes--the cultural and missional axis. The cultural axis is how they see themselves. The missional axis is how they see their mission to the world. They represent four separate visions of the church's place in society.

In Praise of Oak Ridge Church

2011-07-30T11:28:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow concludes my ministry at Oak Ridge Church after nine short years of being their pastor. Being their pastor has been a wonderful, healing experience for my family and I.
I came to Oak Ridge after leaving a congregation of more than five hundred. I was burned out. Church and family issues had taken everything I had. I had no idea where I was going to go or what I was going to do. I was not sure I wanted to be a minister any more.
Then I got a call from a pastor who asked me to preach at his church while he was away candidating at another church. The week following that Sunday, he left the church, and Oak Ridge invited me back to fill the pulpit.

Boxes

2011-07-26T16:20:00.002-04:00

Today I finished packing up my church office--twenty boxes containing books and mementos of thirty-six years in church work. I am leaving my fifth church and my sixth church office. It is I think the seventh time I have moved those books in the past ten years.

When I left my last church, there were thirty-five boxes. That was after I had already given away at least forty percent of my library. I have come to realize that books are for reading, not for collecting dust. That's easy to remember when you are toting thirty-five boxes in and out of your car.

God was good to me, though. Oak Ridge called me to be their pastor. I unpacked my boxes in the study of our new home--only the second home we owned in thirty-six years of marriage and eight moves. Space was a problem so I unloaded twenty- four boxes onto tightly packed shelves in my small home study.

The Pursuit of Pleasure

2011-07-23T12:09:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading a book by Christian psychiatrist Dr. Archibald Hart, entitled Thrilled to Death. The book dealt with one the most prevalent psychological disorder in modern society that we have never heard of. it is called anhedonia, which means the inability to experience pleasure. People with anhedonia no longer enjoy the little pleasures of life. Hart's thesis is that almost everyone today is experiencing a measure of anhedonia. We just don't enjoy life the way our ancestors did. We don't even enjoy it the way we did as children. The problem, he said, is getting worse all the time.

Do you remember the taste of ice cream when you were a child? Didn't it seem to taste better then? Do you remember the thrill of your first kiss, the feel of grass under your toes, the laughter you experienced watching cartoons? Why don't the things we set out to enjoy feel the same way to us now?

Hart lists five causes of anhedonia--depression, physical ailments. anxiety, addictions, and over-stimulation of the pleasure centers of our brain.

Are we overstimulated for pleasure?

Let me give you an example.

A New Door and a New Adventure

2011-07-22T14:38:00.001-04:00

In nine days I will begin my new job as Director of Pastoral Studies at New Life Seminary. It's an exciting new challenge, personally, intellectually, spiritually, and financially. I relish the challenge, and look forward to beginning with my students.

It is a wonderful feeling to know that at my age, I can still start a new career. For thirty-one years, I have walked through the halls of ministry, only to find a brand new door and a new hall behind it. Beyond that, who knows? Maybe this is only one of a succession of doors for me yet to enter, each one leading to another, until I swing open the final one and step into the light in my Father's House.

I am blessed to be teaching practical ministry subjects. I am not a scholar in the the traditional sense, nor do I want to be. I admire people who are true scholars and respect their precision of thought, but for my part I would rather focus on holy practice than holy intellect. When I was younger, I wanted to be smart. Now I would rather teach wisdom. Wisdom and knowledge are not the same thing.

I pray that my God will help me to make them sufficiently challenging and helpful. I know that they will teach me as much as I will teach them. More than that, I pray that what I do and say among them will point them to the Great Teacher, before Whom we are all just mediocre students.

"Dear God, who teaches us all things, let we who teach be reflections of Your glory, so that our students will see You in what we say or do. May we drink our fill at the well of knowledge, but lead us to share what we know with wisdom and with love.

In Jesus' name, Amen."

A Visit to Hell

2011-07-09T11:55:00.000-04:00

Now for something completely different.

I am a fan of Google Earth. It's about as close to a world tour as I'm ever going to get. Sometimes I like to type a random word into the search line on it to see where I go.
Today, I typed in "hell."
Naturally, it took me to Michigan.
It was quite an interesting place. After viewing it on Google Earth, and reading up on it on Wikipedia, I know now why so many people have suggested I go there.
Hell, Michigan is nestled in the woods of Livingston County, about thirty miles northwest of Ann Arbor (home of the University of Michigan) and about sixty miles from Detroit. Somehow, it seems appropriate that both these places should be located so close in proximity to this little town. Though it is not a large place, it does have an official post office and a weather bureau site. The people who live there call themselves "hellions."
There are three theories as to how it got its name. The most flattering explanation is that a pair of German immigrants stopped nearby. One said to another the German phrase "so schon hell!" which means "So beautifully bright!" locals heard it and liked it, so the name stuck. Another explanation is that early settlers gave named the town in honor of the weather conditions in January, when there are many cold days in Hell.
That may be, but I prefer the third explanation. A man named George Reeves settled there in 1838. He set up a sawmill, store, and gristmill. Farmers brought their wheat and corn to the mill. The wheat wound up as flour, but much of the corn was turned into distilled whisky. Many farmers would bring their grain to Mr. Reeves mill, and return home in an inebriated state. When neighbors asked their wives what happened to them, they would reply "Ah, he's gone to hell!"
So it was that in 1841 when a mapmaker came through and asked Mr. Reeves what his town should be labeled, he replied "'Call it hell, for all I care. Everyone else does. "So it became officially the only Hell on earth.

There isn't much in Hell, I'm afraid. But here are a few of the local attractions:

There is a highway to Hell. It is County Road D32, also called (oddly enough) Darwin Road. It is paved with asphalt, not good intentions.
There are no churches in Hell, which is unusual for a town that size. The house of worship closest to Hell is Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah's Witness. (Didn't you always know it?)
Hell's playground has a swing set, a slide, and monkey bars.
Screams Ice cream parlor is one of two popular eateries in town. The other is the Dam Site Inn, which overlooks an artificial lake. It is filled with water, as not (so far as I know) fire.
The official Hell website, www.hell2u.com, has a store, which sells Hellish merchandise--T shirts, horn coverings (hats), and mugs that say "One Hell of a drink." There is a special section for items that are $6.66 and under.
You can become mayor of Hell for a day, for a reasonable price. One woman was given this honor on her birthday for her husband. She was unable to visit the town in person to claim her honor, but her husband assured her that this was all right. That day, he would make her feel as if she were there herself.

So the next time someone tells you to go to Hell, be assured that the local townspeople will give you a warm welcome there. I know that Joy and l plan to visit Hell on our next trip to Michigan, so we can say we've been to Hell and back.
Come to think of it, that pretty much describes our last trip to Michigan.

Grace and Tolerance

2011-07-07T15:04:00.001-04:00

What is courage?

Courage is not the absence of fear. Anyone who is fearless is clueless. The world is a dangerous place, and anyone who knows no fear is liable to have a short lifespan. Anyone who is not afraid of God's wrath is a fool, too.

Courage is not fearlessness, but having fear and doing what is expected anyway. It could be argued that courage is only possible in the presence of fear, since it takes more courage to do the right thing when you know full well the hardships and dangers it may entail. It is that ability to face our fears that is true courage.

This article is not about courage in general, though, but about that particular kind of moral courage we call grace. Grace is the ability we share with God to show mercy to those who do not deserve it--including ourselves. Grace is the willingness to overlook a person's sin and love them anyway.

Courage is not being fearless, but what we do in spite of our fear. Grace is not being non-judgmental, but being willing to recognize the sin in others, and love them anyway. Grace is something we give in spite of our feelings and opinions, not because of them.

Our culture is unique in being the only one to regard tolerance as its highest virtue. No one who exists in Western culture can miss the constant drumbeat of tolerance. This is not true of the cultures that are less pluralistic. Muslims certainly do not understand our worship of tolerance, neither do the Chinese or Russians. Even so, there is not a single place in this world that has not been exposed to the cry of nonjudgmental tolerance. Our movies, television shows, books, and even news programs proclaim it loudly. In fact, the only sin our society recognizes is being judgmental. We condemn racism, sexism, homophobia, and exclusive religion wherever they exist, and often where they do not. Modern society cringes when someone says their religion is superior to others, even though any thinking person must regard their opinion to be true, and others false. We do not tolerate intolerance.

This is a lie, of course. We are all judgmental to some degree, whether we like it or not. If we aren't, we need to be. Should we tolerate murder, theft, racism, or addiction? We were created to have judgment about what is right and wrong. Moral conscience and moral discernment are part of who we are.

Jesus did not just say "judge not," as most people think. He actually said that we should be judged with the judgment we judge others. We all judge, but Jesus warns us to be careful how we do it.

That's where grace comes into the picture as a kind of moral courage. Grace is the ability to love others despite our judgment of their opinions and actions. A person who lives by grace does not deny what is good or bad, but does not treat others according to whether they are good or bad. A grace-filled person can look at people with whom they sharply disagree or disapprove and recognize the image of God in them. Their sins and their errors are real, but we love them anyway, as God loves us.

This simple concept is all but forgotten in our modern culture. The world seems to believe that to love the sinner, we must also love the sin. Tolerance means accepting everything. Those who think this way become incapable of real grace when they encounter an idea or action which they cannot stomach. Christian grace, however, is not so restrained. We are capable of separating the sinner from the sin, of loving accepting the former without accepting the latter. We love the sinner in their sins, while they are still sinning.

The so-called non-judgmenalism of the world gives us only two options. Either we must accept everything everyone does perfectly normal and acceptable, or we must shun him. If we don't agree that the gay lifestyle is normal, we must hate gays. If we don't agree with a man's politics, we want nothing to do with him. If have a friend who is promiscuous, we must either shun him or accept his alternate lifestyle. It's all or nothing with them. The intolerantly tolerant, project their own inadequacy of grace on Christians, because they are incapable of accepting them without stereotype or caricature.

Grace, however, is much more flexible and practical. It allows people the freedom to have opinions or to live lifestyles which we do not agree with, without our ceasing to love them. We aren't perfect, just forgiven and neither is anyone else.

Grace is demonstrated in the three great relationships in our lives.

First, it is demonstrated by God. "For God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8. Jesus was not tolerant of our sin, but he was tolerant of us. He denied the revulsion that must have risen inside of Him every time he saw the way people lived, and still sacrificed Himself for us. He did not wait until we were perfect. He did not tolerate sin, but he did love the sinner.

Second it is demonstrated by ourselves towards ourselves. Many Christians live under the mistaken impression that God cannot love them if they sin. They think that if they were ever to lose their sin, then God will start loving them. Nothing could be further from the truth. God loves us now, in spite of our sin. Furthermore, He expects us to love ourselves in the same way.

Third, it is demonstrated in our love to others. The story of the Good Samaritan illustrates this beautifully. The Good Samaritan did not have to know or approve of what the man who was beaten on the road did. He didn't know if he was straight or gay, Jewish or atheist, a law-abiding citizen or a criminal. All that mattered was that he was broken and bleeding. This is not to say that if the Samaritan knew what the man did or what he believed, that he would have approved. It's just that the Samaritan saw a person hurt, and had to help.

No one said it is easy to love in the face of sin, any more than it is easy to have courage in the face of fear. But that difficulty is what makes it grace. It takes no love to love the lovely. It takes divine love to love the ugly. That love is called grace. It far better than mere modern tolerance. It is far more honest, too.

A Change of Life

2011-07-03T17:40:00.000-04:00

Now it can be told.

I am going to start next month as the Director of Pastoral Studies at New Life Theological Seminary in Charlotte.

It has been a long, agonizing decision-making process to decide. It is a real change of direction for me. I am going from a full-time job to a part time one, from pastoring to teaching, and from rural ministry to urban ministry. But I know that God is going with me. He has confirmed over and over during the past two months that this is the direction He wants me to go.

I told my church this morning. It was a both a tearful and joyful experience--tearful, in leaving a church that has been our home for nine years now, but joyful because I know that this is the direction God is leading, and it promises to be an adventure.

We have nothing but love and gratitude for the people of Oak Ridge. They have given us a home and a productive ministry. My two grandchildren were baptized in that sanctuary, and two of my daughters were married there. It will always have a special place in our hearts. But if we do not follow the call of God, we will be doing a disservice to God and the church.

We do not know what is in store for us as far as a church is concerned. I am hoping that we may have opportunities to minister somewhere. Fortunately, we have time to sort all that out later. For now, we will continue to minister at the church for a few more weeks at least.

There is nothing like a new challenge to make you feel younger. This will be challenging spiritually, intellectually, and financially. We would appreciate your prayers for the future. We are optimistic though, and looking forward to the days ahead.

Keep Oak Ridge in your prayers as well. This is a challenge for them, and a new beginning. I have every confidence that God has a plan for them.

A lesson in the Thunderstorm

2011-06-28T14:08:00.001-04:00

One of the good things about being a preacher is that you really don't have problems--just future sermon illustrations. So one day, I'll be using this last vacation in many a future sermon. In fact, I've already put one incident in my future file. It happened last Tuesday, when Joy and I were visiting her family in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her 82 year old father is an amazing man. He is still playing the trumpet in at least three marching bands. At one time, he was playing in more. I deeply admire him for his love of life and music, but I must confess I do not share his enthusiasm for band music. He has been known to listen to it for three hours straight. My limit is about ten minutes.

Anyway, last Tuesday night, the band he was supposed to be playing with had planned a seven o'clock outdoor concert in a park about twenty miles away, in the city of Wyoming. We could tell he really wanted us to go, so we agreed to go and listen. It was a sunshiny Michigan summer afternoon, but there were dark clouds on the horizon. The weather bureau had put us under a severe thunderstorm warning and a tornado watch. They called a few band members, and no one knew whether it was being called on account of weather. They had been told in case of inclement weather to go where the concert was and wait for instructions. So he decided he wanted to go anyway. Joy and I went in our own car, and my in-laws went in theirs.

As we traveled west towards the park, the weather deteriorated rapidly. Dark clouds gathered at an alarming rate. Lightning lit the sk. It was beginning to look like something out of the book of Revelation. It was soon clear that the band concert was not going to happen.

But my father-in-law was going anyway.

My in-laws do not possess a cell phone so there was no way to call and tell them we were going back. Besides we were worried about them. We could tell this was going to be an ugly one. We could see the hook formations in the sky that are potential tornadoes. We kept going because we wanted to keep an eye on them.

My mother-in-law pled with him to turn around, but he was determined to go on. They were to meet at the place, and meeting at the place was what he was going to do. Besides it had not yet started raining.

When we got within about a mile, it started raining. Buckets, sheets, and waterfalls of rain. The wind whipped the tried around like blades of grass. At that point, my father in law, whom we werefollowing, pulled into a CVS drugstore parking lot. I followed him. He opened the window and said cheerily over the screaming storm, "Guess we ought to turn around." Then he rolled up his window and took off for home.

I was not about to drive through that mess. I pulled in behind the CVS, beside a large concrete wall., to wait out the storm. At that moment, disaster struck. An oak tree, which had been growing in a neighbors yard for at least forty years, suddenly decided to break. The main part of it fell over the wall, and onto the hood of our car. It took two men to get it off, so we could get out of there. A branch penetrated my windshield just above my head. Praise God, no one was hurt. The damage was repaired well enough for us to get home. The dents will be fixed later. My father- in- law made it home just fine.

But the whole incident seemed eerily familiar to me. Then I realized that what I had was our own Abilene paradox.

The Abilene Paradox is a leadership principle coined by Dr. Jerry Harvey in his book of the same name. it explains how a group of people can get together and pursue a course that none of them want, to an end that none of them desire. It comes about when everyone is afraid to say "no" to others.

My father-in-law did not want to go out in that mess. He just did not want to let his friends down. We did not want to go, but we did not want to let him down. Four consenting adults were out in a storm doing something that not one of us wanted to do. We just did not want to say "no."

One of the most destructive forces in the world, one that does more damage than any others, is niceness. I don't mean compassion or empathy, or even good manners. I mean niceness--the compulsion we have to be liked and to be well thought of. None of us want to be disagreeable. So whenever someone in our family or on a church board makes a suggestion, no matter out casual or silly, there is a part of most of us that wants to go along. For that reason, we frequently find ourselves in corporate predicaments. No one wants to say no to a family member, a friend, or a boss. But how do we, if it is the best thing for us to do? We go along, because we have not adequately prayed and thought through an issue. So in the end, we find ourselves in a storm, and pay the price.

Problems in any organization usually start with small, careless decisions. We let bad influences in. We keep good ideas out. We keep going down the path of least resistance, even if it leads to a cliff. In the end, we forget what got us there in the first place-- that it was our niceness that caused us to go along.

I cannot help, every time I look at the dents on my car, to regret my decision just to go along that night. But in a way, I am glad it happened. God took care of us, and taught us a valuable lesson besides.

Maybe next time, I'll have the good sense to say "no."

Wild Child and Good Son

2011-06-16T20:16:00.000-04:00

Wild Child and Good Son is a book I started on years ago. It grew out of a sermon I preached on a Fathers Day while I was at Neelys Creek. It is a short, simple novel with a strong moral message. It is now available through Amazon and on Kindle. I am also getting ready to make a version available for Nook as well.

I believe in this book. It has a message for parents that is desperately needed today. I invite you friend, whoever you are, to read it, especially if you are a parent or grandparent. You can order it below.

I hope you purchase and enjoy it. If you do, please do me a favor. Write a review of it on Amazon.com, and send me a copy, so I can include it in an upcoming website. My hope is that this will be the first of many books that I will make available in the future through this means.

Here is the link. https://www.createspace.com/3512138
May you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it!

The Walking Wounded

2011-06-10T12:45:00.001-04:00

The 2011 synod was a much more pleasant experience than the last one. It seems that the storm clouds which gathered over last year's meetings, though they not completely gone had mostly cleared and patches of sunlight shone through. This certainly was the result of the diligent prayer of so many members for unity. The leadership of Steve May and Andy Putnam had a lot to do with it. I think that many of those who were so angry last year simply came to their senses and backed off. We all lose our heads in battles, but only the wise admit it.

I'd be tempted to say that such theological and moral debates as we had last year were over and forgotten this year. But this is not so. Even if the majority of us had stopped fighting the effects of those battles are still with us. World War II, Korea, and Vietnam are over, too, but we still have wounded veterans.
Theological battles are like cannon barrages--we all line up and spout off our angry words, but we do not see the human damage they do to the other side. We are shielded the results of our words by emotional distance.
When a professor is accused of heresy, he does not only feel the sting, but so does his wife, children, parents, and friends. His loved ones often take it harder than he does. Friends become enemies, students suffer, and reputations are permanently marked. A minister forced from his pulpit loses not only a job, but his church family, friends, home, security, and emotional support. A trustee is accused of being a poor influence, he takes is personally, whether or not the accusation is shouted or spoken calmly. They never completely forget the slight. It does not matter if we think the accusations are true or not, they take a serious human toll. There is no such thing as loving if we are not willing to walk with that person through the pain of recovery. There can be no true Christian concern if it does not involve real human contact. It's easier to pretend that the pain we inflicted is not our responsibility than to actually come to grips its results.
The reason I am writing about this is because of two friends I saw this week. Both I have known as loving, easygoing Christians, with a strong faith in Christ, a desire to win the lost, and a strong faith in the Lordship of Jesus and His infallible Word. Both had been hurt in the battles of the past two years. Not only were they hurt, but their families, their friends, and their churches were also hurt in the process. Neither has been able so far to get beyond the pain. Both were still struggling to get beyond the hurts and forgive. I do not blame them at all for having a hard time with letting it go. Forgiveness is a process, not a declaration.
I once heard it said that the church was the only army that shoots it wounded. It is easy to let the past go, but we have to remember those who are still experiencing that pain. Maybe eventually they will get over the hurt of the Erskine debacle, but not now, not yet. We should keep them in our prayers, our thoughts, and our hearts

Remembering Heroes

2011-05-30T13:41:00.000-04:00

They did not join to be heroes.

They joined because they could not find jobs. Or they joined because they wanted to go to college and they needed the money. Or they joined on a lark. Or they joined because they were young kids who wanted to be men and women, and they thought it would toughen them up. Or they joined because they loved their country with a kind of puppy love, an idealistic, simplistic, love that did not yet know the meaning of sacrifice. Or they joined just to get away from home.

But they did join, that was the main thing. They made the commitment and they took the oath.

When they got joined, it was nothing like they thought. They thought their enemy was on the other side. Instead they found their first enemy was the drill sergeant at basic--angry, tough, demanding, uncompromising. They all hated him at first, but he wasn't there to be liked.

As the training went on, they discovered the reality of the world, that their instructors were not the enemy. The first enemy was themselves. They groaned at every reveille. They groaned through every pushup, and every four mile run. Their bodies ached and rebelled. But they prevailed. They fought their way through homesickness, loneliness, doubt, and fear, and they won. They beat themselves.

Along the way they made friends -- boys becoming men and girls becoming women--all becoming soldiers together.

Their unit became a new family, as precious to them as the family they left at home. They did not think of their country, some abstract idea, or the dangers ahead. They only thought of those buddies around them that they loved, and the wives, mothers, brothers, sisters, and girlfriends they left behind.

When the time came to go to war, they went out of obedience,. Obedience was the true fruit and the true gift they were given in all those weeks of basic training. They had learned to be part of something greater than themselves, which is what it means to be mature. They were no longer boys. They were men, who bore their part of the burden of the world.

There is no good war. War is the closest thing to hell on earth, where those who fight are both the tormented and the tormentors. It is dead bodies, broken limbs, weeping mothers and crying children. Anyone who glorifies war glorifies hell. Anyone who wishes for war wishes for hell. No one sane wants to be there.

But when their time came to put their lives on the line, they stood. They did not stand there because they loved their country. Most did not know why they stood, or the exact nature of the cause for which they fought. They stood there because of their buddies. They stood there because of those at home, whom they all, on both sides felt were in danger. Most of all, they stood there because they wanted to stand for their own honor, so that they would not be cowards. Their fear of being a coward was greater than their fear of death. The months of training and preparation had given them that honor and self respect, and now the honor and the man had become one. They were inseparable.

That was the point when the boys and girls who had become men and women became heroes, and their honor became greater than life itself.

Wars are fought for all kinds of reasons. Some of our wars were fought out of necessity. Others we have stumbled into needlessly. No one is wise enough to say with certainty which one was which. But wars and the military have given us one gift that is greater even than freedom itself. It has produced men and women of honor who will sacrifice and serve others the rest of their lives.

So God bless our troops. God bless our veterans. We thank you and the military for the gift of lifetime heroes.

Justice and forgiveness

2011-05-02T15:47:00.000-04:00

Joy and I have just returned from a weekend mini-vacation in the mountains when we got the news about Ben Laden.

My first reaction was happiness. Frankly, I am glad he's dead.

My next was shame for being happy about another man's death. After all, aren't we supposed to forgive? Matthew 5:43-46 says "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. " How could I rejoice in the death of another?

When I was a young, I was practically a pacifist. I believed that all war and all violence was wrong, unless it was for the purpose of saving lives. I am still inclined in that direction. The killing of Ben Laden however certainly qualifies as a just use of force. History will never know how many thousands of lives may have been saved by stopping the heart of that evil mastermind. I believe it fits Augustine's definition of a just war--unavoidable, necessary, limited in its effect, and for the purpose of saving lives, not taking them.

As I've grown older though, I realize that there is another reason for the killing of Ben Laden--justice. Evil cries out for closure.

Forgiveness is easy for easy offenses. But anyone who has personally experienced serious harm done intentionally, forgiveness is more than letting go a few bad feelings. We might experience a mild dislike for another, but we get over it fairly easy when we are young and innocent. We can forgive someone who hurts our feelings easier than someone who kills our child. Only when we experience real evil do we understand the real need for justice. The universe is out of kilter. We want God to even the score. Our hearts can never get rest until we do.

Whenever a murderer is executed, reporters interview the family of the victims. Mercy is the last thing on their minds. The tens of thousands of people who were the friends and relatives of those who died on 9-11 ached for justice, too. When Ben Laden was killed, they believe that justice is fulfilled. This need for justice is part of what we have inherited in a just and righteous God.

Not until we really experience serious harm do understand serious forgiveness. To lack justice is like lacking food, sleep, shelter, or love. We can give it up, but is cripples and hurts us. To give up justice is like an amputation of some part of our soul.

Forgiveness is when we voluntarily sacrifice our thirst for justice when harmed. It does not feel good. There is no instantaneous feeling of a lifted burden. What freedom forgiveness gives us comes only after a grieving that loss of justice.

Don't get me wrong. I do believe that forgiveness is important. But we must be realistic. It is the offering a portion of ours selves--our anger--as a living sacrifice to peace. It is no different from priests who submit to celibacy, or a devout believer who fasts regularly. It is a form of self-denial. In the end, it frees us from the power of anger, In the end, we are not happy about it. But at first, it hurts like fire.

I am glad Ben Laden is dead. This time, God had granted us some temporary, worldly justice. But I am also aware that the next time I might want justice I may have to settle for forgiveness. I might have give up justice in this lifetime, and that will be hard. To sacrifice our desire for justic on the altar of forgiveness is part of what it means to follow in the footsteps of Christ.

Remembering and forgetting

2011-05-02T15:26:00.001-04:00

The enemy of faith is not doubt. The enemy of faith is forgetting. Faith requires we remember. Faithlessness happens when we forget. This is the secret of Christian life and discipline.

One of my favorite passages is 2 Peter 1:5-9

" For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. "

Peter lists the fruit of the Spirit--those qualities of Jesus that the Holy Spirit adds to our nature. These graces grow one after another out of the heart that is continually watered by Christ.

In other words, spiritual fruit does not need to be manufactured. It just grows as we are attached to the living vine of Christ, who Himself is attached to God.

But what if the fruit do not appear. What went wrong?

Verse 9 "But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins."

If the fruit does not appear, then we have forgotten the cleansing of Christ.

Have you ever read the Exodus from the Bible? It is amazing that the Israelites so easily forgot the hand of God in their lives.. They saw the ten plagues, walked across the Red Sea on dry land, were fed by miracle food, watered from a moving rock, and led by a pillar of fire, yet they kept forgetting. They worried that they were going to die of hunger or thirst or be destroyed by enemies less than a tenth their size. They forgot the miracles they saw right in front of their eyes. The nation of Israel forgot the commandments over and over. The disciples forgot about Jesus' miraculous power and worried. They forgot His promises of resurrection. The church forgot salvation by grace for fifteen hundred years. Even today we don't seem to able to remember God's promises.

A man goes on a business trip, and meets an attractive woman. Suddenly, he forgets his wife and his wedding vows. A dieter sees a tasty snack and forgets he cannot have it. We see other people's sins and forget our own. We see dangers and forget God's protection. We face death and forget eternity. We face life and forget His blessings. We have amnesia of the soul, and forgetfulness of the heart.

There is only one cure for our forgetfulness--constant repetition. We need to keep praying, keep rejoicing, keep reading, keep singing, and keep worshipping. The moment we look away, we will begin to forget, and that could have disastrous results.

That's why we keep praying worshipping and reading the Bible--not so that we will learn, but so we won't forget.

Have we forgotten we are brothers? Have we forgotten our own sins? Have we forgotten that we follow in the footsteps of Jesus? We cannot keep what we cannot remember. If we remember, we still forever need to be reminded.

Maundy Thursday Message

2011-04-20T10:31:00.001-04:00

I became an ordained minister 31 years ago. Since then, I have led or assisted in almost two hundred communion services. In most of them I read the “words of institution,” as they are found in 1 Corinthians 11:23-32. Not until a couple of years ago, did I come to question what I thought was it meant, 27-32

Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.

Let’s face it--how many people have you known who have gotten sick or died because of communion? How can communion make you sick?

Yet here it is in the Bible. According to Paul, communion caused some to be sick and others to “fall asleep” that is, to die.

One interpretation is that if we take communion with a guilty conscience we are cursed by it. But I have known many unrepentant sinners to take communion, yet none of them have gotten sick by it. Besides, if sinlessness were required for communion, none of us should take it.

Another explanation is that if we take it without understanding we are guilty. But again, there are ignorant people in every church. Some whole denominations misinterpret communion, in my opinion yet you don’t see them getting sick because of it.

Here’s where I think we have it wrong. The ritual of communion was in Paul’s day very different from what it is today. In the early church, communion was the culmination of the agapae or love feast that came after the formal service. The church fathers, such as Ignatius of Antioch, Pliny the Younger, Hyppolitus of Rome, Tertullian, and many others. Everyone shared a full meal together. It was what we call today a covered dish dinner, eaten as a symbol of unity and love.

Anyone who has ever attended a church social knows what a great time it can be. But we also know what headaches they can cause, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11: 17-23.

In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. (In other words, Paul was really ticked off.)

18-19 In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. No doubt, there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God's approval.

Have you ever been to a covered dish in a church where people were not getting along? The fellowship hall becomes a war room, full of whispered conversations and angry looks. One group sits together at one table, while another group sits at another.

Disagreements don’t bother Paul. On the contrary, disagreements in the church are a healthy way of arriving at the truth. What bothered him was how they expressed their disagreement. Instead of seeing disagreements as opportunities for the common edification and growth, they were an occasion for pride, jealousy, even violence.

I once heard an elder threaten to lay a tire tool to the skull of another over a “theological disagreement.”

Some disagreements were over doctrine or practice. Some were over racial or ethnic differences. Many had to do with the way the church should relate to the world around them. Some were divisions between rich and poor. All were harmful to the peace of the church.

But these divisions were not the only problems--they weren’t even the worst problem.

20-21 When you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk.

People seemed to have forgotten that this was a “love” feast. In their minds, it was just another covered dish. They were not asking the question “How can I used this as an opportunity to show my brothers and sisters how much I care for them?” Instead they were saying “How do I keep Peter from eating all the biscuits?”

The result of this was that those who were slower got nothing, while those who were faster got too much. So instead of it being a love feast, it was a gluttony festival—an all-you-can-eat night at Shoneys.

But even that was not the worst.

Don't you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? Certainly not!

People watched what the others brought. Those who brought a lot thought they were getting cheated. Those who brought nothing resented those who did, because they were not bringing more. If people did not contribute to the meal they sent them home or made them get to the back of the line. Those who brought a lot got to go first.

Paul contrasted their attitude with Jesus’ at the Last Supper

23-26 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Paul begins. “The Lord Jesus On the same night he was betrayed.’

Why betrayed? Why not on the same night he was arrested? On the same night he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane? Why not on the same night he washed his disciples feet?

Jesus knew Judas was betraying him, but he washed his feet anyway. He made sure the Judas got a good meal before he went out to betray him. He loved him and continued to love him whether he betrayed him or not. Jesus gave Judas a sop from his own hand, which meant that Judas had to be near Him in a place of honor. Love people regardless of what they do to you. Love your enemies and care for those with whom you disagree.

He broke bread and said, “this is My body.” Jesus was saying he is going to have His body broken for us just like that bread. He took the wine and said, “this is My blood.” He would bleed for us, because He loved us. If Jesus can be broken and bleed for us, maybe we can be a little bit nicer to each other.

For whenever you eat this bread or drink this cup, you show forth the Lord’s death until He comes.

Whenever you sit down to eat together, remember who you are. You are Christ’s Body, held together by the sacred sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. He bled and died for each one of us. When you sit at the table, we show ourselves to be His family.

In this context, verses 27 through 32 finally sense. I have never seen anyone get sick of die because he or she did not understand the mysteries of communion, but I have seen people get sick and even die because of bitterness, jealousy, and unforgiveness. I have not seen people get sick and die from grape juice and crackers, but I have seen churches get sick and die because they were forgotten by the people in the pew next to them, who regarded them not a sister or brother, but as a set decoration for the drama that is their more important lives.

When we have communion, where is the Body of Christ? The answer is easy--we are it. The Body of Christ are the people with whom we share this feast. When we don’t see Him there, and instead see them as merely human, then we miss the reason for communion and might as well eat juice and crackers alone in our rooms.

I urge you to look around this room, and see the Body of Christ, not just eating juice and crackers together, but humbling ourselves before the Lord in repentance and sorrow. Then we discern the Body together. This is the body that should concern us, not food and drink, but flesh and blood.

The violence of the Kingdom

2011-04-09T15:23:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago, I preached on the story of Nicodemus, the old Pharisee who visited Jesus in the middle of the night. He's the one that Jesus told "you must be born again" It was a comment selected specifically for him.

What's interesting about this statement is what he did not say. He did not say "Nicodemus, you must be rejuvenated." He did not say that he should become younger in mind or spirit.

I think that's what we expect God to say. For years I think I've thought this deep down. I remember when I was younger, more energetic and idealistic, and I say to myself that I ought to have the same passion now I had then.

Rejuvenation is to some extent within our grasp. We can lose weight get plastic surgery, dye our hair, and we'll look younger. We might even think younger. But that's not what Jesus said.

In T.S. Elliot's poem Journey of the Magi, there is a line at the end. That says

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

Eliot understands, I think better than m ost of us the paradox of being born again. We cannot have a new birth unless we have a death. We cannot live simultaneously in an old life and a new. That's why rejuvenation is not the answer. We must have a violent overthrow of our personal regimes.

In Matthew 11:12, Jesus said that "the kingdom of God suffereth violence, and violent men shall possess it." There is no gradual conversion. We don't slowly get better. We have to be broken before we go on. The new must replace the old.

I always wonder about people who say they have no regrets. I have plenty. One of my biggest regrets is that I was not more radical. I have always believed in gradual change from within. Sometimes, that works, but not often. Most of the time, the Kingdom of God progresses by violent upheaval.

Violence might sound to strong a world. But it is exactly what Jesus said.

When I look at the little church of which I am a part, I see a rapidly aging group of people. I do not believe a gradual improvement, or even a second wind, will change us. We a revolution of the Holy Spirit, a new birth that wrests us from the warm womb of the past, and painfully drags us into the light.

I believe that God did not send His Holy Spirit to turn back the clock. He wants to reset it.

For God So Liked the World

2011-03-26T19:55:00.001-04:00

One of the first religious books I remember reading was CS Lewis' The Four Loves. Lewis describes four kinds of love based on four Greek words for love--Sturge, Eros, Phileos, and Agape.

Here they are in grossly oversimplified terms.

Sturge is a passing enjoyment, such as "I love baseball" or "I love chocolate."

Eros, is a sensual, consuming passion, obsession, or addiction.

Phleos is friendship love, the love in commonly shared relationship or experiences.

Then there is agape love. This divine love is only possible fully through Divine intervention. It is a sacrificial love, as Christ loved on the cross. It is not a love because of liking anything about a person, but liking in spite of everything unlikeable about a person. This love is the blessed, chaste love of a true saint.

When I read that book, I wanted to be a true saint. (I still do, though I have never achieved it.) This was the love I longed to have--a love that does not depend about liking anything about people, but only depends on the love God has for poor lost sinners such as ourselves.

Agape love is not so much an act of he heart as of the will. It is, as Finney put it, a "decision to seek the highest good of another." I can decide to love my enemy, and seek his highest good without having to like him. Agape love is sacrificial, giving ourselves to others.

That was my understanding in my days of youthful idealism.

Since I have grown older, though, I have come to realize that agape love, though it may be the highest, is not the only kind of love God wants us to have for others. Agape allows us to love people we do not like. But it does not settle the issue of whether or how we should also like them.

We need to be careful about "sloppy agape." That is a general and ideal love, but not personal and specific. It is not enough tolerate the lost, but to welcome them. We may claim we love a person in Jesus, while detesting everything about them. This kind of love is not love at all, but paternalism and condescension--a misuse of the doctrine of Christian charity.

A purely ideal concept of love lacks both passion and staying power. We may be able to love those we do not like, but we cannot keep it up for long. Sooner or later, no matter how pious we may act, our love needs to grow into real, honest affection or it will not last.

Think about broccoli for a moment. Many people hate broccoli. (Not me, I actually like it.) Those who hate broccoli may be determined to eat healthy, and they know broccoli is good for them, so they force it down their throats. But how long can they keep doing this without either developing a taste for it, or dropping it from their menus?

Or take marriage. A person may marry another as a result of prearranged marriage or out of a sense of duty. But unless that person develops a geniune liking for their spouse, that marriage will be unsatisfying for both. This is not to suggest that people should divorce if they do not feel love, but rather that we find something likeable about our spouses if we do not already have it. If ideal love does not turn into honest affection, then that marriage is doomed.

We can suppress our feelings, but it will wear us out in the end. No one can work at something they do not like to do forever without respite. We will not stay with people we honestly do not care for, without making them and us miserable. At some time, our feelings will conquer us.

This idea of liking as well as loving is absolutely essential for the spreading of the Gospel. For hundreds of years we have been preaching evangelism. Also for hundreds of years, the majority of Christians have simply ignored the call. They love the world, in a spiritual sense, and do not want to see others go to hell. But they do not like the world. Many Christians find the current age so abhorent that they want nothing to do with it. They move into fortresses of their own making, isolating themselves from "sinners" so they will not be contaminated by the things of the world, whether or not that world has anything to do with the gospel itself. We make excuses for hating the world around us, condemning aspects of music, dress and language that do not fit our cultural, non-spiritual norms. We do this to further emphasize our differences with the culture around us. We do this for the same reason teenagers of my generation wore their hair long or dressed in miniskirts--because we wanted to be different from our parents' generation. It's not that we didn't love our parents and grandparents. We just didn't like them, or anything about them. As we grew up, we learned better, when our children did the same to us.

John 3:16 begins "For God so loved the world." God does not just love the world, he honestly likes it. God may not like what the world does or what it believes, but God, like the parent of a rebellious teenager, sees something of Himself in them. He experiences genuine affection for us, as well as loving us in an esoteric sense.

Many Christians cannot grasp this. That is because many of us have an "all or nothing" mentality regarding our likes and dislikes. If we do not like a man's politics or religious opinions, we drop him in a bin in our mind that is labeled "Don't like." If we agree with a person, we drop him in the "like" bin. I don't believe God thinks this way. He recognizes the fact that there is very little difference between those we like and don't like. We have the same DNA. We were created in God's image. We are affected by the same sinful nature. There are actions, ideas, and attitudes which we should not like, that's true. But it up to God to decide who is or is not condemned in their sin. Even in the worst of us, there is something to like and admire.

Phileos love, that is friendship love, is built on commonalities. Our common interest, passions, and failures make us far more like each other than different.

We share similar interests. Among men, it may be more effective evangelism goes on at the lake or on the golf course than in the church. Christians who golf with non-Christians forge a friendship which provides a bridge for the Gospel to get to their hearts. Those places where we share neutral activities with others--the gym, the mall, or the marketplace, become those places where we come to like unbelievers, which leads to loving them. Some Christians are more afraid of unbelievers affecting them than they are excited about affecting unbelievers themselves. We share the same passions. Not long ago, I was asked to hold a funeral for a relative of someone in my church who had been a lesbian. The grief of her "significant other" was no less real than our grief for a spouse. Pain is pain no matter who has it. A sensitive, caring believer will recognize the pain in others, whether or not that pain is theologically justified. Jesus wept over Lazarus, even though He was about to raise him for the dead. He did not chide Mary and Martha for their lack of faith. Our own pains enable us to understand the pains of others.

We also share the same sins. We once lived in the same apartment building with an unmarried couple who were addicted to drugs. We got to know them and talked to them about their problem, even though we never used drugs. But I found that my own struggles with food were not that different in form from their struggles with drugs. It differed only in consequence and intensity.

We believers are comfortable with the fact that we are sinners. We just don't like to admit we have sinned, or have anything in common with those we consider to be really bad sinners. Our sins are small, but their sins are big. We regard ourselves as sinners in a general, esoteric sense, but do not like to admit to any particular sin. Yet it is our admission of our fallenness and failures which helps the unbeliever believe that God means it when he says "I forgive." It is our failure, not our successes that give us the ability to befriend the lost. We were lost, and now are found. We still sin, but we still find grace.

God doesn't just love the world. He likes it. He enjoys the enjoyable things about it, even though he hates the things that are broken. If we follow in His footsteps, then we ought to do the same.

Potholes

2011-03-14T11:11:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I wrote in this blog, but for those of you who might be interested, Let me tell you a little of what's going on.
In January, Joy and I bought a new car. It was a 2009 Toyota Prius hybrid. I have enjoyed driving it, especially when I was driving past my friends at gas stations paying exhorbitant amounts for gas.
I believe God let us to buy that car when we did. Our original intention was to buy it in April of May, but since we bought it then, we have evaded some of the gas headaches others have endured. By April, there is no telling how much higher the price of a hybrid might be.
Right now, though I am not driving it. i am driving a rental car. Last Wednesday, on a major thoroughfare in Lancaster, SC, I hit a pothole, which contained a large sized rock laying on the road. The rock damaged a strut and the gas tank of my glorious new car. It is at the shop while my insurance company and my mechanic decide upon the price of repair. I am convince that upstate South Carolina is the ancient pothole spawning ground.
In the meantime, I am in a Jeep Patriot which is good ride, which downs gas like a drunken sailor downs whiskey. I want my car back.
This whole incident reminds me of the paradoxical nature of faith. If I believe that God led ut to buy the car at the right time, then I must also believe that God let us ht the pothole. As tenpting as it is to think that God gives us wise decisions but not potholes, the logic of it just does not hold up. He gives both--the good and the bad.
I will say this. I have been at peace about the pothole incident. So tar, the insurance company has been outstanding in their treatment of my claim. (I won't menton the company, but I will say it is one that is particularly fond of lizards and cave men) It's been something of an adventure to driving a new car, and our tax refund came earlly enough to pay the deducable. That is also God's hand, I suppose.
Sometimes, God helps us miss the potholes of life. Other times, He lets us hit them. But whichever way, He never leaves us. One way or another, He's still in control.

Miracles

2011-03-14T10:44:00.001-04:00

I have a quirky fascination with pseudoscience--UFOs , bigfoot, ancient aliens, etc. I don't believe in any of it, but it's fun to see what passes for proof on tv these days.

I have friends that take all this very seriously, though. They really do believe that there are aliens in the sky, giant apes in the woods, and ghosts in the attic. These are intelligent people --sometimes even brilliant people--but they seem ready to take extraordinary claims at face value with less than ordinary evidence.

The biggest mystery about these tales is not the what, but the why. Carl Sagan once famously said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Though there may be unexplained evidence, there is no evidence of any of it that rises to the level of extraordinary. In spite of the lack of good evidence, why do we keep looking for ghosts and aliens?

I think is because we were created that way. God placed in us the knowledge that the world we see is not all there is. There are forces beyond out imagining, and that those forces affect our lives today. Even people who have rejected religion seem to want to believe in something beyond the ordinary. They would rather believe, like atheist Richard Dawkins, that intelligent design by God is impossible, but that it is entirely possible that aliens created life.

The modern fascination with the supernatural I believe is due to the decline of a belief in a supernatural God. Much modern religious thinking discounts the miraculous, and focuses on naturalistic religion.

In the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, Western culture adopted a mechanistic view of religion in which all things happen according to the laws of logic and physics. Deism is of course the extreme of this view, but that is only the far edge. Before we get to deism there are many scholastic approaches to Scripture which assert that nothing supernatural happens today.

This is unfortunate, because the supernatural is precisely what the world yearns for. That desire to touch the divine was built into us by our Creator. When we exclude the divinity from our world view, then the supernatural is all we have left. In the old days it let people to believe in ghosts and leprechauns. Today, it is bigfoot and aliens. Ether way, we are looking for something for knowledge beyond our understanding.

Our knowledge of the laws of nature is not absolute, but fluid. Newton gave way to Einstein. A mechanistic understanding of subatomic physics gave way to quantum mechanics and strange attractors. Technological advances have come so fast that what we think is of as magic or science fiction one day become commonplace the next.

In such a world, is it really so hard to admit the possibility that there is a God? Or to admit that that God can play by different rules than we know? We must go further and admit that if there is a God, then He must operate outside of nature and be by definition supernatural. I would go even farther and suggest that a real God must make himself known by real miracles, by revealing himself through breaks in the natural order.

Reduced to it's core, the message of the Bible is this--trust God. Do not lean upon your own understanding. In return for this trust, God rewards us with the revelation of His supernatural Presence, which is above time and space.

The problem with modern religion, it seems to me, is that in our effort to make religion palatable to unbelievers, we have removed from our churches the one thing that makes religion attractive to believers and unbelievers alike--miracles. We have adopted a view that supernatural manifestations of Hiis divine power and presece were for ancient times, but not for today. We may tell the stories of those times, we may even believe them, but we do not seriously expect God to repeat them today. But in ancient times, it was those miracles which drew people to Christ. In a world obsessed with the supernatural, why is it unreasonable to expect God's miracles to draw people to Him today?

We need to pray for miracles and expect them, and not just for our own benefit. The world needs to see them, too. We need to get ourselves out of the way and expect God to show Himself to our modern world the same way He did to the ancient one--by His sovereign manifestation of His power.

Some random thoughts on worship

2011-03-09T09:15:00.001-05:00

A few random thought on Christian worship

A couple who went to our church in Florida started attending a different church, a larger, more contemporary church.

She said "We love the people in your church, but the people, the service, and the programs at the other church are so alive."

I said "Did you ever see a sponge."

"Yes," she said.

"How about a cheetah?"

"Yes," she answered with a puzzled expression.

"A cheetah is alive. Isn't it?"

"Yes"

"And a sponge is alive too, isn't it."

"Yes."

"Well, if God can make the cheetah and the sponge then he must like a variety of animals. Just because a cheetah moves fast, and a sponge does not move at all, does not mean that one is more alive than the other. God made us all to move at our own pace."

I was proud of that answer at the time. But in retrospect, it really was not very effective. People don't go to the zoo to see sponges. People want to see movement. People do not want to see an unmoving God, either. They want to see Him move--or at least feel Him and hear Him. People go to church to be reassured that God is present and alive.

Perhaps the reason so many of our churches are ineffective is that people come looking for a divine-human encounter, ministers come to get people to go do something.

They are here to worship, we are here to work. We are like the stage hands at a symphony, too busy arranging chairs and opening curtains to hear the music. We ministers have heard it all before, and our ears have grown too used to its hearing, so we no longer feel the Spirit as we preach.

The longer I am in the ministry, the more convinced I am that while the pastor displays Christ before the people, the people must also display Christ before the pastor. Pastors need to see Him revealed in the collective community just as much as everyone else. Public worship is a collective revelation of Christ. I don't know how we do that by onl letting the pastor speak and the choir sing. Occasionally, we see Christ revealed in congregational singing, but it's much harder to see it in the corporate mumble that constitutes most hymn singing. We sing as if we are ashamed to admit that we aren't sure about what we are singing. Corporate singing is so bad we must cover it up with loud organs or guitars and drums, depending upon our worship style. Where are the testimonies of what God has done? Where are the cries of a corporate desire for God? We have achieved an orderly, regular service by squeezing out of it all passion and spontaneity. Why can't the people testify to what Jesus has done for them? Why is it only the preacher and choir members who have a responsibility to exhibit the living presence of Christ?

If the reason Christ put us on earth was to build beautiful buildings, we have succeeded wonderfully. If the reason Christ put us on earth is to build a living tabernacle, then we have failed miserably. We are not in the building of preserving buildings and institutions, but in saving souls. Let realtors worry about buildings. Let's just be God's temple.

Theology is the yeast of the church. But who eats yeast. We have to put it in something and give it time to grow. The only time theology does us any good is when it is applied creatively and sincerely to the human condition over time in the warmth of the spirit.

Much of our worship makes me wish for the liveliness of a funeral. We cannot expect to move the living to God when our services resemble our mourning for the dead.

Why is the only principle we Reformed Christians discuss is the regulative one? Shouldn't there also be a creative one as well? Aren't we called to bring our whole being--our whole heart, gifts, talents, and imagination to Him? Is God more interested giving control and order, or in giving life? If we are created in God's image, and our creativity is part of that image, then are we really doing our best if we do the same thing in the same manner week after week, without even thinking about it? If we loved our wives with regulation and without imagination, it would be grounds for divorce.

Preachers and congregations have been at cross purposes almost from the first day we had preachers and congregations. The preacher want the congregation to be an army on the move. Congregations want the preacher to assure them that everything is all right already and they don't have to move. Preachers push people to action, congregations counter with inaction. They like it the way it is. More often than not in this tug of war, the congregation wins. In the end, the preacher usually gives in and gives up. That's why God finds us lukewarm.

Preachers do not move the congregations because they do not love them as they are. They love them for their potential, or they love them in a spiritual sense, but the do not see them as people who are just as they are worthy of God's love now. Preachers are like bad husbands who see their wives as people that they must improve before they the can give acceptance. Their constant drum of shoulds and coulds communicates guilt, not grace.

Why do we have to help God be majestic? We put a great deal of time and effort in the church trying to create an artificial sense of holiness with ritual, architecture, and music. We put preachers in high pulpits just to exalt the Word, but the people are not fooled. They know to exalt the preacher. God doesn't need all this. Our attempts to drum up a sense of the presence of God in worship are like ants trying to prop up an elephant. God is present. We need to get out of the way and let Him exalt Himself.

My greatest desire is to be in a congregation where no one has to say "the Lord is in His Holy Temple. Come, let us worship Him." because we will already experience His presence all around us.

A Silent, Snowy Day

2010-12-26T09:39:00.000-05:00

I am sitting in my living room, enjoying the first white Christmas season of my life. It is a rare feeling of quietness and peace, this double stillness of weather and holiday. I can only imagine that this is what life must have been like in the days before cars, computers, and the rattling noise of phone and television. Yesterday the family was here, noisily celebrating. We watched movies and talked. Today we sit in silence and solitude.
We are missing Sunday Service, to be sure. But even so, I do not really regret it. Can anything better display the beauty of God than the silent whitness of a snowy day? Can anything better convey the sense of reverence than this quiet moment of stillness? No monastery or hermitage can be quieter than this moment.
I think about Elijah, broken from his battle with Ahab, exhausted by his trip through the Sinai desert, praying in is cave and hearing the Still Small Voice of God.
The problem with silence I think, is more in what we do with it. Instead of drinking it in, we are always looking for ways to fill it. Silence does not need to be filled. It needs to fill us. We do not have to break silence, silence needs to break us. God speaks in silence only if we listen to it.
Silence is precious. It is nice to have a piece of it, if only for a little while.

Is Christmas worth the Trouble?

2010-12-22T13:32:00.000-05:00

Recently, I read an article about how Christians should not celebrate Christmas. My first reaction was anger. I love Christmas, and see nothing wrong with its celebration.
What bothered m most about her argument was her appeal to Reformed theology. She relied mainly on a misinterpretation of the so-called "regulative principle" of worship which states that we can only celebrate the glory of God at the times and through the methods that He Himself has specifically stated in the Bible. We were created in the image of God to be creative. Biblical religion was creative religion, which means that our imagination and ingenuity brings glory to God, because it is the part of us that is most like God. The Biblical saints did not hesitate to invent commemorations of God's great events in history. There is no command in the Old Testament to celebrate Purim, for example, yet it records that they celebrated it in Esther. There is no specific command to move the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. yet the Biblical Christians did. These were innovation of worship intended to bring attention to the acts and glory of God.
Furthermore, forbidding Christmas is a denial of God's grace and freedom. Paul says in Rom 14:5-6 "One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. " Whether or not we celebrate Christmas, we should do it for God's glory.
So we may celebrate Christmas, in God's eye. But that is not the only question. The thornier issue is this--is it worth keeping? Paul said in 1 Cor 10:23 "Everything is permissible"-but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"-but not everything is constructive. Has Christmas become more burden than blessing? That's a much harder question.
Frankly, I think it's a close call. Christmas is a ragged mess of the sacred and the profane. It brings out both the best and the worst of Christians and churches. It's easy to just follow the customs of the day, but if we do not examine why we celebrate, we are liable to miss it entirely. If we do not recognize the profane in Christmas, we will not discern what is truly sacred about it.
Is it worth it to celebrate Christmas? Here's the pros and cons, as I see them.
First, the negatives.
1. Our modern Christmas has become an almost entirely secular holiday. To most Americans, Christmas has nothing to do with Christ except the name.
This isn't new. The complaints about the secularization of Christmas extend all the way back to the middle ages. Christmas haters point out that the Christian Christmas contains elements of the Roman Saturnalia celebration, so you could argue that the secular Christmas predated the Christian holiday. So if we think we can get the secular out of Christmas, forget it. It's not going to happen.
2. Christmas encourages excess. We live in a society where two out of three adults are overweight, and one out of four are overweight. Yet we all go on a month long eating binge at Christmas. Christmas adds seven pounds of fat to te average American adult.
3. Christmas encourages materialism. No, that's not quite accurate--secular Christmas is materialism. Merchandizing is the driving force behind Christmas. Our modern pictures of Santa Claus did not start from our study of the real St. Nicholas, but from Thomas Nast cartoons of the Nineteenth Century and Coca Cola ads of the Twentieth century. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was originally a mascot for a department store. All the sleighs an elves were likewise first commercial symbols. Every year we are treated to the spectacle of wise men shopping at Macys or the Christmas star as a neon sign for a hotel chain. Secular Christmas as it is practiced today is more about our own wealth and power than the majesty and glory of God.
4. Christmas charity has been replaced with Christmas greed. In the mid Nineteenth Century, Christmas was a time of giving to the poor and less fortunate. You can see this old tradition embodied in Dicken's Christmas Carol. But then the wealthy citizens of New York became suspicious of the poor. The draft riots of the 1860's saw mobs of poor people destroying the homes of the rich. So these same citizens began a new tradition of giving to their own children what they used to give to the poor. Hence Santa Claus was born as a device for keeping the wealth in their own family.
For centuries, Christmas has been associated with giving. But who we give to makes a big difference. There is no good reason we should also be taking. Give to those who need, because we need to give. But do not pile up presents on earth, and ignore the riches of heaven.
5. Peer pressure, not spirituality, is the true spirit of Christmas. The reason we overdo Christmas is because we think it is expected of us. We worry we do not give enough, so we overgive. Our eyes wander to our neighbor's Christmas tree, which always seems bigger and brighter than or own. Each year we set out to create a Norman Rockwell fantasy world that never really existed anyway.
Christmas materialism carries one starkly anti-Christian message--that money can buy happiness. Bigger jewelry makes women squeal. Bigger toys makes men kiss their wives. Children are deleriously happy only when the right present is under the tree. This is the message that is preached in one minute sermons between our favorite television programs.
In Africa, I saw a village full of children with only a handful of toys between them. They did not horde toys--they were treated as public property. Yet these children seldom used the toys. They were too busy being happy and having fun with each other. They were happy, because no one was telling them they should be unhappy. No one told them they were poor, or that they should have had closets full of toys. They learned to enjoy what they had, so they had what they enjoyed.
There are the negatives about the celebration of Christmas Now for the Positives.
1. Christmas has the best music of the whole year. I know this sounds small, but it is not. To hear Silent Night or Handel's Messiah can lift our spirits to God like few other blessings. At Christmas time, the sounds of this wonderful music is everywhere. Christmas carols are the one time when people actually sing together outside of church.
2. Christmas brings families together.I know we should do it all the year, but we don't. By taking the same days off, we have the freedom to gather without having to work or becoming distracted by other activities. It is a time when old and young gather and enjoy each other's company.
3. Christmas gives us time to reflect. Taking a week or two at the end of the year is a great blessing, and can clear our minds for another year of work. In our busy lives, we seldom have the gift of slowness. Christmas can give us this.
4. Christmas is a time of gratitude. Worship and gratitude are closely related. If we learn to be grateful for material gifts, perhaps we will better be able to thank God for the greater spiritual gifts. The practice of gift giving gives us a chance to practice being thankful and showing our gratitude to others. This is one of the most helpful skills we may have when we come to worship God.
5. Most of all, Christmas is the beginning of the Great Reenactment. In ancient times, the church set down a whole years of holidays, including Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. By following this calendar, we reenact Christ's birth, death, and resurrection.. For those who understand their meaning, these holy days serve as a yearly reminder of the greatness of God, and His salvation.
Christmas is a reminder of Christ. Each year, we tell the Christmas story. (the real one, I mean) But usually, we don't tell it all. The whole story begins with the dawn of time, with the sin of Adam and Eve and the darkness of sin that followed. It continues through Abraham's promise, and the promises of the prophets. Then comes the dawning of the new era, the era of the Messiah. It ends with the final victory over sin and death portrayed in Revelation.
Taking all into consideration, I believe Christmas is worth it. Others are entitled to the opposite conclusion, But if we celebrate it, we should to all we can to keep it actually Christian.
For my part, here is how I will keep Christmas Christian.
I will try as much as possible to deemphasize the negative material aspects and emphasize the joyful spiritual side.
I will carve out a sacred space within the secular mess-- a time of quiet reflection and holy worship.
I will try to teach my family to avoid the commercialism jealousy, and greed that mark the secular holiday.
Most of all, I will seek not the baby in the manger but the living Christ who was revealed in Bethlehem.

If I can do that, then Christmas may be worth the trouble.

The Leaven of the Pharisees

2010-11-04T12:38:00.001-04:00

When I was in college, I read a book entitled The Leaven of he Sadducees, or Old and New Apostasies by Ernest Gordon. It was an old volume, published in 1926, long out of print. I wish someone would reprint it, because it is an important book. In it, Dr. Gordon chronicles the descent of modern denominations into Unitarian/liberal beliefs. Many long-standing bastions of Christian thought, such as Harvard, Andover, and Princeton became in a relatively short time secular institutions, indifferent or in most cases hostile to the Gospel. It is a lesson we today must still keep in mind.

However, It is not the only lesson we need. One thing that Gordon and others who have fought long and valiantly against encroaching secularism often fail to ask is what makes Christian institution susceptible to these influences in the first place?

Creeping liberalism, like most heresies and apostasies, more common in well-evangelized countries. The Third World, where Christianity is even today on the rise, seems to have little worry of it. It is Europe and America, where Christianity had long been held to be safe, that we see the rise of universalism and the devaluing of Scripture. If we suppose that this apostatizing trend is simply the work of the Devil, or some function of human depravity, then how do we explain that It mainly happens on one kind of Christian community--the ones which have mainly already been evangelized. Why don't we say the same trend among developing churches? They have other problems with apostasy, to be sure, but not this same liberalizing trend.

Think of apostasy as a virus. Viruses strike us, all, but they afflict some people more regularly. If we are already weakened, or our immunization system is suppressed, then we are more likely to get sick. If the spiritual life of the Body of Christ is weakened, then it is more likely to catch a spiritual disease, such as apostasy. In the wild, termites and other decay-producing organisms do not strike live plants, but dead ones. Where there is life there

Church Signs

2010-10-22T20:58:00.001-04:00

I was going to church last week and noticed a church sign I did not recall seeing before. It was a church called "Harvest Time Assembly of God." Harvest time I thought-- what an interesting name. I don't recall ever seeing a Presbyterian church named "harvest" anything. Somehow, it didn't fit to say "Harvest Time Episcopal Church" either. It's a good name, especially for a country church. But I wonder sometimes how an unbeliever might like being compared to wheat or radishes. We Christians know what it means, but does anyone else?

That got me thinking about church names. What do they say about the our congregations? We choose them because we want to say something about who we are and what we believe. But what are we saying?

Here are several kinds of church names:

Place names. This is by far the most common kind of church names, Oak Grove Methodist, Five Points Baptist, Grover's Corner Lutheran Church. These are "vanilla" church names. They can be used for any kind of church from Catholic to Jehovah's Witness. They are low profile names, sensible names, which say "Look, here is where we are. Other than that, we're not real sure what we are, either."

Number names. Every town has a First Baptist or a First Methodist. Usually a Second Baptist, too. Bigger towns may even have a third or a fourth, or maybe a tenth. I presume in most cases, they refer to the order they established, and not the quality of preaching or music. I wonder if first churches have big rubber hands in their pews so the congregants can hold them in the air and chant "We're Number 1! We're number 1!" I don't know, maybe the number refers to their flight order in the Rapture.

Biblical names. Most of them are pretty standard--Antioch, Smyrna, Shiloh, Bethany. Occasionally you run into a weird one. I have a friend who pastors Hephzibah Presbyterian Church. I'm not making that up. I wonder how many people ask what a "hephzibah" is.

Virtue names. "Faith", "Hope," "Fellowship," " Grace", "Peace." Of all the church names, these are my favorite. These names tell us what values they are attempting to display. When they work well, they give the outsider a little taste of what goes on inside.

This category of names does produce some of the funniest names. I once saw a church "Little Hope Baptist Church." What were they thinking when they named that one?

Some churches get carried away with this. They want to put their entire creed on their signs, such as "Fire-Baptized Church of he New Jerusalem and Eternal Security (Reformed)" There seems to be a rule somewhere that the length of the name is inversely proportionate to the size of the church. I can say this, being the pastor of Oak Ridge Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.

Saintly names. These are church named after saints. "St Thomas" "St Catherine" "St Giles." These churches probably have a reason for naming them after these saints, but unless you happen to possess a fairly detailed book of church history, no one can figure out what it is.

Catholics have a peculiar way of naming churches after Mary--actually, after lots of Marys. For example-- "Our Lady of Lourdes" "Our Lady, Empress of the Americas." Isn't she the same Mary?

Incidentally, this category produced my all time favorite church name in Central Florida --"Mary, Queen of the Universe." It sounds more like an action figure than the Mother of God.

Memorial churches. "Rogers Memorial" "Grier Memorial" etc. These names carry the important and inspiring message "Some rich dead guy may or may not have gone here." As church names, these names are a bust. They do make impressive tombstones, though.

Cool names. These are the latest thing in Church names--the contemporary church names. These names seem to have been run by a focus group for maximum audience appeal. The one rule about these names is that they must not have the name "church" in them. That's a no-no, because the goal of these names is to conceal the fact that they are a church until the last minute, when the sinner is caught and cannot get out. They are Venus fly-trap churches, luring the unsuspecting sinner into their web of holy deceit.

These churches names appear to be named by randomly opening a dictionary and pointing to a random word on the page. "Element" "Tapestry," Elevation," and "Communitas." Up the street from me is a church named "Five Smooth Stones." The biblically illiterate person who they are obviously trying to attract does not know if this is a church or a kidney.

Then there are a few churches with such totally weird and wonderful names, that they are in a class by themselves. There is one church in California which is actually named "The Scum of The Earth." One of my Friends wants to name his church "The Walking Dead." If that doesn't get your attention, nothing will! No one can accuse them of being stuffy and traditional.

The more I think about it, the more I think that "Harvest Time" isn't a bad name for a church. At least they show some interest in people outside their circle, or at least their crop circle.

Faith as an Unnatural Act

2010-10-06T18:13:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday nights, we've been following the trip of the Israelites with Moses to Mount Sinai from he book of Exodus. When Moses went up on the mountain for forty days and nights, the people he left behind became nervous, then rebellious. They demanded a God they could see, who could be right in front of them to give them courage as they traveled through the desert. So they had Aaron make a golden calf on their behalf. The golden calf was most useful, not only because of his artificially comforting presence, but because he was a god who would always go exactly where they wanted, instead of the messy business of having to blindly following the God of Moses.

I can't say that I blame them. I would have probably done the same thing, giving the situation they were in at the time. They were a million and a half people on a barren plain in the middle of the desert. There was no natural source of food or water anywhere. would anyone in their right mind have recommended that they should stay in the middle of such a barren wilderness indefinitely? Even in a land where there was plenty of water and good grassland, it doesn't seem likely that they would survive. Common sense would have told them that this was a hopeless, untenable position.

Or think about the disciples on the day of Jesus' crucifixion. Many if not most of them seemed to have temporarily lost their faith. Wouldn't we? How many people do you know, get up and walk out of tomb after three days in an airless cave? In real life, people don't just get up and walk away after they've been buried. Common sense would suggest that when our loved on is out in the cemetery, we should let go and let the healing begin. Anyone with any common sense at all would not stand around waiting for a resurrection.

I want to be honest here, but I also want to be careful. I am not condoning their actions. The Israelite should not have built a calf. The disciples should have waited with hope. But these two examples illustrate an important lesson. Common sense is not always right when you are talking about heavenly matters. There is nothing common or sensible about the wisdom that comes from God. We serve a supernatural God, not a natural one. He doesn't have to play by our version of the rules, and neither do we when we are on His team.

"Faith," the writer of Hebrews said "Is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." We cannot walk by faith and by sight, It has to be one or the other. It's fine to follow our own knowledge when we have not heard from Him, but we must do it tentatively, ready to change when He speaks.

We may wish that God would show us what is around the next bend, but if He did, we would not walk beside Him. We would run ahead, lag behind, and saunter at our own pace. Faith will never make sense to us. God's desire is to keep us walking right by his side, obediently looking to Him for guidance and direction.

Presbyterians like to think of ourselves practical people, doing things in a slow, conservative, deliberate fashion. We do this without thinking whether or not practicality and faith can walk together without contradiction. To be rational is to lean upon our own understanding. When we are being rational, we have to know before we do. Faith asks us to do before we know. When the Hebrews started into the desert, they were marching into certain disaster without divine intervention. When the Peter and John went to the empty tomb, they did so with no more evidence than one hysterical woman.

How can faith be practical? Sometimes it can't.

I'm not suggesting we all take foolish chances. We must make sure we hear the God's Word before we take a leap of faith. Moses certainly sought and received confirmation before he marched into Pharaoh's court and demanded he let his people God. The disciples followed Jesus because they had seen three years worth of miracles. They diligently sought to understand God and had proof of His existence, before they stepped out in faith.

Faith is more of a skill than anything else. It something we develop with practice. The more we practice, the more we learn to stand on the sometimes shaky ground of faith. If we are going to walk on water, it is a good idea to get out sea legs first. Unfortunately, we are too impatient to practice faith. We don't pray through our situation. We get up off our knees quickly so we can do something, anything, rather than to wait around for an answer. When our schemes for church ministry don't work, we quickly find somebody to blame scheme again, rather than ask the question "What is God telling me in this defeat?"

If we are going to be people of faith, being naturally wise is not enough. We must be unnaturally, supernaturally wise, walking with our eyes on Jesus, listening for His voice, and taking His advice.

Lies and Double Lies

2010-09-27T09:45:00.001-04:00

Politicians lie. So do entertainers, salesmen, lobbyists, mirrors and scales (Okay, the last two may be just wishful thinking. )

First, let me make clear what a lie is.

A lie is a deliberate denial, distortion, or evasion of the truth. It is giving of false information intentionally for the purpose of deception. The key word to understand lies is the world deliberate. A liar intends to be a liar. He is not mistaken or misinformed. He actually intends to deceive. It is not an accident.

But the not all lies are the same. An ordinary lie is perpetrated by a person or persons who know what they are doing it deceptive. It is easy for us to condemn such lies, because the culpability for them fall upon a small group--a liar or liars. But there are lies for which encompass a much greater field of culpability. These are lies which are supported by a society at large by silence or false assent. These lies become not only a shame on a few, but shame to the many. These are double lies. They are much harder to deal with, and have much wider consequences than ordinary lies.

A double lie is not believed by larger society, but it is supported as if it is believed. We all know that it is a lie, but no one wants to admit it. We go along with the lie because we are afraid not to, or because we receive from benefit for ourselves, or because we don't want to rock the boat. No one wants to call it what it is, so it continues to exist forever, or at least until it ceases to be useful.

An example of a double lie is the story of the emperor's new clothes. Two lying tailors convince a king that they can make a magic suit that only a fool can not see. The king, being stupid, believes it. It would seem that such a rank deception would not hold up long when exposed to the wider world, but incredibly it does. The king parades around the town, while people praise his beautiful new clothes. The whole town participates in the lie. Because each one is afraid to tell what they see with their own eyes. Cowardice and selfishness keeps the whole country from speaking their mind. nly one little boy, who has nothing to gain from the deception, speaks up and exposes the lie.

The Nazis told Germany that Jews were subhuman. Of course the Germans did not think that the Jews were subhuman, but they were too afraid to say it. It just that the Nazis were more powerful. As a result millions of people died. Stalin said that Communism worked in Russia. All the average Russian had to do was to look around, and they could see that it didn't, but fear kept them from saying so. Their silence again contributed to the death of millions. Modern, nonjudgmental thinking says that all religions are equally valid and deserve equal tolerance. Yet even in the wake of 9-11, we still refuse to believe our own eyes.

The world is full of liars, and always has been. But whenever we keep silent about the lie, we lie again, and the lie becomes a double lie.

A modern example of a double lie is the medical use of marijuana. Those who promote it know that they are being deceptive. They admit it among themselves. They want to legalize the drug. The argument that it is somehow medicinal is a smoke screen, and they know it. Thousands of marijuana "clinics" have sprung up around California. One LA paper has a a marijuana critic who rates the quality of the various clinics. One clinic sells marijuana-flavored ice cream.

How can marijuana be good for our health, if in order to take it, be must inhale smoke? Is it rational to assume that, if there are legitimate medical uses for it, that it would not be better to take it in pill or tablet form under a doctors supervision than to allow it to be used in unmeasured doses whenever we want it? Would it not be better to isolate the substances in marijuana that are useful and treat people with them, just like we have done with most herbal medicines?

Even so , many will defend the lie of medical. They do so for a variety of reasons. Some defend it with the hope of growing it for profit. Others want to use it recreationally. Still others are just embarrassed to be thought of as intolerant prohibitionists. So they say nothing--a double lie.

Another example is illegal immigration. There are thirty million Americans who need jobs, and there are eleven million people working here illegally. Every one of those people is working because of stolen social security numbers, fake licenses, and counterfeit green cards. Those for whom they work are getting rich off paying subminimum wages. Many are treated like slave labor. Human smugglers rob them of their life savings to get here Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people are killed by criminals in order to get into this country illegally. Yet somehow we never speak of the horror and hardship it brings of so many people.

The answers to illegal immigration are simple Just require a social security number check whenever a person gets a job, enrolls children in school, applies for food stamps, or seeks out public welfare. When someone is arrested automatically check their papers and their status. So why don't we?

Because of the double lie. One group doesn't want to offend the Hispanic community, because it would cost them votes. Another group doesn't want to enforce the law and lose their cheap labor. Millions of other simply do not want to seem intolerant or racist--as if racism had anything to do with legal status. If we ever have an influx of illegal Swedes, they should be deported, too. Meanwhile, the deaths at the border and bone-grinding poverty for those who make it through goes on and on.

Or take abortion. Those who support a mother's right to chose do so by denying a child's right to live. There is no moral equivalence between the two. Should a man be allowed to beat a dog simply because it is his dog to beat, and can choose to do with it what he wishes? Should a erson kill a mentally incompetent child, or a wife in a coma, when it becomes inconvenient to keep them?

There are legitimate arguments to be made whether or not a fetus is a human, I suppose. But there is no legitimate argument to be made for choosing to terminate a pregnancy if the fetus is human. Then it is the taking of life, and not subject to choice, even to the mother who bears it.

That a child's life is more important than a woman's choice seems pretty obvous. Yet a large segment of the population finds unwanted children inconvenient. so the truth becomes inconvenient. Our lack of outrage over suggesting choice is more important than a determination of humanity is a lie. We ought to be outraged at it. But we choose not to be.

The cure for double lies is simple honesty. We have to be the child shouting from the crowd that the emperor has not clothes.

Unlike in the children's tale, just having one person say it is usually not enough. The power of the double lie is such that the obvious is often shouted down. It takes our willingness to speak up and keep speaking if we are ever going to turn double lies around. Until those who see the truth are willing to speak, the double lie will always prevail.

A Puritan Approach to Fishing

2010-09-16T16:51:00.000-04:00

I have just finished a little booklet on evangelism, according to the Puritan method, by a modern author whose name I will not mention. It is really an amazing book. Somehow the author manages to write fifty pages on the subject of evangelism without even once suggesting that we talk with unbelievers except from the pulpit. Instead, the book declares that the one and only method of evangelism is to preach from the pulpit the "whole counsel of God," using "plain sermons" done in the Puritan style, heavy on doctrine and archaic language.

It is not a book on how to evangelize sinners, it is a book on how to evangelize sinners three hundred years ago. The majority of the book is occupied with what is wrong with modern evangelistic methods. After having read this slim book, I am ready if ever meet an Eighteenth Century sinner.

I respect the Puritans. I respect their love of the Bible, their prayer and piety. But their approach to evangelism was a product of their time when even unbelievers came to church, and the vast majority of people believed in God and respected the Bible. This is not the case today. Today, the majority of people have no idea what the Gospel is, and have no inclination to find out. The never set foot in a church or place of worship except on holidays and weddings. If a preacher believes that the only way of evangelizing is through the pulpit then he should move his pulpit outside in the front yard of the church, where at least he has a chance that a passersby might accidently hear and believe.

But enough about this book. It did not do much to make me rethink my view of preaching or evangelism. It did, however, cause me to rethink my view of fishing. What if we applied the same approach to catching fish. What a difference it would make!

The Bibles supports fishing, I am happy to say, as an activity which can be readily practiced by believers. After all, did not God Himself fish when He drew out Leviathan with a fishhook? Did not the apostles fish on the sea of Galilee? Did not our Lord, on more than one occasion, command his disciples to fish? And what about Jonah? It is heartily reassuring to know that fishing is AOK with God.

But what are we to think of the modern diversity of fishing methods, and the proclivity of many so called "fishermen" of our day to fish in strange places for strange fish? The foolishness of their activity is shown by the number of times, once they have a fish on the hook, they subsequently let it fall away. Their shallow, worldly approaches to fishing may attract many fish, but they often lose as many fish as they land. With such large numbers of fish, they often do not have time to properly clean them. And how many of those are the best quality? They regularly land trash fish as well as good ones.

It is not enough to fish--we must fish as God intended! That means the use of a net, preferably on the sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee is the only place where God specifically commands any to fish. That one lake should be sufficient for us. Though it might be difficult for the average fisherman to make it to Israel, the rewards of knowing that we are righteous fishermen, attentive to His word ought to be enough to make the extra trouble worthwhile.

In the Holy Scriptures, the fish caught, were those which God intended for us to catch--those preordained for our consumption. Indeed, did not our Lord tell Peter which side of the boat to cast upon? Was not the number of the fish caught recorded in Scripture on one occasion(157) so we might know that the number of fish was specially ordained? Without our Lord's command and specific direction, the disciples came back empty. Without a clear sense of the Spirit's leading and God's specific command, they should not have even tried.

The modern fishermen cares naught whether his fish are rightly or wrongly caught. All he cares about is filling is cooler. The modern fishermen uses unnatural means, such as artificial bait, fish finders, and outboard trolling motors. He focuses on quantity instead of quality, when he should be trusting in God to bring the fish to him, as Peter did of old. Does he not hear his Lord's command, saying "Throw over to the other side of the boat?" Shocking!

As with everything else a pastor does, proper fishing begins with proper preaching. Fish need to be intellectually challenged to jump into our nets. It must be explained by clear and simple proclamation that it is their duty as lower creatures of the water to obey us, their masters. They need to respect the authority given to us over nature in Genesis 1:28.

A proper fisherman be a man of prayer. He must get his heart right before God. Then if he does not catch fish he will know that he is really at fault for not praying with sufficient intensity and passion for fish. Once he has prayed with force and intensity, then he must stand over the lake pleading with tears, saying "Come thou fish! Come and be captured for the Lord's sake!" He must read to the fish from the Scriptures, (King James preferred), admonishing them that it is their duty to become part of our diet. He must comfort the fish, by revealing the glories that await when he is filleted, breaded, and dipped in tartar sauce! Surely it is his only the fish's willful disobedience in loving his meager life, coupled with our lack of zeal in our prayers and preaching, that has kept these creature from their appointed places in our frying pans.

But what if our cooler is still empty at the end of the day? What if we catch nary a single fish? It matters not. We can still rejoice, because we know that we have fulfilled our Lord's command to fish. We have done our duty, whether or not any fish have actually come into our nets. We can go back the next week and the next, getting no results, because we are firm in our assurance that the fish whom God has foreordained will come, even if we have not seen any yet seen them, or any other. And if the fish seem to be laughing at us under the surface, and think us to be a bunch of loonies, then indeed our empty stomachs are proof of our faithfulness and obedience, as we have not stooped to worldly methods of fishing.

But what if we never catch any fish at all? Rejoice anyway, brethren. We have the advantage of having more time to spend in his study the Word, finding more and more things to disapprove of in ourselves, and more of what God has forbidden in fishing. We can study all night, since we are not burdened with the necessity of actually cleaning any fish.

Amen and amen!

Sad News

2010-09-01T21:24:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, a situation that I have known about for more than a week became public knowledge. A close friend was found to have been taking money from the church. I won't mention his name, nor the name of the church. Those who know it know it, and those who don't, don't need to. I mention it, not to further embarrass them, but because I want to share what I've learned from it.
First, I learned not to trust anyone. This is not because we don't love them, but because temptation is universal. The fear of being caught is one of the most powerful guards we have against dishonesty.
Second, I learned that anyone can stumble. I would not have thought it possible for this person to take money any more than I would have thought it possible of myself. But if he can fall, so can we. I know this because in some ways, I already have. We have all done things we shouldn't. And if we fail in small things, we can do it in big things, too, under the right set of circumstances.
My third thought on this is that when we sin, we literally split in two.
Some people divide the world into two groups--good guys and bad guys. The truth of it is much more complex. We can be good one day and bad the next. One day we can be a pious, church-going individual, thoughtful and generous to others, and really sincere about it. The next, we can do things that are unbelievably ugly and destructive. Then we put up a wall between our pious selves and our ugly selves, so that one does not ruin the other. On our pious days, our mind rejects what we do on our ugly days.
I know it sounds like Jekyll and Hyde, but it really isn't. We are the same person. We are not delusional. It's not that we forget, it's just that we choose not to remember. We believe that the good and pious person is the real person, while the other is just a shadow. But the side of us we do not wish to acknowledge is still ourselves, and can come to dominate us. Then one day, the two sides of ourselves collide. Suddenly, the part we hide comes into the light. Our divided self crash together like two asteroids, and we are wiped out in the collision.
My friends predicament has caused me to do some serious self-examination. No sin starts large. It starts as a little crack--a casual flirtation, an innocent deception, a corner cut here or there. But if we don't admit it, it grows. It gets bigger and bigger, and if we don't watch ourselves, it can break us in two.
As a Christian, I am not any better than anyone else. But I do recognize that there a cure for a sinsick heart.

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

" If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives." I john 1:5-10 NIV

Light is the greatest disinfectant. Whether it's comfortable or not, we need to walk in honesty and openness.
I pray for my friend, his family and his wounded church.. My hope and prayer is that the pain they are enduring now will result in healing later. I have no doubt that it will.

Surfing the Wave of the Spirit

2010-08-28T14:15:00.000-04:00

Joy and I were having a conversation the other day about churches and how they grow. This is a bad time for growing a church. For at least the past ten years, church attendance has been falling at a rate of about one percent per year. It is a time of great opposition and disinterest in religion, especially in Christianity. That, coupled with the recession has hurt all churches, especially ours.

What makes a church grow spiritually? I know those things which keep it healthy--love, the preaching of the Word, sound teaching, etc. These make a church more likely to grow. But there are plenty of loving churches where the Gospel is preached and growth is slow or nonexistent.

There are nonspiritual reasons for growth, too. Churches on main roads generally grow faster than churches on back roads. When a church reflects the needs and desires of a particular portion of the contemporary culture, it will grow, too. (There is really no one monolithic "culture" in our world, just wide collections of many cultures, leaving room for almost every kind of church to find a niche.) But this can happen whether or not God is in it, I'm afraid. Growth or lack of it is no sign of godliness.

There are other factors which are also cited for the growth of churches--relevance, purity, concern for the lost, faithfulness, and many others. All of these may have an impact on the growth of the church but none of them in themselves means that the church will grow.

Look at the Christian landscape today. How many churches are growing--I mean really growing? How many are reaching the lost in any large numbers? What we see are many congregations, offering many different techniques and styles, mostly without significant success.

Now think about the churches that are still growing today. They can be high or low church, contemporary or traditional--they can be very, very different both in practice and theology. But there is one thing they all have in common--a sense that the Holy Spirit is there.

The degree to which a church is likely to grow depends upon the expectation of the people that the Holy Spirit will move in their midst. There have to be signs and wonders, not necessarily in the Charismatic sense, but certainly in the spiritual sense. People have to see that something supernatural is going on.

People are drawn to Christ by the moving of the Holy Spirit, not by preaching or praying alone. We must ask of God, and we must see an answer. In growing churches, there is a full expectation that God will make Himself known. They come to church expectantly, not knowing what He will do next, but convinced that He will do something.

People often use sports illustrations to explain the church. Let me suggest a new one --surfing. Churches grow when they catch the wave of the Holy Spirit.

The church is not built on our own effort. It is not a race, where the strong and the fit succeed. It is not a game requiring strength and ingenuity. Church growth is an enterprise powered by the overwhelming power of God. Its force is irresistable, unstoppable, and inevitable. Our task, if we are serious about growing churches, is to look for that power and ride it. It involves less planning and less study of the world, and more planning and more study of God's intentions and actions today. We need to catch the waves. We cannot create them.

The first wave started at Pentecost. On that one day, three thousand people were added to the church. The disciples rode that wave for some time Another wave came when the church was under persecution, through the underground movement of evangelism. All through the history of the church - the Prostestant revolution, the missionary movements, the great awakenings, the holiness, pentecostal, and Charismatic movement, the Wesleyan revivals, the Moody revivals, the crusades of Billy Sunday and Billy Graham, the preaching of Jonathan Edwards, and so forth, we see the Spirit moving in waves and eddies. None of these movements last forever, any more than waves on the sea last forever. Every movement of the Spirit in the church inevitably is brought down by pride, jealousy, and heresy. The waves may crash; the tide remains. God continues to move in the church, using different people and different names. Even so, the church goes on.

As far as we are concerned today we have two choices, we can catch the wave, or miss it. We can ride the Spirit, or be knocked down by it.

If we are to grow in this generation, we must not look to restore the waves that have gone on. Nor should we try to create a wave, molded to what we think it should be. We should look, neither to the present, past, or future, but to God. We should seek Him out, to try and discern where He is working His signs and wonders today. I don't mean finding the next trend or fad, but we should genuinely seek what the move of God is. We are like surfers in the water, looking for the next big swell. When we find it, then we ride it, allowing the power of the wave to carry us forward.

What will the next wave be and when will it come? I have no idea. It is not for us to know really. But we can seek God with all our hearts, and stand eagerly before Him. If we seek to be moved by God, God will move us, and the next wave of the Spirit will come here as well.

Recipe for Whale Soup

2010-08-21T18:46:00.001-04:00

Ingredients:

One whale . Blue, sperm or wright whale is preferred . Use fresh whale, not canned.*
Three railroad cars of milk.
Sixty bushels of corn
Eighty pounds of tomatoes
Twelve pounds of salt
A pinch of tarragon

Instructions

Take whale. Chop finely
Place in large swimming pool under low heat
Add in milk, salt, corn, tomatoes, and salt
Add tarragon to taste.
Let simmer for a month and a half. Stirring occasionally with a wooden oar.
As the mixture simmers, skim the blubber from the top.
Serve in cup-sized portions, with soda crackers.

Serves

Three Norwegian fishing villages

Additional microwave instructions.

Microwave on a rotating carousel for about a week and a half.**

*if whale is not in season, substitute approximately sixty million sardines
**This may be impractical for those who do not have access to a nuclear power plant.

The Good Jesus and the Scoundrel Church

2010-08-19T17:01:00.000-04:00

I confess that I have not read any of the many books by the neo-atheists. I have about as much chance of reading them as Obama has of reading the collected works of Rush Limbaugh-and for the same reason.

Nevertheless, I was intrigued when I passed by a display of new- works at the local Borders Book store, and saw the newest book by Philip Pullman--The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman. Pullman's wrote a series of children's books, His Dark Materials, as a slam on Christianity and the church. I have not read them , but those who have tell me that they get more anti-religious with every volume.

But I can't get that title of his new book out of my head --The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ.

It astounded me that Pullman would even call Jesus a good man. He repudiates everything Jesus taught and attacks the church are vitriolic slander. Yet he still calls Jesus a good man.

• Carl Sandburg, an agnostic and a socialist, attacked evangelist Billy Sunday in his poem To a Contemporary Bunkshooter. The same poem, though, carries this line

"Don't tell me about Jesus. He looked clean and he smelled clean, and people wanted to be around Him."

Hardly a ringing endorsement. Yet like Pullman, Sandburg could not get around "the good man Jesus." Of course Jesus more than a good man to us, but the fact that even the worst critics of the faith seem to still respect Jesus makes me pause with wonder.

Why do they hate Christianity so, yet admire Jesus? The secular world distinguishes between the two. Yet the only thing they know of Jesus comes from the church. They ought to see Jesus and the church the same, but they don't. The callousness and corruption in the modern church has driven people away in droves.

Pullman's main gripe with Christianity not really with Christ, but with the authoritarianism of the Catholic and Anglican churches. He does not seem to be able to imagine a Christianity that is not incased in robes and cathedrals and where it leaders wash feet instead of ruling from thrones. He sees it as all pomp and power-driven. And to a large degree he's right.

Much of the modern disgust with the church comes from the publicity surrounding some child abuse cases. They blame the Pope personally for every rogue priest that ever disgraced his calling. Sandburg's disgust was over the excesses of sensational evangelism. He blamed all preachers for the abuses of he few.

This is what the world sees of Christianity--Catholic hypocrisy and Evangelical chicanery. There is a huge majority of Christian churches that have not disgraced themselves with their anger or their antics. But even we must confess that we our fellowship is a poor reflection of Jesus. The church should have the same odor as its master--a clean, refreshing smell of honesty, humility, and charity. But we often stink with the odor of treacly insincerity, institutional corruption, and pompous judgementalism.

The church one all important mission on earth--several of them. Glorifying God in worship, evangelism, missions, societal transformation, just to name a few. Whatever our views on the mission of the church is not the most important thing. Whatever our mission, we should all behave the same, because we have the example of Christ. We are one body and one church, with one Lord, one Spirit, and, one faith. We don't have to agree on everything. We just have to get along.

cleaning house

2010-08-19T16:39:00.000-04:00

This afternoon I threw out twenty-six years of ministry related magazines. It took nine garbage bags and must have weighed a quarter of a ton. As I did, I remembered the loneliest day of my life--the day I packed up and left my last church.
Ordinarily there was a full-time staff of five people. That particular week, though no one was around, not even the secretary. Two weeks before, there was a big party for the Christian Education director, who was moving on with her husband. For me, though, there was nothing, not even anyone to help as I loaded twenty-five boxes with books, including all those magazines that I just threw out. These boxes were all that was left of my library after I had given half of it away. I almost gave away the whole library, convinced that I might never need it again. I was out of the church, and for all I knew out of the ministry, too.
Later, the church did throw together a reception for us, after were were already gone. they gave us a nice going-away present, too, some money to help and a picture of the church. But the loneliness of that time lingers still when I think of it. For the first time in my life, I did not know what tomorrow would bring.
I was not forced to resign, though there were a few who were no doubt happy that I did. I really believed my ministry there was at an end. I was not sure at that moment when of if I would ever find another church to pastor, and pastoring was all I knew. It was a terrible, lonely feeling to box up that office after all those years.
My life didn't end, of course, nor did my ministry. Three weeks after I was out of that pulpit the little church I now serve asked me to preach for them. Eight years later, I'm still there.
But now, they've built me a new office. It's smaller than the one I had before, with its leaky walls and no view, so I have no more room for all those magazines. Time to clean house.
It's a very different feeling to leave an office to go to another versus leaving and having no other. It's very different, too to leave sadly and to just leave. But the effect is much the same, even so. as we go through life, most of us become hoarders--hoarders of magazines, furniture, knick knacks, books, and memories. Every so often we need to flush them all out and start anew. It doesn't matter whether we are just moving from one house to another or whether we've been forced out by circumstances, there is life after moving. We go on. We get a new house, a new job and a new life.
Three weeks ago, my granddaughter Chloe moved to Davidson with her mom, and new stepfather. She spent the night before at our house. As she left, she said. "Goodbye, Grandma, goodbye, Grandpa, Goodbye dog!" Then she added "Goodbye, God." Then she changed her mind. "No," she said, "God's going with me." I can testify from personal experience that He does.

On being judgmental, part 4

2010-08-07T09:52:00.001-04:00

Judgmentalism, mosquitoes, and termites, all have one thing in common. Despite all the problems they cause, God gave them to us to serve a useful purpose.

I recall a story I once read about a man who had suffered a catastrophic train accident. A piece of steel passed through his head, severing the portion of the brain where emotions originate from, the portion that houses the intellect. He fully recovered physically, but he became like the fictional Mr. Spock of Star Trek, a person with no emotions.

He could not respond when people showed love to him. He did not respond to the anger of others. He could not hold down a job. He could not make the simplest decisions, such as whether to wear a red or blue shirt. His ability to make decisions was entirely absent.

Judging and feeling are irrevocably linked. You can't have one without the other. If we feel, then we value. And if we have values, we also judge.

Jesus said "Judge not, in order that you not be judged. For with the judgment you judge others, you yourself will be judged." Jesus did not mean we should never judge, but that when we judge we should do it the way we would like it to be done to us. If we want others to judge us generously, we should judge them generously, too. If we would like others to butt out of our business, then we should stay out of theirs, too. The Golden Rule applies to judging, too.

Nevertheless, there are some times when we must judge. Sometimes our role in life puts us in the position of judging--such as when we are jurors, parents, administrators, or employers. Sometimes, we are called on to render our portion of a collective judgment---when we vote or serve on jury duty. Every soldier on a battlefield is called upon to judge whether the life of the enemy is more important than his own.

We try to judge fairly, but we are not always fair, nor should we be. There are times when we will be prejudiced. We are rightfully prejudiced in favor our spouses and children. No matter what we say, we can never be impartial towards those we love.

We judge constantly in the ordinary aspects of life. We choose one color of shirt over another. We choose roses instead of daisies, Fords over Chevies, a vacation by the beach instead of a vacation in the mountains. If we had no feelings in these matters, these choices would be impossible. If we have feelings in these matters, then we will judge according to those feelings.

The idea that we should never judge is simply wrong. It isn't that we judge, it's how we judge that matters.

So how do we judge?

1. We judge when it is our business to judge. We all have feelings about certain people and certain behaviors. We may not approve of homosexuality or adultery. I certainly do not. But when I encounter homosexuals or adulterers, no matter what my feelings may be regarding their behavior do not matter. They are not mine to judge. God is the one who will judge them, not I. I must put my feelings towards their behavior aside and treat them simply as human beings.

2. We judge when we have all the facts. The kinds of judgments that cause the most mischief are those that are made quickly and in ignorance of the whole truth. Suppose, for example, we know a woman who has moved out on her husband. The husband appeals to our sympathy, saying the marriage bond is forever, and she was in sin. What we may not know is that he has been physically and emotionally abusing her for years. Until we actually know both sides, we should not judge.

3. When we must judge, we should to is with leniency and generosity. With the judgment we give others, we will be judged.

Imagine there is a future society where all cases in court were tried, not before a judge or jury, but by a supercomputer. The computer would digest all the evidence of a crime, calculate probabilities, and draw a conclusion of guilt or innocence. We would still need judges to decide upon appropriate sentence. That is because judges exist to grant leniency, not punishment. Every criminal could receive the maximum sentence, but it is up to the judge to decide whether that sentence should be lightened due to other circumstances.

Our judgment, too ought to be about mercy, not punishment. We could ostracize a friend for doing us harm, but we do not have to. We can choose to forgive. We can believe that a casual comment was sarcastic or cutting, or we could take it as face value, and give the person the benefit of a doubt. Any fool can take offense--it takes a wise man to forgive. If we have the intellect to accurately judge the offenses to others, then we ought to have the good sense to overlook them unless it is absolutely imperative that we do so.

We cannot help but judge. It is part of our emotional nature to do so. But do we have the good sense to leave off judging the servants of another, and mind our own business? Let's attend to our own personal courtrooms, and leave the rest to God.

On being judgmental, part 4

2010-08-07T09:52:00.000-04:00

Pray For Parents

2010-08-07T09:00:00.000-04:00

I talked to my parents on the phone last night. I must confess I was a bit shaken. My mother had minor surgury three weeks ago, and came home from he hospital. Then she developed a pocket of infection and a high fever, and other physical problems. She's spent another two weeks in the hospital, where dad never left her side. Now she's home, but she's not well, her spirits and her physical strength are very low at the moment.
We are all increasingly realizing that they are not strong enough to live on their own. We are looking for assisted living for them. Both of their health continues to deteriorate.
Some people live close to their parents and have strong ongoing relationships with them. This has not been the case with us. We've lived most of our adult lives away from them. When it comes to family, though, out of sight is definitely not out of mind. I care about them deeply, especially right now,and wish I could do more to help them at the moment. Those people who have stood by my side for all my life, helping and supporting, deserve more than I have been able to give at the moment. If only there were more I could do than pray and support from afar.
Whoever may read this blog will no doubt know how I am feeling. If you don't, you will. Our parents are like the ground underneath our feet. Even when we do not think about them, they are there, and we build our lives upon them. When our parents begin to suffer, we are shaken. The ones we have always depended upon now have to depend upon us.
One good side to all this, though. When a family is under pressure, love comes to the surface. Implied love becomes manifest love. There is sweetness along with the worry, too.
Please keep them both in your prayers. I would appreciate it.

On Being Judgmental, Part 3

2010-08-06T13:15:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I wonder if extreme judgmentalism should not be classified as a kind of personality disorder. We are all judgmental at times, but there is an impulse to judge that goes beyond the normal in some people. Being judgmental creates an illusion of being in control. If we cannot control what goes on around us, we reach for the false security of being able to make sense of it. If we can label the things around us as good or bad, we have simplified things into two camps. That makes us feel slightly more secure in our place in life. It also leaves us with a feeling of usperiority over others. Passing judgment gives us a feeling of the moral highground. This is odd, because people who have the same vices still feel somewhat more moral if they can judge others to be sinners for doing the same things that they know they are doing.

This brings up the greatest challenge for the judgmental--self judgment. If we do not judge others or judge God, we still may judge ourselves.

Paul must have suffered from self judgment, judging by what he said in 1 Cor 4:3-5

3 I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself . 4 My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes.

Paul's conscience is clear because he is forgiven, not because he is perfect. God has taken away from him the penalty for sin.

That was not always true for Paul. When he was a Pharisee, under the law, Paul spent a lot of time in self-judgment. Self-judgment was (and still is) viewed by many as a good thing, a trait that will get us on the road to self perfection. But self-perfection is a dead-end street. We will never get there until we are reborn in the new kingdom of God without the stain of original sin. Until then, we will make errors, mistakes, and even wllful sins.

Most Christians show signs of extreme judgmentalism. Why do I say that? It isn't because they necessarily express their judgment of others. Some do, but most have learned to keep judging to themselves. "Judge not, that you will not be judged." No, I believe Christians struggle with judmentalism because of the misery in their lives. Christians ought to be a happy people, a joyful people. But when we look at Christians honestly, we recognize that most of them are not. That is because inside they still beat themselves up for being bad people. Most of us are more keenly aware of our own sins than we are of others.

Self judgment is basically the same as the judgment we pass on others. All judgment is a desire to feel superior. If we judge others, we are trying to feel superior to them. If we judge circumstances, we are basically telling God what to do. And if we judge ourselves, we are really judging the One who made us.

If you struggle with self-esteem issues, I'm not trying to put you down. Neither am I telling you to stop judgment. Then we would be judging ourselves on how judgmental we are! Instead, I would suggest some readjustment of perception of the way things are, that's all. If we see God more clearly in His relationship to us, then we will also see ourselves the way He sees us.

Here are a few things that God thinks about us.

1. We are fantastically beautiful in the eyes of God. We are the epitome of creation, and the most beautiful thing to Him in the whole world. He did not say of squirrels and monkeys that they were made in His own image. He did not look at turtles and chickens and say "This is very good." He did not die for dogs. He died for us. We are to God as fantastically beautiful as our children were when we first held them in our arms.

2. He is generous with our faults. Sometimes we stress that God is perfection, and that we are all imperfect and sin-stained. But God has a relationshiop with us nevertheless. He talks to us, and comforts us. This is in spite of the fact that our sins are far more numerous and serious than we think they are. The sins we notice are like a spot of mud on a pigs nose--we see them as great, but if we could really see the rest of us, we would know that they are really small compared with the sins we don't see. Our good deeds are are like the collar on a dog. They may be the only clothing we have, but it sure doesn't cover much. God could care less. He loves us, not because of what we do right, but in spite of what we do wrong. He is more generous to us than we are to ourselves.

3. He is passionate about forgiving us. If the value an object is proven by what we are willing to pay for it, then our forgiveness must be the most valuable thing in the world. God paid the price of the cross for us. How, then can we call it of no account? Why do we insist upon holding onto the guilt of past sins when in fact God has paid the ultimate price for it?

4. He wants to walk beside us always. Whenever I am tempted to hold a grudge against a person, one of the questions I have to ask myself is how much that grudge is worth. Is it worth disrupting my life for it? Is it worth changing jobs to avoid seeing them, or changing churches? Is it worth splitting up a family or ruining a friendship? Most of the time, I conclude that grudges are just too expensive.

Self grudges are highly expensive, too. They cause us to avoid confronting ourselves. When we don't like ourselves, we resort to all kinds of diversions and amusements to keep from dealing with genuine issues. We avoid uncomfortable realities, hide from ourselves uncomfortable facts, and think that, if we never think about it, our guilt will go away. We can make it go away for a time, but it is really still there, and the cost of avoidance becomes bigger every day.

God could act the same way to us, but He doesn’t. He would rather overlook our faults, and forgive our tresspasses than to break our friendship. God does not abandon us. It is we that run away from Him, usually because we do not think He can handle our sinfulness. Rest assured, God can.

The biggest argument I can make against judgmentalism is that it is a waste of time and energy. We waste time thinking about oughts and shoulds and have no time left to deal with what is and isn't. Judging self is no more useful than judging God and others.

Nevertheless, judgments do have its uses, which we will talk about in our next installment.

On Being Judgmental, Part 3

2010-08-06T13:15:00.000-04:00

On Being Judgmental, Part 2

2010-08-03T19:21:00.001-04:00

Judgmentalism is more than something that we are towards other people. It is also what we do to God. It is impossible to be judgmental without judging God.

My grandchildren, Ethan and Chloe, seem to have already been bitten by the judgmental bug. We know this because whenever they don't get what they want, they say "This is the worst day ever." I ask them "Why is it the worst day ever?" Then they tell me about how they did not get the snack they want or the toy they want, or that someone did not allow them to play with matches or stick their fingers in an electric socket. Never mind that whatever authority did not allow them these privileges did it for their benefit. Never mind that they say it coming home from a movie that they loved. Never mind that they had just eaten their favorite lunch and played happily all day. One little "no" makes it the worst day ever.

These little children are expressing a misguided view that is common even with the grown ups around them. Why do we think that our worst day was our worst day? What happened to make it a bad day? For that matter, what made our best day our best day? Are we sure?

Whether a day is good or bad is not up to us. Every day is a providential day, one decreed by God to be the day we receive. Somehow, though we feel it is necessary to label days or events good or bad, and to store away the memory of the day in some neat little pigeon hole in our mind.

But in God's mind, how do we know what is good or bad for us? Illness breaks and softens us. Riches can destroy us. A wedding day is a great day, but becomes a bad memory when the marriage ends in divorce. A firing is a bad day, but becomes a blessing when it opens the door to a greater opportunity. All we have and are comes from the hand of a God who loves us and has a plan for our lives. God can make a good day from a bad one, and a bad day from a good one.

When we label the events of our lives as good or bad based on a moment's pain or enjoyment we are no better than ungrateful children. We are judging God's motives and purpose. If we had the faith we claim to have, we would be happy with what we have, enjoying the moments we have, instead of trying to judge our moments as good or bad.

Having judged God, we move on to judging others. Since we can't accept what God has given us, we can't accept others, either. We want to put labels on people, just like we do on our moments. Is this person good or bad? Are they working for our benefit, or are they out to get us? We do have friends and enemies, to be sure, but most people have their own agendas, most of whom have nothing to do with us. They are neither trying to help us or hurt us, but are living their own lives, under the all-judging eye of God. It is not our place to decide if they are living to God's satisfaction. Instead, it s our job to do good to all people, especially those who call themselves our brothers and sisters.

If we can learn to enjoy what God has given, and give up our right to judge the moments, then we can also perhaps learn to enjoy others without judging them. Every individual who comes across our path was put there, or allowed to be there, by a benevolent God who seeks only our benefit. No one is an accident, and no one can come near us without God's permission. Once we give up the right to judge others, we are free to see the blessings that may come from them.

Later, I'll talk about who we judge the most.

On Being Judgmental, Part 2

2010-08-03T19:21:00.000-04:00

On Being Judgmental, Part 1

2010-08-02T11:16:00.001-04:00

I don't know if this is a product of turning old, but the older I get, the less judgmental I become. Maybe it’s a product of old age. As we age, we mellow, and an absolute black and white view of the world starts to gray around the edges. Things are not so clear-cut as they once were. Neither am I smart as I used to think I was. I must have become dumber as I have gotten older.

Of course, there is such a thing as being too non-judgmental. Some things need to be praised, while others deserve condemnation. Clearly, we can err two far in either direction.

That being said, why is it that we Christians, especially conservative, Bible-believing Christians, seem to lean in favor of judgment? I mean we seem to go out of our way to judge others. How is it that among those who are saved by Grace and rescued from hell only by the forgiveness of Christ, we still find ourselves judging others? Daily we reenact that parable about the man who was forgiven millions, yet could not forgive that pitiful amount owed him. More than that, we don't seem to stop there. We can't overlook the debts that are not even owed us. It seems to be enough for us to withhold fellowship and love from people who owe us nothing, but instead owe it do someone else.

This is a little vague I know, so let me get more specific. Let's say we read about some popular preacher has made some controversial statement that may mean he has changed his views on a controversial subject. This person is not of our denomination. Their ministry in no way affects ours. Yet we are compelled to correct him, and tell others not to listen to him. The statement might have been out of context. It might not be so bad as we thought. But why is it our business to find that out, or to correct them if they are not in our fellowship? It is not just a question of rushing to judgment--it is our compulsion to judge if we don't have to.

Or let's say that we hear an aquaintance might be cheating on his wife. Is his sin against us? Is it our business to know his business? Bill Gothard once famously said that gossip was telling something true or false about a person when we are neither part of the solution or part of the problem. If we are neither the solution or the problem, then why do we want to throw ourselves in the middle of someone else's business?

I know some people will say about this: "Don't we have an obligation to correct a straying brother?" "Shouldn't we be concerned that false doctrines or practices would creep into the church?" We do, of course. That is why we should go privately and talk with those who we think might be in moral trouble. But that's not what we do. That requires courage, and most of us don’t have it. Instead, we spread our views around to others, and never get around to talking directly to them. As far as the purity of the church is concerned, there does need to be clear teachings on some things. But it is, after all God's church and not ours. He is capable of defending it far better than we are. Our job is to instruct the flock under us, and not assume responsibility over people in other flocks. We do not have the wisdom to always tell what is good or bad, or right or wrong about another. Judgmentalism is a slippery slope. Saying that we must judge in one circumstance makes it easier for us judge the next time. Before we know it, we have assumed the position of judge over others whenever and about whatever we please.

Why do we need to judge? If God had wanted us to judge others, He would have given us the title and the authority. It is our flesh, not our spirit, that cries out for the power to judge others.

Moe about this later.

On Being Judgmental, Part 1

2010-08-02T11:16:00.000-04:00

Changes, Changes!

2010-08-02T11:09:00.001-04:00

So many changes!

There is so many changes in Joy and my lives today that I haven't been able to keep up with all of them. Good things. Molly got married last Saturday. They moved with her husband to Davidson, and has We've also adopted a dog--Natasha. She's a black border collie mix, about a year and a half old. She's the first female dog we've had, and is a big different from other dogs we've had. Not as much doggie testosterone. She's lively, all right, but likes to be petted more than any dog I've seen. I fully expect that, if she could talk, she'd ask if her collar made her look fat.

I'm getting a usable office at church, which means I'll be spending more time there. It will be nice to have a professional looking office again after so many years. I'm moving my books in, which is taking several days to complete.

Along with a new dog, office, and son-in-law, we also got new furniture for our living room. This includes a new TV, couch, two chairs, and coffee table. Who would have thought that merely getting a few new sticks of furniture would have been so disruptive. I'm moving books around, trying to get rid of old stuff, and rearranging. I'll be glad when it's over.

We've also joined a health club. It's been fun, but it's shown me how out of shape I actually am. It is something that Joy and I both feel that God has been leading us to do. If we want to be around to see grandchildren, we had better be concerned about our health.

Meanwhile, Joy had a health scare. She had been sick for six weeks with a bad spell of asthma. She has still not gotten over it. A CAT scan of her chest revealed a small nodule in her trachea, which they thought might be linked to the problem. Praise God, when they went to see it through a bronchioscope, it was gone. God must have removed it, Praise Him.

Meanwhile (have you ever notice how powerful a word "meanwhile" is?) My parents are considering going into a retirement home. It has gotten increasingly difficult to get around where they are, and they are concerned about the future. We do not know whether it will be in Atlanta or near us.

Another meanwhile, I've been elected to head the writer's club in Monroe this year--my first office outside the church. We're setting up writing contests, poetry reading, and storytelling events. It's an exciting voyage, but I don't yet have my sea legs.

Funny how things change--never slowly, but in gushes. I've learned to appreciate the quiet moments more, because God gives them for a reason--to rest for the next wave of change.

A New Blog is Born

2010-08-02T11:08:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time since I've written on this blog, or any other blog. The next post, I think will let the reader know why. Our personal life has been in transition. Now that things have settled, I'm going back to blogging.
I have had many good responses to recent blogs, especially those pertaining to the state of the church. But those of you who are interested in my thoughts on such matters are not necessarily interested in the details of my personal lif. For that reason, I'm starting a new blog, which I call "The Radical Moderate" for the purpose of expressing my thoughts on ministry related subjects. I hope you will read it, and feel free to comment or even contribute to it. The address is http://themoderatelyradical.blogspot.com/. For those of you who are interested in more personal aspects of our family and my refllections on them, stay with me here at this blog. And don't forget to check out my sermon blog Oak Ridge Messages, as as well as my poetry blog. Just follow the links on this page.

A Manly Grace

2010-06-21T14:50:00.001-04:00

Highway 74 west of Waxhaw is our main link to the outside world. It's just four miles long, stretching from Highway 521 to downtown Waxhaw, parallel to the railroad tracks. It is, for the most part, a barren stretch, except for an occasional old house or trailer. Otherwise it's mostly woods and kudzu.

I was surprised then to see a sign for a new church go up on this lonely stretch of road. I was even more surprised to see it on the north side in a kudzu patch, slap up against the railroad tracks. I cannot imagine how they will manage to build a church there.

The sight said "Future site of Our Lady of Grace Catholic church."

The sign of a new Catholic church coming to our neighborhood fills me with--well actually it doesn't fill me with much of anything. Not being a Catholic, I don't much care where the put a church. They can put one on he moon, if they want to. It's their right, I guess.

The name fascinated me. "Our Lady of Grace." I presume by "lady" they meant the Virgin Mary. It is unlikely that they would build a church and dedicate it to someone else. To my Protestant ears, naming a church "our Lady" seems a little weird.

But the last word "Grace." Is one I am very familiar with. It's a good Protestant word. Grace, as we are fond of saying is God's Riches at Christ's Expense. Grace is a free gift a donation to us as charity, instituted by Christ on the Cross and given upon asking to anyone who will believe.

But it puzzled me to read the sign. I know that Catholics are particularly fond of the Virgin Mary, but still why would we associate with Mom that which seems rightfully associated with the Son? After all, we don't refer to the "Obama's Mom's Administration." We don't celebrate "Columbus' Mother's Day."

This is not to take anything away from Mary at all. It's just a question. Since Catholics believe as we do that it is Jesus, not Mary who really saves us, why do they say "Hail Mary, full or Grace?"

I don’t' think the reason for it is spiritual. I think it has to do with our emotions. We tend to associate grace with women more than men. When we skinned our knee as children, who was it who bandaged us up, kissed our forehead and gave us a cup of hot cocoa? It was mom. Our dads were yelling at us go get back in there and finish the game. We look to Dads for inspiration. We look to mothers for grace and hot cocoa. That's probably why Mother's Day is bigger than Father's Day. Mom's are just cooler, that's all.

In our society grace has become (I think) a feminine Ideal. Women are gentle an graceful. Men are tough and forceful. Grace is gentle. Men are proud. We men tend to leave grace to the women folk, as we go out with our guns to blow holes in cute little animals. Leave the grace to the women.

But God didn't see it that way. Our Savior was male on purpose. Again, not to take anything away from Mary, but God chose to come to earth in male form, not female.

Christ came to offer us, not just grace and forgiveness, but a manly grace and a manly forgiveness. I'm not saying the sexes are not equal. Both sexes need this forgiveness equally, to be sure. But it's just that the kind of grace that God offered us is a grace born of blood and suffering. It is a grace that came from facing the worst that people could dish out, and to throw back forgiveness into their raging faces. In order to give us God's grace, he had to bleed like a soldier in the height of battle. He had to bear a burden that would make Atlas shrug. He had to stand before kings and governors and speak truth boldly to power. In short he had to stand up like a man.

Come to think of it, women also know what suffering is like. What man could bear the pain of child-bearing? What man could bleed and groan, and through that suffering bring new life into the world? There is a reason that God made women more able to bear pain than men--because they had to.

God was no wimp when it comes to grace. Grace is never soft, not when it was given to us on the cross, nor when we give it out to the persecuting world. It is still God's riches at our expense. It is still a forgiveness born of blood and pain.

Maybe I'm just being picky about word, but then that's what theologians do. Grace did not begin with our lady. It began with a suffering Father looking down on his dying Son, and pronouncing it good, a necessary sacrifice for the sin of the world. No one on earth, man or woman, can fully grasp the enormity of this sacrifice.

Synod-Day Two

2010-06-10T23:47:00.000-04:00

I had to leave Synod early this year--Joy has been sick. By "early" I mean suppertime. The synod was still going on when I left. Now I understand that it was stopped for lack of a quorum.

I feel bad about that, but not too much. Getting home to my wife when she is sick was more important at that time Besides, like about two hundred other people. I was not prepared to spend another night in the mountains.

The ignoble end of the Synod is indicative of a problem we often have in the church. I don't mean the lack of dedication. I mean the lack of sensitivity to others feelings. We need to repent of this before we preach at others.

Christianity is a religion of grace. But too often we think we can do the work of Christ by scolding others. We resort to shame when we fail to love.

I saw that lived out as Synod this day. The Erskine board, in an act of reconciliation, agreed in advance to avoid a meeting which threatened to break our ties. It was abundantly clear that they wanted to continue to be ARP. But others in the Synod wanted to force them to rebuke people they thought had offended them, and to do it on the basis of their interpretation of I Corinthians 6. There was no need for this. The discussion added hours to the meeting. Then there was an attempt to replace one slate of board nominees for another. That added more hours. At every turn the spirit of reconciliation was thwarted by people who seem to have no regard for the peace and prosperity of the church. I do not fault the moderator or any of the officers for this. It was simply that we had no regard for the feelings and needs of others.

I did not rise to speak at Synod, but I was prepared to. I wanted to point out the survey that is available on a website called erskineforeveryone.com. The faculty portion of the survey was included in the moderator's committee report, incredibly scrubbed of all results. The survey showed that more than eighty-five percent of the students did not agree that there was any culture of intimidation on the campus. Among those who did thing there was such a culture, more than two thirds believed that it was Synod and ARP students who were doing most of the intimidating. Among the faculty, only one professor who answered the question expressed any agreement with the actions of Synod and the commission. Common sense would suggest that any attempt to roughly impose change from the outside would be greeted with serious resistance.

One commentator on the Erskine situation had the temerity to call the Erskine community a "mutinous den of thieves." This is slander of the worst sort, of course . But one thing is probably true they might have a mutiny on their hands. At least, when Captain Bligh was thrown off the Bounty, a third of the men wanted to go with him. We would be hard pressed to find a sixth of the Erskine community who are not offended by the heavy-handed treatment of Synod representatives.

I agree that Erskine needs to become more evangelical. For thirty years I have wanted to see the school better integrate faith and learning. But It seem to me that the actions of those who have made it their mission to change Erskine are clumsy at best and cruel and insensitive at worst. Like an abusive father, they get upset when the ones they beat up on are not content to sit down and take it.

I know the men on that commission, as well as those who have driven them are sincere, Godly men. They are highly intelligent and sincerely convinced that their course is right. But the same thing can be said for the captain of the Titanic. When we ignore the feelings of those we lead, we court disaster. And disaster is what we get.

I believe the quorum crisis at the end of Synod is a similar issue. When people's needs are ignored, they tend to get up and walk out. When we stretch a meeting beyond what most people are prepared to do, they tend to set their own priorities. This is not lack of faith, or laziness, or unfaithfulness. This is the simple fact of life that we must all choose priorities, according to our own conscience. I am sorry I had to leave, but I would do it again. Next time, we can be prepared to stay, but not to listen to other people's pointless and uncivil bloviations.

We need an outpouring of the Spirit in our denomination. But it won't come just from asking God from it. It will not come until we are all willing to admit our own personal sins. We have to clean house, starting with ourselves. Until we can truthfully say that we've done all we can to obey the Great Commandment to love God and to love our neighbor, especially our fellow believers, revival will not come.

My college, Asbury experienced just such a revival in 1970. That revival which started at that Christian College spread over the entire country and is still being felt today. I came there the following year. I talked to the people at the center of that revival, and I know what they told me. It came when they admitted to their wrongs. Professors confessed not loving their students. Students confessed cheatig. Administrators confessed to financial irregularities. All confessed that they had neglected God's call oh their lives. It was these individual acts of repentance, more than the big meetings that drove that revival.

If we are ever to see Erskine and the ARP Church revived, it will come hot only by prayer but by repentance. We must stop abusing one another. "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land." II Chronicles 7: 14.

Synod--Day One

2010-06-09T22:39:00.000-04:00

We just finished the first working day of the 2010 general synod. This is the most tense and arguably the most important Synod meeting in years, due to the controversy regarding Erskine College and Seminary. The forecast for tomorrow is stormy with a chance of broken friendships and hurt feelings. Let's hope the storm blows over.

This controversy has had an interesting effect on the tone of synod. Tempers have flared in some committee meetings, but overall it has been peaceful so far. There is a strange feeling of unity here, not the unity of people who agree, but of people who have no choice but to be here, who realize that whether or not we are on one side or another, we have to go through it together.

Tonight I heard someone pray that God's will be done. I wanted to say "what do you think will happen except his will?" but I restrained myself. God's will being done is not the problem nearly as much as our being willing to accept God's will when He does it. We are always thinking that God's will will be pleasant for us. When often His will hurts. A lot. I'm just praying that, no matter what the fire, It will refine us.

Synod is like heaven in a way. Everyone you know from many different churches meet together in a beautiful place. There we sing Hymns, prayer prayers, and slap each other on the back in greetings. Year after year they are the same people--a little grayer, more wrinkly, and a bit unsteady on the feet, but the same otherwise. If heaven allowed uncomfortable chairs and floor fights, it would be Synod.

One thing bothers me about Synod more than anything. Synod takes itself way too seriously. We're prone to forget that we are just one little sliver of the whole Body of Christ, and that what we say or do does not matter that much in the larger scope of things. We allow ourselves paroxysms of piety, and feel great and grand in our dark suits and power ties. It's easy for us minister to forget that the mother of all sins is pride, and indulge in grand posturing. If ever a group needed the Marx Brothers, it is Synod.

Still, every so often a gem emerges from the usual slush., like tonight when the children sang, or when the man spoke honestly and from his heart about taking care of orphans. Then there was the conversation under the trees where a minister told me about an old drunk in his church who got saved, dried out, and healed of terminal cancer, and then testifying in church with tears in his eyes that God really answers prayer.

Another gem found at the Synod is my friend Jay Hering, professor of New Testament at Erskine Seminary. I've known Jay since he was sixteen. He's my oldest friend in this denomination. At an early age, he brought his brothers to Christ and lived to see his parents follow as a result of their testimony. In his twenties he developed a passion for Germany, and became fluent in the language, going to Berlin as our first missionary to Europe. Then he went back to school, got his Ph. D and became a professor at Erskine. Jay has become a target in this controversy with the school, and has been accused of being disloyal to his vows. No on who has ever known Jay could think that he would behave in any way but in charity, humility, and integrity. He is one of the most genuine souls that I know. Sharing some time with him will be one of the highlights of this synod for me.

We don't know what tomorrow will bring. Whatever it is, God will guide it. I know, because of all the prayers that have been prayed, and because He is and always wil be in control. Keep us in your prayers, though, that we can be the tools through which he works, instead of the stumbling blocks that He will overcome .

Why We Need Clothes

2010-06-04T12:34:00.001-04:00

I bought some clothes recently at JC Penneys. I love going into Penneys because they have a big and tall section. For a person of "ample dimensions" big and tall shops are like heaven. It is especially gratifying when you go in and discover clothes on the rack are actually too big for you.

Anyway, I bought some pants and took them home. I had to pry a bit do get them in my crowded closet. So many clothes! I must have thirty shirts, at least a dozen pairs of pants, and probably a half dozen hats, which I don't need. Over the years, I've had enough clothes to adequately dress a third world nation--if such a nation could be found that needed big and tall outfits.

This led me think about the mystery of clothes. Why do we need them? It's easy to understand why we once needed and still need clothes in cool climates. After all, human skin would freeze in Norway or Iceland or somewhere like that. But most of us don't live in Norway or Iceland. So why do we need clothes?

Some people don't think we need clothes. In fact, there are whole organizations devoted to the concept that people don't need clothes--like nudist camps and HBO. But in spite of years of concerted effort on their part, they have failed to convince the majority of what we seem to know by instinct.

Remember the old Tarzan pictures? Why is it that Johnny Weismuller always ran around the jungle in a loincloth? I'm not being flippant here. The truth is that even in the most hot and primitive parts of the world, among the mud men of Indonesia or the desert wanders of the Kalihari, there is a universal instinct to cover oneself, even when that covering serves no pragmatic purpose.

One theory is that clothes represent status. Clothes tell us who is important and who is not. Maybe the chief wears a red loincloth, while everyone else wears brown. But that doesn't make sense. Since clothes originated in Genesis 3, with Adam and Eve, who were they trying to impress? Status had nothing to do with it back then.

Another theory is that clothes are about modesty. Again, this can be shown by the bikini. People around the world seem to know instinctively that the genitalia need to be covered. This certainly helps social interaction, especially among people of the opposite sex. Clothes preserve the mystery.

But then again, we have a problem with Genesis 3. Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed, so why did they suddenly need to cover themselves, or even a portion of themselves.

It is true that in the Fall, our sexual passions were distorted, as were all our other passions. What was mean to be beautiful and desirable, became enslaving and irresistable. What was meant to serve became the ruler. Sexual openness is impossible only in a society where sexual apetites are universally mastered, which is not our society. So clothes are necessary for modesty today. But not at the first. Not with Adam and Eve.

Clothes were meant to hide ourselves, but from whom. At the first, there were only three sets of eyes that could see us--Adam's, Eve's, and God's. Since Adam and Eve made their clothes together, the eyes they must have been most fearing had to be Gods. As irrational as it sound, they thought they could hide from God.

We wear clothes for one reason--because we do not want others to know who we really are. We would rather put ourselves in cloth boxes all day than to let others see our imperfections, or our perfections. Clothes are a defensive act, an opportunity to deceive even ourselves about who we really are.

"Naturally", we say. "It is a rare person who looks better naked than they do clothed." But is that really true? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Is a taught, hard body really more pleasing than a wrinkled, lumpy one. True, the latter may be more sexually desirable, but does that make it actually more beautiful? An accomplished artist or photographer, with a keen eye for beauty, is capable of seeing God's handiwork in bodies that do not seem to be the least bit desirable to us. Reubens' buxom nudes or Van Gough's paintings of an old man's face are beautiful, sometimes beyond words. Surely God, who sees all things beautiful, looks upon our physical form with appreciation and not disgust.

After their first attempts at fig leaves, God himself taught them how to make clothes from the skins of animals., not as a divine direction, but as a concession to our own fears and shame. In an imperfect world, we sometimes need to hide, because others cannot see God's beauty in us, and are likely to abuse what they cannot understand. But it is really our own shame that keeps us hiding behind threads and skins. We wear clothes because we cannot bear to look on ourselves.

We are not who we think we are. We are who God thinks we are. We deceive ourselves into an illusion of self-knowledge. Sin had made it impossible to see us as we really and truly are.

And what are we? We are the image of the living God, beautiful beyond words. We are the work of a master sculptor, perfect in all his ways, and no abuse of our body or injury to our souls can ever fully take that away. We are as God made us to be, the most beautiful creatures in the world.

In Defense of Impurity

2010-05-11T15:18:00.000-04:00

The word "Puritan" is a kind of shibboleth word when it comes to Reformed theology. If you are a Reformed Christian, you are likely to be attracted to them. If you are not a Reformed Christian, then the picture you are likely to have of Puritans is likely to bring images of dunking stools and witch hunts.

This is an unfair picture of the Puritans. They were not the prudish, judgmental fanatics they have been portrayed to be in popular culture. They were not killjoys. To the contrary, they were passionate people who ate, drank, smoked, and made love with passion and gusto. Because they loved God, they loved life, and they showed it.

The Puritans were not perfect, and did not claim to be. But they understood that they were saved by grace and grace alone. But they did get angry at times, and yes, they were judgmental sometimes. They were called Puritans not be cause they themselves were pure, but because they sought God with an even greater passion their love of life. Their greatest passion was to walk always in step with God.

But "puritanical" is a different word altogether. A puritanical person insists that they are morally and doctrinally pure already, and seeks to making everyone else conform to their own standards. Puritanicals are the rightful heirs of the Pharisees. They are reminiscent of the Pharisee who Jesus described in one of his parables as praying in the temple, pointing to a sinner in the back and saying aloud. "I'm glad I’m not like some people I know!"

The Puritans sought to be pure in grace and love of God. Puritanicals have their eyes on this world, and on themselves. They narcissistically apprise the world around them, and find that it falls short of their own standards. In their self-centered opinions, God's standards and their standards are one and the same.

When Puritanicals take over a church, they are always doomed to failure. The more they insist on doctrinal and moral purity, the less they exhibit the characteristcs of love and grace that God most clearly calls us to in the Scriptures. purity that the Bible calls us to is not a purity of doctrine or even behavior, but a purity of love and trust.

When God calls us to be pure, what kind of purity is he talking about? It can't be purity of doctrinal belief, since our understanding of doctrine is and always will be incomplete. We may pretend do understand the mysteries of the universe, but we can no more comprehend them than a flea can comprehend the nature a dog. We can only understand the little part of the universe we personally experience. It cannot be purity of behavior, either. If our knowledge of God's word and will are limited, our own will to resist is even more limited. Besides, there is that tricky problem of situational relativism. What is right in one situation is wrong in another. Even Solomon in all his wisdom was often deceived.

The purity I believe we should seek is a purity of the heart, which leads to a purifying life. It is a purity in living and understanding the central, saving message of Christianity, which is plainly expressed in the Bible.

Ephesians 2: 8-9. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, it is a gift of God, not of yourselves, so that no one can boast."

I John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness."

John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, so that whoever would believe in Him would have everlasting life."

We will never be pure in any other way, but in our pure desire to attain the grace of God through faith.

This pure Gospel is expressed in two loves,--love of God and love of others.

1 John 3:2-3

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure .

I John 4: 7-8 Beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God,. He who does not love does notlove God, for God is love.

Now, here’s the odd thing about it. We cannot be puritanical and pure at the same time. The more we insist on the church being completely pure, the less we love our brothers. The more we insist of being absolutely right about God in all things, the less we love him. We remake God in our own image. We think Him as judgmental as we are. But the more we forsake judging others and accept them gracefully, as God accepts us, the more we reflect God's love in the world.

I am not "totally" Reformed. I am not totally anything except Christian. I freely admit that there are things I am not sure about doctrinally and morally. I also admit that many of the things I do know, I fail to live up to. But the desire to get everything right is a foolish waste of time, compared to the goal of loving God and others purely and sincerely.

We should strive to live moral lives in accordance with God's will. We should also struggle to understand the meaning of the Scriptures. But there are limits to what is possible in our quest to be good. No matter how good we think we are impurity is there. It is part of God's plan all along that it be this way.

This impurity is not necessarily a bad thing. Iron is strong, but when it contains the impurity of carbon, it becomes steel, which is even stronger. Brass made impure with tin becomes bronze. The quality that makes live music so superior to mechanical music is the impurity, not the purity of the voices. No choir completely sings in harmony, we just overlook the difference. At some point our quest to purify makes our commitment to the Gospel impure.

God made a world where few things are completely pure. He did it on purposes, to show His grace and creativity. If we insist that the church we serve has to be on one completely without variation in thought or practice, then we will serve a church that has ceased to preach the gospel of grace.

Groucho Marx once quipped that he would never be a member or any group that would have him as a member. I feel the same way. If the church insists that all members look alike, act alike, and behave alike, then they should never have me as a member, and I do not want to be a part of it. But if the church can open its arms widely enough to accept believing Christians who think and act in a way that is different from the norm, then there may be a place for me in it.

Let's not sacrifice the peace and prosperity of the church for the sake of a purity we cannot ever fully attain. Instead, let's embrace our differences in the bond of love.

The "Radical Moderate"

2010-04-26T16:11:00.000-04:00

I have been going back and forth in my mind about whether or not to start a new blog. Whoever is reading my thoughts on this blog, I hope you can give me your wisdom.
When I have discussed it with friends and colleagues, they think I'm just talking about the immediate conflicts within our denomination about our school. I am not. I am deeply concerned about my denomination, but frankly Erskine is only a small part of it.
What concerns me within our fellowship more is an erosion of tolerance and civility. Let's face it, the ARP's are not significantly different in our doctrines than many conservative Presbyterian denominations like the PCA, OPC, and others. We all use basically the same catechism and confession. What set us apart was the way in which we held to them. I used to characterize us as "loving conservatives." It was not what we held but the graciousness by which we held them. For years, I have suggested to people that the ARP church was a good example of Christian love and charity, that they knew the difference between disagreement and contention.
Today, I have come to question whether this is true.
Oh, we make occasional gestures in that direction. We don't tend to yell at our meetings, and we address one another with a Southern civility. This is not what I mean. It was not how we said it, but what we did that made us civil. You can put sugar on a bullet, but that doesn't make it friendly.
One of the problems I think is in my own perception. In my naivete, I did not realize that what I saw as good was not seen that way by others. Where I saw grace, they saw weakness. Where I saw tolerance, they saw compromise. Besides, I was told, graciousness and tolerance are not written anywhere in our bylaws as being one of our distinctivies.
Well, I for one would like to see that change. I'm tired of seeing extremists and hotheads drive our collective conversation. I would like to see the ARP church go on record as saying that we will respect those who disagree with us, and treat them not as enemies, but as children of God.
So what I have been praying about is starting a blog, and encouraging others to contribute. I would call the blog "the Radical Moderate." I would want to publish articles not only by myself, but by others which touched on the subject of upholding a community of mutual respect.
Here's what stops me from doing it. First, the realization that in our current conflict that people might misinterpret what I am saying. I've read some of the blogs and Facebook threads and realize that emotions on both sides are hot, and the temperature is rising. Any attempt to start a new conversation at this point might degenerate into the same tired arguments being shouted back and forth. I also am concerned that such an effort might be misconstrued as being simply people holding hands and singing "Kum Bay Yah." Standing for mutual respect and public concern does not have to be wimpy, if we take it seriously. In fact if I could put one picture on the blog, it would be of Samson bringing down the temple. It seems to me that when we push against both sides, we are the first one to get hit when the roof falls in.
The guidelines of such a blog would be as follows:
1. No cause is more valuable than the people involved.
2. We will discuss anything, as long as we discuss with mutual love, respect and civility.
3. We will not question the morals or motivations of others,
4. We will not engage in name-calling, marginalizing, or labeling.
5. We will not engage in personal attacks, or denigrate those who disagree.
6. We will seek to encourage the peace and prosperity as well as the purity of the church
7. We will not put down other denominations, but will build up the whole Body of Christ.
So I want your imput. Should I start the conversation? Is it needed? would it be of assistance to others?
I hopw you will share your thoughts with me.

What is a "Radical Moderate?"

2010-04-20T00:46:00.001-04:00

The term “radical moderate” may sound like a contradiction of terms, but it is very intentional. For too long, our denominational discourse has been driven by arrogance, extremism, and ugly, judgmental attitudes on both sides. Some people will not be happy unless they have a crusade to fight.

Loving and respecting one another is not just a good idea—it is a divine command. Without love, the visible church is an unmitigated failure.

Before we begin, let’s define some terms. By “moderate” I do not mean what might be called moderate in the broader community, but as it is within the doctrines and principles of conervative Reformed Protestant Christianity. I take for granted that most of my readers agree with those principles. These principles include:

• Orthodox Christian doctrines as set down in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds. Including the deity of Christ, the Trinity, salvation by grace alone, and the necessity of belief for salvation, and so forth.

• The inerrancy of the Bible in its original autographs. It is our only guide to faith and practice, and constitutes the basis for anything we say or do.

• Calvinist, Presbyterian, Reformed beliefs as set down in the Westminster Confession and the Catechisms. These are not by any means infallible, but they do constitute the best (but not perfect) expression of Biblical theology and understanding.

• Personal conversion and evangelism as the primary means of promoting God’s kingdom in the world. Salvation comes through having faith in Jesus as one’s personal Lord and Savior, not by good works, ecclesiastical ritual, or anything else.

Even for those who affirm these statements, there is still plenty of room for disagreement. We are a diverse group of believers who worship in different ways, speak different languages, and differ on a great many issues. The purity of the church demands that we hold to the essentials, but love requires that we not draw the circle of fellowship any smaller than it actually is.

We are not all the same. We are traditional and contemporary; Republican and Democrat; white and black; male and female; old and young; Scottish, Hispanic, Korean, African, Pakistani and Chinese. We are not defined by ethnic or sociological similarities, nor do we all share the same history. But we all have a right to be heard with respect.

For that reason I would suggest we add one more to the list of eternal truths above—tolerance.

Tolerance is not agreement, nor is it endorsement. It is just good manners—a commitment to treat each other as we would want to be treated. That means not exaggerating the differences between us, not engaging in combative hyperbole, and allowing others the freedom of their own conscience. Too often tolerance has been confused with wimpiness. It is anything but. Peacemakers have been historically the first to get shot. The image that best describes the moderate to me is that of Samson—as we push against both sides, we often have the roof fall on our heads. I wish that were not so, but sometimes that is the only way to bring down temples of prejudice and pride.

This blog is my way of helping to promote this peace. I am hoping that others will contribute to this blog as well. At the bottom of this post I have put a list of subjects I would be particularly interested in having others write. However, no post will be accepted that does not coincide with these values:

1. No cause is more valuable than the people involved.

2. We will discuss anything, as long as we discuss it with mutual love, respect and civility.

3. We will not question the morals or motivations of others,

4. We will not engage in name-calling, marginalizing, or labeling.

5. We will not engage in personal attacks, or denigrate those who disagree.

6. We will seek to encourage the peace and prosperity as well as the purity of the church

7. We will not put down other denominations, but will build up the whole Body of Christ.

So with that in mind, I seek your help. I am looking for people who will help by contributing to this blog. I also solicit your readership, your comments, your contributions, and your prayers.

What is a "Radical Moderate?"

2010-04-20T00:46:00.000-04:00

So It Goes

2010-04-20T00:02:00.000-04:00

Kurt Vonnegut's books Slaughterhouse Five asks an intriging question--what it we could look at time sideways? Suppose, instead of looking at time from within its stream, we could look at time from somewhere outside of it.
In Vonnegut's novel, there is a race of aliens who can do just that--see life in its totality from one end to another. Their view of life then becomes interesting. Instead of seeing a moment's tragedy, they see it from the perspective of a lifetime of happiness. A person who may suffer in death may have lived a blessed life for decades. A person who seems to have a peaceful tiime now may have experienced a lifetime of misery. We judge the moments as we see them. But we do not see them as they relate to other moments in time
In Vonnegut's book, these aliens developed an expression that encapsulated all ther philosophical knowledge "so it goes." Something is not good or bad, but it is part of a stream that is both good and bad. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. It is God who sorts it all out in the end.
I think of Vonnegut's book often when I stand with people who are experiencing tragedy. Life is not permanent. It has a beginning and an ending. If we believe there is a God in heaven, adn that one day we will be with Him, we must also accept the idea that death is going to happen in this world. Along with death will come sickness and pain. If we accept the fact that love exists, in a world tha tincludes death, we must also accept the fact that grief will exist as well. We cannot keep the tears from coming, nor can we deny that grief is the flip side of love. So it goes.
That's why I feel frustrated with people who must judge every moment as being good or bad. We say "I am having a bad day," or "I am having a good day" or (as my grandchildren like to say ) "I am having the worst day ever. In truth, all we can know at any given moment is that we are having a day. We do not know whether the ultimate consequences of what happens in it will be to our benefit or loss, or whether the consequences of that benefit or loss that may bring will be our ultimate salvation or destruction. We jsut do not know. We only know that days come and go. God knows the rest.
"To everything there is a season" The cycles of the days turn and the last season returns. Today is not worse than yesterday, only diferent from tomorrow.
Contemplating this moment in my life, and in my church's life, I cannot help but wonder how it all must look to God, who looks at time from His throne outside and time and space. How foolish we are that we can ever think we can understand it in the way He does.
So it goes. The best we can do, it seems to me, is to trust God and to enjoy the time we have.

Good Friday

2010-04-02T10:53:00.001-04:00

Today is Good Friday--or so we call it. It is sometimes called Black Friday, because it was the anniversary of the death of Jesus. But more often, we call it Good Friday, because of the ultimate victory of Christ, which could not happen without it.

Every year at this time I struggle to explain the miracle of Good Friday. Every year I fail. The main reason, I guess is that when it comes down to it, I don't understand it myself. Oh, I can give you the theological meaning of the Cross. I know that Christ suffered and died for my sins. But that doesn't answer all the questions. Couldn't a God who is the creator not only of this world but of all possible worlds construct the moral universe in such a way that the death of Jesus would not be necessary? After all, He's the one who makes the rules. Surely he could have found a less bloody way to show us leniency?

But he didn't. He chose to make salvation available to us by becoming human and then dying at the hands of Roman torturers. Taking communion from silver trays in an air-conditioned church, presided over by serious looking men in robes does not adequately express the horror and wonder of what He did.

The cross is a shocking, shocking story--an offense to good people everywhere who think the world is good, just, and noble. Here was an innocent man nailed to boards and hanging by his wounds in the burning Middle Eastern sun. His government condemned him as a traitor. His religious leaders denounced him as a heretic. Even his friends ran from him as too dangerous to support. He received this treatment for telling the truth about Himself, gently and politely. For the crime loving truthfulness, he was beaten, mocked, stabbed, whipped, and left to die of exposure, blood loss, and pain.

Yet we call that day Good Friday.

Looking back through the Resurrection even, we see the meaning of it. But on that Black Friday, it made no sense at all. Why should a good man die for nothing? Didn't he deserve better? The peacemakers are always the ones who usually get assassinated. If it was God's will to take him early, then why couldn't he be assassinated like Lincoln or Caesar, quickly and suddenly, rather than having to endure the physical an psychological torture of one of the most humiliating deaths imaginable?

The senselessness of death was brought home to us this last week. My wife Joy works with preschool, visually impaired students. Last Friday on of her children--a three year old child-- suddenly died for unknown reasons. This was the first time one of her student had died. She went to the service, where the preacher spoke of him as an angel who showed Christ in his little face. He wasn't Christ, though. He was just an innocent kid who died too early and left behind a grieving family. There was nothing "good" about that death at all.

Life has many meaningless moments. Children die, the innocent suffer, evil people win battles, good people lose them. The same world that gives us sunsets and gentle breezes also gives us hurricanes and tsunamis. Whether we get flood or drought makes no sense, but depends on water temperature on the other side of he world. It has nothing to do with us. Try as we might, we cannot make sense out of why one person suffers and an other escapes. Mortality is the price we pay for being alive.

It would be nice if before death took us, Jesus would just come again and take us all to heaven. But for most of us, the path to paradise leads through the grave, like a thousand generations of ancestors before us. And we all live in this world of pain and suffering, looking up to God and crying out "Why?" To which God does not really give an answer--not that we could understand the answer if we knew it, anyway.

Since we are unable to comprehend the reasons for suffering, God gives us the next best thing. He gives us companionship. He did not exempt Himself, but went through the worst of it without flinching or complaint. He demonstrated that suffering does not have to lead to despair or hopelessness. It is possible to be faithful in the middle of torture and death and remain obedient to a greater and higher purpose. Suffering can be endured, even the loss of someone we love. We do not have to know the meaning of it. We only have to know that God knows the meaning of it all.

What makes Good Friday good is not what happened on that day, but what happened three days later, when Jesus rose from the dead. Even death is not permanent in the end, and God's goodness is vindicated. Where He went, we can go, too.

We can never look at God and say "You don't know how I feel." He knows exactly how we feel. He's been through it, too. He demonstrated that Black Friday can also be Good Friday in the end, when we keep believing in Him.

Windows instead of Walls

2010-03-31T10:58:00.001-04:00

This has been a sad week for the church of Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church and the pope are again under attack for covering up child molestation charges against priests. Meanwhile, in Michigan, angry "Christian" militia members were arrested by the FBI for plotting to kill policemen. I know that many will say that neither of these represent us, and we may not consider them as Christians. It doesn't matter. Those who read the newspapers will not understand the difference. All they see is the word "Christian" and lump us all in together.

I wish that I could say our brand of Christianity were devoid of sin and foolishness, but I cannot. Our recent divisions regarding Erskine Seminary have proved that. Dear God, what are we doing to ourselves? And to You?

"We wrestle not against flesh and blood," Paul writes, "But against rulers, against principalities and powers in the heavenly realms." Our weapons are not of this world, but are of divine origin. Yet it seems that those weapons of our warfare, our full armor, are left on the shelf to ruse, and we must pick up the weapons of this world--force, argument, political maneuvering, and lawsuits. We speak and act out of wrath, We seek to conquer enemies, not win them. Those sins we have in our midst that ought to make us ashamed, have not only been tolerated, they have been protected, and even encouraged if it suits our purposes.

The Catholic church has become a sore on the face of Christianity because it sought to hide its sin from the world. It covered up the shameful conduct of a few priests, rather than to openly admit its imperfections. The militias who called themselves Christians have embarrassed us, because they though t that they could use guns and bombs to defend against imagined evils, rather than the weapons our warfare. And we--we have allowed have allowed, and even encouraged a handful of manipulative, domineering, belligerent people to operate behind the scenes merely because we agreed with their ends.

One characteristic alone makes us different from the unbeliever. When it comes to moral purity and devotion to our God, Muslims have us beat. How many Christians are willing to go on a month long fast, or pray five times a day, or blow themselves up for the cause of their God? When it comes to church discipline the Mormons have us beat. They will discipline a member for drinking tea. Orthodox Jews are more devoted in their zeal for the Law. The Jehovah's Witnesses beat us on evangelistic fervor. The Buddhists beat us on asceticism, and even the Scientologists beat us in percentage giving. But in one area Christians excel--grace. No other group of people in the world believes in a God of grace like ours, that would sacrifice His one and only Son on the Cross fo we who did not deserve it. No other faith believes in a God who Himself is willing to turn the other cheek. In a world of conflict, grace is the one commodity that is shorter than any other.

I know what some people would say. We have the truth, and they do not. But having the truth is no good unless we live it as well. We can't just say we have the truth, we must demonstrate it.

Grace is the greatest weapon in our divine arsenal. We imitate Christ in his willingness to accept and love the sinner. It is the one thing that will turn an enemies into a friend. Unfortunately, it is the one thing we use the least on each other.

I was discussing a statement I made in on of my former blogs, that we have respect for diversity. A friend of mine told me that he used to think so, but no longer. We often act as is there is something wrong with being loving to our enemies, that it is some kind of sappy sentimentality. used by the weak and the naïve to justify our toleration of heresy. I disagree. I don't see how a Savior who included anti-government Zealots and Roman tax collectors among his best friends could ever be accused of seeking absolute agreement of thought on ever issue. Jesus floated through the denominations of Palestinian Jews, loving them all but joining Himself to any. How can such a Savior's name be used to justify the kind of internecine warfare we seem so prone to accept as normal?

ARPs are only be a tiny fish in the great sea of Christendom. Our influence may not extend very far beyond our walls. But for God's sake, let us at least act like Christians. Let's show grace and humility to those we dislike, rather than trying to run them off. Let's humbly admit that we don't have all the answers, we don't know one another's hearts, and that we aren't the paragons of virtue and doctrinal purity e pretend to be. Let's be nothing but saved sinners in a world of sinners who also need saving, and let's lay off the blustering and bloviating for the purpose of making us seem important. Then maybe we will be window to the grace of Christ, instead of walls.

thoughts on my daughter's wedding

2010-03-29T12:26:00.001-04:00

I've been too busy this last week to write much, but now that the big event has come and gone, I can at last give time to reflect upon it. Today We have scheduled nothing to do but rest and recover.

This last weekend my oldest daughter, Iris was married to Richard Smith at our church. Dr. Jack Basie and myself officiated. Jack did the message and the first part of the sermon so I could walk her down the aisle. There were in attendance many members of the church, Iris' friends, and a large contingent of performers from the Renaissance Faire, and about a slew of out of town relatives. Iris, determined to spare us expense, did most of the work herself, and got friends to do what she could not do. She made the bridesmaids' dresses, got most of the food, and printed and rolled the bulletins. A friend's mother made the cake. Another friend made her dress for a very reasonable price. The dress was gorgeous. Her cousin Erin sang beautifully. Another friends sang beautifully. Her sisters and best friend were her bridesmaids, and all went off without a hitch, except when her father, overcome by emotion almost tripped and flubbed his lines. It was a grand and glorious day.

We are exhausted. Our emotions were pulled like taffy all weekend, back and forth between merriment and poignancy. We were happy and sad all at the same time.

I remember the day Iris came into the world. It was another emotional day. For weeks before, we tried to settle on a name. We went page by page through the baby name book, and tried ever name we could think of on our tongue, but none seemed right. Then on a youth trip, someone played a cassette

which had a song about a little girl named Iris. We knew that was who we wanted our daughter to be. Iris means rainbow, God's symbol of new hope. On the wall of the labor room on the day she was born was hung a picture of a rainbow. We took it like Noah did, as a sign of God's favor.

I watched her grow from a child to a woman, always sweet, always kind and beautiful. When she faced trouble, she came out on top. Once she broke her leg on a church youth trip and had her foot in a cast. She taught the group to swing dance--cast and all. When she got out of college, she moved to Japan for two years to teach English. She gained a master's degree in English as a second language, When she was in college, she once got a scholarship for Christian character. She is also an accomplished balloon artists, a seamstress, and an amateur magician. She is quite a girl.

Last Saturday, I walked her down the aisle. Rev. Jack Basie asked the question "Who gives this woman to be married to this man?" I put her hand on Richard' hand, then went forward to complete the ceremony, tripping over myself as I stepped up to the stage. I did all right until I got to the end, when I was about to read the declaration of marriage. I saw the name "iris Rebecca Fleming"--the name we ave her. Now I was giving her to someone else, who would change her name forever to Iris Smith. There she was, radiant and ready to be a wife. I choked up, and almost had to ask Jack to finish the service, but somehow I manage to get out those words "I now pronounce you man and wife."

The deed was done. She belonged to someone else now. Iris Fleming became Iris Smith.

Someone noticed that when she went from being Iris Fleming to Iris Smith, her initials went from IF to IS. It was an appropriate (though accidental) statement. They all start out as an "if"s--if only they would follow the Lord. If only they would be good people. Then they grow up and become an is--the person they would remain. Iris has become a beautiful is, indeed.

Richard, her husband, told me that when they arrived at the church, he saw, a huge rainbow hung in the sky. It was another omen. God was showing his approval, and his hope for the home that was beginning. It was a wonderful, beautiful hope indeed.

Congratulations to you both, if you read this. I'm proud of the both of you.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad

2010-03-17T21:39:00.001-04:00

March 18th is my parents' sixtieth anniversary. I wish I could be there, but I have to be here instead. I will get my opportunity to congratulate them in person when they come to my daughter's wedding next week.

My parents were married in 1950, when Dad graduated from Georgia Tech on the GI bill. He was a veteran of World War II. she was a southern bell of incomparable beauty. (It's true. I'm not just saying that because she is my mother.) Dad worked as a textile engineer, then became a safety engineer for an insurance company, then as a salesman, and finally as a sales manager and PR representative. Mom stayed home and raised my sister and I while he was on the road.

It's amazing to think what they've seen together--the birth of television, Elvis, Sputnik, civil rights, the Mercury program, man on the moon, a presidential assassination, Woodstock, Watergate, Reagan, the rise of Islam, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the internet, the Millennium, 9-11, and Obama. They have been to England, Spain, Switzerland, Morocco, and most of the US states.

When I was a child, it seemed that we had lived a blessed life. But it has not been easy for my parents. The lived through several major moves. Dad was sometimes on the road for days on end while Mom handled things back home.

When it got older, I realized why my life was easy. Mom and Dad worked hard to make our life safe and happy. Mom and Dad linked their arms above us, giving us the shelter and support we needed to thrive. They bore the burdens that we could not bear, took the pain that we could not endure, and provided the safety we needed to make it in the world.

Joy and I have now been married for thirty-five years. We have tried to follow in my parents' footsteps, providing shelter and support for our girls, as our parents provided it for us.

Have we done as well? Not hardly. There is not a day that I do not ask myself what Dad would do or what Mom would do. I often come up short.

But there is one lesson I learned more than any is this--no matter what happened, the two of them survived and stayed together. Now they have reached sixty years, and love each other as much as they ever did.

So here's to you, Mom and Dad. You are winners in the game of life. You've taught us the meaning of life. God, home family. We never would have made it this far without you. Whatever I have had or done right in life, we owe to both of you. Faithfulness begets faithfulness, courage begets courage, praise begets praise, and joy begets joy. These you have given us these in abundance. I love you, and I hope that the second half of your lives will be as joyful as the first.

Reactions to the Erskine Synod, Part 3

2010-03-14T22:47:00.001-04:00

The division between Erskine and the Synod is a bad thing. It has caused chaos on the campus and criticism in the press.

If it were necessary, it would have been worth it. But it was not necessary. Things could have been done more gently and slowly, with greater sensitivity to the people involved.

But it's done, and it cannot be undone. God will work in this situation and bring fruit out of it, regardless. He has set us down this path for a reason, and we need to walk it, seeking His guidance as we go.

On one thing I hope we all agree. We should not let this controversy distract us from the real work of God. Satan, the great illusionist makes us look one way when we should be looking another. Our fallen nature loves a good fight. We love stories with heroes and villains and testosterone-laden calls to battle. But the real enemies are not within our walls. They just outside the wall, egging on dissention and discord within our camp. It's hard to fight each other and love each other at the same time.

So let's ignore the Devil's smoke and mirrors for a while, and remember what we are hear to do.

1. We are here to live under the authority of Scripture. Before I went to Erskine Seminary, I attended a PCUSA seminary for four years. That school was truly liberal. They denied the infallibility and inerrancy of the Scriptures loudly and proudly.

In one class discussion on hermeneutics the professor taught that the Bible was written, not by God, but by fifteen or twenty different "faith communities," each with its own agenda. What was true for one community was not necessarily true to others. According to him, Biblical interpretation meant picking which writings most fit what we thought the Spirit was saying, while ignoring or denying the rest. At that school, the Bible was a kind of do-it-yourself theology kit--a spiritual erector set from which we can construct virtually any doctrine or artifice we wished. The Bible could be made to support whatever was in vogue at the time--women's ordination, gay ordination, Marxism, social Darwinism--whatever. To keep my faith and sanity, I took two sets of notes, one of what the professors said, and another of what I thought about what they said!

I thank God that before I went there, I had attended a genuinely Christian College, where the Bible was taught, and the professors sought to build our faith, not tear it down. I thank God every day for my training in that school. It was what I hope that Erskine will be one day.

Even so, even that Christian college was not perfect. Attending a Christian college is an education in the durability of original sin. We lived in an isolated fortress of Christianity in a pagan world. Our Biblical lifestyle and our fiery commitment to it depended upon us being cocooned away from the world.

If we are going to live by the Bible, why not begin with the parts that the Bible calls the most important--Love of God with all our hearts, and love of our neighbors?

Some groups deny the Bible. Others ignore it. Still others twist it. But the if the Bible isn't stretching us, making us angry, or challenging our beliefs and our actions, we aren't paying attention.

2. We are here to proclaim the Reformed tradition.

The Reformed view of theology is a wonder--beautiful in its simplicity, profound in its implications, wondrous in its depth. Calvin was to Biblical interpretation what Einstein was to physics. His insights into God and the Bible made possible a whole new world in theology, politics, art, and economics.

Lately, there has been a resurgence in Calvinism in America, but not among Presbyterians. Baptists, Anglicans, and even Pentecostals have rediscovered Calvin. But among we Presbyterians we seem to use it more for as a shibboleth to determine who belongs than a living body of theological understanding speaking to our time and culture. It has become a static creed, used to keep the saint in instead of being salt and light to the our lost world.

ARPs hear the Bible and Reformed theology preached. But often we preach it only to the already convinced. We preach it in language that means nothing to people who are not in on Reformed jargon.

In order for the power of our theology to affect the world, people must understand it, an we must understand the people. They don't care about our internal disputes. They care even less about internal disputes from centuries ago. How many churches have been subjected to preaching that refights yesterday's wars, and ignore the very real problems of the people in front of them?

When we get tied up in political and unproductive struggles, we get our eyes off our people.

3. We are to put the Gospel first. While in college I once attended a meeting of the an insightful presentation by Dr. Harold B Kuhn, an evangelical Methodist theologian, on the rise of liberalism in the Methodist Church. When the Methodist Church got its eyes off the Gospel and became obsessed with making a new post-millenial world, they came close to completely wrecking their church. Their goal ceased to be the salvation of Individuals and the saving of souls from hell, but to change the world they lived in now. It wasn't to much to raise the spiritually dead, but to make their coffins more comfortable.

Today Evangelical churches are losing their passion to introduce people to Christ. Megachurches preach a feel-good, positive thinking gospel. The dying mainline preaches social involvement and politics. Much of the conservative church have also been beguiled by the illusion of power politics affords. We've subordinated our spiritual goals for worldly ones, and sought to build institutions before we save souls. If the purpose of the church were to build impressive buildings, then we've succeeded wonderfully. But where are the people?

4. We should love one another.

The mark of true discipleship is not spiritual purity and theological perfection. According to Jesus, it is our love for each other. (John 13:34-35)

We have become more conservative and evangelical and I rejoice in that. But that isn't the all of it. What we do now will determine what kind of Evangelical church we will be? Will we walk the walk, or just talk the talk? Will we behave like Christians, Loving God, the world, and one another? We don't have to agree, but we surely have to treat them as brothers.

We must ask ourselves a burning question, and we must answer. If we disagree, then how will we disagree? Does our disagreement cause us to build each other up, or to tear each other down?

Remembering a Godly Man

2010-03-13T19:20:00.000-05:00

Somewhere in my picture files on this computer, I have a photo I took in Atlanta, at one of the parks there. It is a place where fountains spring up out of a concrete bowl, and people, especially children walk around in the mist, cooling off on a summer day. It's a striking picture. Some of the figures are easily seen, others farther back are in mysty outline, while others are so far back that we can no longer see them.

The photo makes me think of the passage of time. We know the people who occupy the earth with us at this time and place. They are clear and very real. We know he outline of others farther back, who appear as dim outlines in the mist--our grandparents, and great grandparents. But there is a long line of people in the mist we canot see, going back to the first man and the first woman. We know they were here, but we can no longer know who they were.

One generation after another marches into the mist, crossing that impenetrable boundary between this world and the next. As they go, we wish them well. But we know that the others who come after us will never know them, except as dim outlines in the mist.

I thought about that this week when I heard that Frank Williams had passed away. Frank was an elder in the Neely's Creek Church, and a dear friend. He was not a saint, nor was he the worst of sinners, but he was a man who sought to please and honor God in all of his days.

The children who come after him will know of him, but the will not know him. It's sad that they didn't. Frank was a very special man. He was often gruff on the outside but he was always tender and sweet on the inside. Whenever things needed to be done, Frank was there. Whenever a person needed comforting or encouragement, Frank was there to do it.

Some of my fondest memories of Frank were from a trip to Israel we took together. I remember Frank, standing beside me on a boat crossing the Sea of Galilee, looking up at Mount Hermon. "As Herman's dew," He whispered in awe, as he saw the mountain he had sung about his entire life from the Bible Song hymnal. I remember being at a restaurant in Magdela, eating fish with the head on them. "Why can't I just have a hamburger?" he muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear. I remember swimming with him in the Dead Sea.

I remember Frank and his quiet works of charity, how he worked on buildings for mission buildings and even going to Germany to do menial labor for the mission there. I remember his love for the King James Bible, and how I once caught him with an NIV "That's cause of people like you!" he said with mock gruffness. He was always the first to take in missionaries, the first to come to prayer meeting, and the first to visit the sick. Once when I was sick Frank was the only elder who thought to drop by. I remember Frank and his buddies at Tuesday visitation before they went out to evangelize the lost laughing like schoolboys, calling each other by nicknames they gave each other in elementary school. Most of those friends are gone now, and their laughter fades. It's a shame that the younger generation will never hear it.

Most of all, I remember Frank's devotion to the Gospel, and it's passionate intensity. Frank really knew how to pray. He had experience the grace of God, not just at conversion but through a whole lifetime. He endured tragedies in the family, sickness, misunderstanding, and pain, but Frank never let it stop him. He kept going for the Lord.
Now Frank is in his reward in heaven, and his outline recedes into the mist. But for those who knew him, he left a lasting legacy of dedication, service and love.

Reactions to the Erskine Synod, Part 2

2010-03-11T22:34:00.000-05:00

The ARP church is a hotbed of passive aggression. It's not that we don't fight--we just don't do it openly. Instead, we plot behind our smiles and prayers. Underneath our relative civility, we have the same resentments and disagreements as everyone else.

I'm no different from the majority of my colleagues. I hate conflict too. Small denominations are like small towns--we know that the person we are angry with today will be in our face forever. So we avoid saying things that are upsetting. Often I keep my opinions to myself.

This passive aggression is not entirely bad, mind you. Being unwilling to discuss differences meant that we were willing to tolerate a wide range of people . It has also meant having a long run of blessedly boring synods. But it is also the reason be hind the glacial speed of change in our little family.

The Erskine Synod on March 2 shattered that. Synod may have been civil, but it was not unifying--not by a long shot. One side ran over the other side in a way I haven't seen in thirty years.

Of course Erskine needs to be fixed. There are teachers and administrators who have no business being there. They do not fit with the stated purpose of the college. Some of them have participated in a "culture of intimidation." there have been shocking reports form Erskine regularly for all the decades I've been coming to Synod.

But there is an arc to this story. Erskine has been moving in a good direction. In the Seventies, most of my professors at the seminary denied inerrancy. One seminary professor even told me that he saw nothing wrong with homosexual ordination! A former chaplain once gave a talk (I really can't call it a sermon) in which he told more about his personal doubts truth of the Gospel. Over the years, I have watched the denomination and the Synod become more and more in line with Biblical Christianity and for that I am glad. The same goes for Erskine. Current students are receiving an education that is considerably more Christian than I saw in the Eighties and my daughter saw in he Nineties.

Our denomination has moved slowly, but it has moved. Erskine has moved even slower, but it has moved, too. It is possible that it will not get any better, but I cannot believe that--not with the people I know who are on the board and teaching at the school, I cannot believe it has been headed backwards.

But the school wasn't changing fast enough for the majority of our presbyters. We decided as we approached the end of a decades-long process to push harder and faster--to finish the job quickly with ruthless efficiency.

"Ruthless efficiency" has never been a distinguishing characteristic of our little denomination. Our church has been soft, friendly, and slightly disorganized. But frankly, I've never been a fan of ruthless efficiency. A ruthlessly efficient God would have given up on me years ago. God did not create a world that worked with ruthless efficiency but with glorious chaos and endless diveristy. One of he benefits or our lack of ruthless efficiencey is that we have taken a charitable approach to those with whom we disagree--even those in our own denomination.

We have tolerated people with suspect ideas, but they were not so far out as to not be Christian brothers and sisters. Those on the left who have been uncomfortable have mostly left. They left because they no longer felt at home with the increasingly conservative atmosphere. One of the few places where we can find some of these people is at Erskine.

We could have fired the Erskine board years ago. We could have removed specific board members. But we did not, partially because we knew the mess it would become, but also because of concern to treat respectfully those with whom we disagree.

The people who have run Erskine in the past, the people who have invested their lives, hearts and money in the institution do not want to go quietly.They are using their means and influence to cause a whole lot of trouble to resist. I doubt if they will succeed, but they will leave a big hole in the intitution. What a surprise. We now have law suits, court orders, and a faculty and student body who are at each other's throats.

In reaction, the temperature of the denomination is rising. One note on Facebook suggested we should excommunicate the entire board for ignoring the injunction in I Cor 6 not to take church matters to a secular court.

Taking a brother to court is a form of violence against a brother. But so is using political manipulation to force others to do our will. Church discipline without love is violence, too. And I didn't see much love in the way the commission and other members of the Synod have behaved. Sorry, I wish I could say otherwise. Taking an adversarial approach to the board of Erskine while not informing them of what they were going to do until the very last minute was condescending, to say the least. We cannot do that as a Synod and then wonder why they resent it. I understand that those who have engineered this have done it out of sincere conscience. However, as Paschal famously said, men never do evil so freely or cheerfully as when they do it out of conscience.

Let me go back to where I started. We ARP's are notorious passive-aggressives. If the board is a mess, then who's fault is it? We've been electing them for years. Every year Synod has elected that board, and I cannot remember a single year when those nomination s have been challenged from the floor.

We are a church family. Families argue. If we don't, we aren't a family. But when families do not air our differences, they have a tendency to explode. When the dust settles, we will pick up and go on with the business of seeing the peace, purity and prosperity of the church. Now that we have the purity, let's have a little peace and prosperity.

reflections on the Erskine Synod

2010-03-05T19:08:00.001-05:00

I attended my first Synod meeting in 1976 or1977, I cannot remember exactly. It was a hugely different Synod than the ones we see now. All meetings were held in the Chapel. The delegate signs were placed almost halfway up the aisles, and the seats were never full. There was always a cloud of delegates hanging out at all the entrances smoking--mostly ministers. There were lines night and day at all the pay phones. It was as slower, less crowded, and less organized kind of meeting. It was also much less accessible to outsiders. In jokes and folksy stories were prevalent in debate. Often it seemed that the speakers had to establish their pedigrees as ARP's by telling who their daddy and granddaddy was before the got down to saying what they wanted to say.

The biggest difference between then and now was that the people seemed to be more interested in proving they were loyal ARP's than saying anything of substance. It resembled a cross between a dinner on the ground and a brawl.

Even so, the meetings were usually longer, There was far more controversy than there is now. There was a battle going on for the very soul of the church. The church was deciding whether it was going to remain a collection of countrified families, related by blood and friendship, or whether it was actually going to be a church held together by doctrinal statements and mission.

The issue was simple--inerrancy or non-inerrancy. Did the Bible contain factual errors or did it not? This was the issue behind almost everything. The ARP's in the Sixties produced a group of pastors who had been either educated in liberal Southern Presbyterian seminaries, or who had been instructed at Erskine by professors who had attended liberal seminaries. Those not in favor of inerrancy saw the church as a smaller, more folksy version of the PCUS. Those in favor of inerrancy were mainly educated in the upstart Reformed Seminary. Aligned with them were a few old-timers from the days when Erskine was an inerrancy institution.

There were also a sizeable group in the middle. These were some of the born and bred ARPs who were bothered by the word "inerrant" because they could not imagine the church believing in anything else. The Bible was not questioned where they came from, so there was no need to defend it. They had never been challenged by outside influences. They truthfully did not know what all the fuss was about. All they could do is say "why can't we all just get along?"

Back in those days, we who fought for inerrancy were driven by a real fear that the ARP's would lose their faith, like their sister denominations the PCUSA and the Cumberlands. Those denominations were already in membership free-fall and ours was teetering on the edge.

I was an inerrantists and proud of it. I had come out of the mainline church and had seen the powerlessness of an organization that stood for nothing, and therefore stood for anything. I was on that side not only because I believed it and all my friends believed it, but because of the way the non-inerrantist establishment within the church conducted business. Whenever they were challenged in their assumptions, they raised the specter of division. It was all the fault of outsiders who just wanted to agitate. Meanwhile, they tolerated just about everything from those loyal to the institution. It seemed to me then (and still does now that these people stoop to just about anything to protect the institutions they loved from control by outsiders. They did this without a hint of self-criticism or realization that holding blindly to an institution was idolatry.

While the inerrantists and non-inerrantists slugged it out, there was much collateral damage. The first casualty was the Gospel. Both sides seemed to be more interested in defeating heretics than reaching the lost. Love was another casualty. Both sides contributed about equally to the party spirit that rocked the church. A third casualty was the prosperity of the church. No one wanted to have much to do with the little denomination which seemed to have lost their minds.

The longer the debate went on, the more difficult it came to tell the good guys from the bad guys. It became obvious to me that power, not doctrine, was king. The non-inerrantist side used every kind of political chicanery and parliamentary maneuvering to keep power. Eventually as they gained strength, the inerrantists changed from idealists to pragmatists, using the same tactics--political maneuvering, controlling meetings, distortions of their opponents' views, and just plain intolerance. Some of the lead inerrantists enjoyed the power and control that came from the battle more than they loved what they were fighting for.

Even though I was an inerrantist, I was not as conservative as many of them. I had been educated mainly at a Methodist school and a mainline seminary. I finished at Erskine and enjoyed the diversity of that institution. Though I disagreed with most of my professors, I came to love and admire them as people. Because of my past experiences, I never learned the niceties of Reformed culture. learned the buzzwords common to among my other Calvinist friends. Furthermore, I was not convinced (and remain unconvinced) that all rightness and piety resides in the Reformed tradition. So I wondered If my side won, would they one day turn on people like me? Once they ran off their enemies, would they come after their friends?

Today the church has changed and the world has changed. Non-inerrantists in the ARPs are rare as hen's teeth and have no real voice in it. The inerrantists have won completely. As a result, the church has become peaceful, and it has grown considerably. Reformed Seminary now educates the majority of our pastors.

But there are always divisions. We are not nearly as isolated as we once were, having found connections among the emerging counter-society of Calvinists.

Even so I have to ask, are we any closer to loving the lost? Is the ARP salt and light in the world, or have we remained a fortress?

In many ways, the church still seems clueless to what is really happening out there in the larger world. We still think of mainline church as our primary even though their actual influence has shrunk to practically nil. For decades, we watched as liberalism conquered the mainline churches and institutions. We fought their influence and keep them out. But today, the mainline churches have shrunk to ghosts of their former selves, and theological liberalism is dissolving into the cultural mess it always was. We would be hard pressed to name a single religious institution that had fallen to liberalism in the past thirty years. The mainline church is all but dead--for now, at least. There is no need to fear becoming like them. They are in full retreat.

Today we are caught in a new world, with militant atheism and humanism gaining ground on one side, and Islam gaining on the other. Church attendance is waning all around us and we are still not loving the lost. We are so obsessed with fighting for the church that we do not fight for the souls of men. We are still battling each other when we should be battling the Devil. We are still facing inward, and not outward.

Now, let me get to more current history--the called meeting of Synod to deal with Erskine. It seems odd to me that there was no acknowledgement of where the institution has come from and where it is going.

When I was there, all my seminary profs were Barthian. They all rejected inerrancy. Today, we worry about one or two who may not believe in inerrancy deeply enough, or do not use the right terminology. Today, we argue that the college has some non-evangelical professors hired before faith requirements were solid, most of whom have tenure and therefore are extremely hard to fire. Once it was difficult to find more than a handful of professors who were evangelical Christians. We worry about a president who does not enforce the creedal statements. For decades, we had presidents who thought the school was a miniature version of Davidson or Furman. The school has come a long, long way. It has farther to go still, but it has been moving in the right direction.

But that it was not changing fast enough, it seems. The majority of Synod voted to finish the job quickly, no matter what the cost. Maybe they were right.

But consider the collateral damage. The methodology of the change is deeply reminiscent of the old days of he Seventies, when non-inerrantists sought to outmaneuver their opponents. The leaders of our denomination have shown no compunction about being heavy-handed and possibly even underhanded to reform Erskine.

Consider how this was done. A commission is appointed by the moderator, who puts himself and his elders on the commission. This commission gives no printed statements of what it intends to do so that no organized voices can be raised against it. The reason, they say, is because of shocking revelations that should not be made public. When those revelations are finally brought to the floor, they are about things that happened, ten, twenty, and even thirty years ago, and really are not that shocking. This is done at an emergency meeting, leaving little time for thoughtful appraisal. Two weeks before, at a board meeting, the commission brought recommendations to the board, and then changed those recommendations before they were presented. Several board members spoke of threats to dissolve the board if they did not fully agree or comply. Then when they largely agreed, they moved to dissolve them anyway. The commission then hand-picks and interim board which will be responsible for choosing the president, making sure to put on it the board members and other who will not have dissenting opinions, putting themselves on the board. This interim board will in all likelihood be the one to approve the next president. Then the commission attempts to put a body of ex moderators in charge of the ongoing composition of the board, of which half the members are of the same commission.

In the end, Erskine will change. That change will likely be for the better. But the real damage is to our denomination not to Erskine. The openness and trust of the ARPs for each other has been broken, and dissent has been crushed. Like in the old days, no dissent will be tolerated, because no dissenters will be allowed to sit on the board.

This is not right. This is not fair. But it is, and we must accept that. Even if this has pointed us in the right direction, God help what we will become when we arrive.

In Orwell's Animal Farm, the animals on the farm staged a revolution, led by the pigs. They succeed in taking over the farm. But by the end of the book, the pigs who lead the revolution have come to look and act just like the people who once oppressed them. We have ended the thirty-year war to bring our church in line with Evangelical theology, but in the process, we have become like the people we once despised.

And we still don't love the lost.

Things I learned from the Movies

2010-02-25T21:26:00.001-05:00

Things I learned from the movies.

If you wait long enough, the bad guy will shoot his own henchmen.

Enemy soldiers are notoriously bad shots.

Nazis when talking with themselves, speak with English accents.

If Scotty says "you canna change the laws of physics," then he is about to change the laws of physics.

All prostitutes have hearts of gold.

All heads of major corporations are bad guys who regularly have people murdered.

Terrorists are never Arab. They are usually Germans, Russians, Irish, or Swiss.

Action heroes are made of an indestructible rubber, and keep bouncing back.

Jack Baur will have a bad day. (wait, that's television)

Vacations usually end in someone shooting at you.

In Disney films, pouring paint over a guy's head will teach him the error of his ways.

All police captains are large, intemperate black men.

Murders are always committed by the least suspicious person in a house.

Homeless people always have magical powers and/or important life lessons to share.

Low level bad guys are easily detectable by facial stubble.

When you're dead you stay dead, unless you are a serial killer, or a hero.

When a helicopter is chasing you, it is easily foiled by a mall pistol, a rock, or a flock of birds.

Gorillas are infatuated with blond human women.

Aliens will always speak English.

Giant monsters will always go first to the largest major city, where they are sure to be noticed.

Can This Town (or church) be saved?

2010-02-16T13:32:00.000-05:00

http://www.rr.com/news/topic/article/rr/9009/10370005/Florida_family_gives_up_on_small-town_North_Dakota I came across this news story on my home page news, and I had to share it.
It concerns a little town of Hazelton, North Dakota, population 240. It was one of those little rural villages that dot the plains of America, aging and shrinking in the winds of modernity. The town consisted of three churches, a grain elevator, a city hall and a bar. More than that Hazelton was a way of life for those who had spent there entire lives there. Those people could not bear to see it wither and die.
That was when the town council came up with an original idea. The would pay people to move there. An anonymous donor put up the money. They advertized that they would give a free lot and money for a new home to anyone anywhere who would move to their town. They would also work to get them established in the community, with jobs for all. What a deal!
Thousands of people inquired. Hundreds were serious about it. Dozens of families came and visited the town. But in the end only one family, Jeanette and Michael Tristani of Miami took them up on the offer.
The people of Hazelton were overjoyed to see them and their two children. They gave them two lots, not one, and twenty thousand dollars besides. Jeanette got a job working at city hall. Michael opened up a diner. They purchased a third lot beside the first two for fifteen thousand dollars. It seemed like a wonderful thing, for them and the town.
That was in 2006. In 2010, they packed up and moved back to Miami. Hazelton, N.D. became the town that they literally could not pay anyone to inhabit.
What went wrong? Several things. After reading the article, I realized that the town had the same problems of many older, estabilshed churches. many churches, including my own have seen people age and attendance shrink. They love their churches, and the culture they represent. If they could, they would probably pay people to come, so the church would be full again. But in spite of their best efforts, they end up like Hazelton, with empty pews, empty nursuries, and forgotten programs.
The rest of the article tells wha twent wrong. you can look it up at the address above if you wish, but let me just summarize a few of he problems for you.
First, they had a motivation problem. The author of he article, James McPherson, describes Hazelton as "a dwindling town of about 240 that has attempted to attract young families to stay on the map. " Right there is the first problem. There is no such thing as a free gift. The elders of Hazelton were not really giving anything away--they were buying people to preserve the institutions they loved. They were not motivated by the goodness of hteir heart, but by fear of seeing something they had invested their entire lives in disappear.
The Tristani's however, did not come there to preserve their institutions. They came for their own reasons. They had their own customs and culture, and they had no investment in someone else's life work. Nor should they have been expected to.
Most of us want to see our churches survive. The we have to ask, though is why. God had never expressed any interest at all in preserving our personal culture or memories. We all love the things that remind us of our past. That is good and natural. But it is also unreasonable for us to expect strangers to share our sympathy. God is not now nor has He ever been interested in preserving bits of human culture. Preservation of the world's institution is not His desire, but the transformation of those institutions by the power of the Gospel.   God has no interest in preserving musical styles, archetectural styles or community organizations. He is only interested in people.
Jesus said "he who saves his life will lose it." That is just as true for an entire church as it is for an individual. When the motivation for outreach is the preservation of a local congregation, it is bound to fail. God will allow a church to succeed only when our love for the lost excedes our love for those who are already here.
The second problem was culture. The Tristanis were not there long before people became suspicious of them. Michael wore a Rolex watch and drove a Lexus. "People thought I was a drug dealer," he said. These North Dakota people had never seen anything like them. The Tristanis found themselves excluded from the community that once welcomed them.
Small towns and small churches put all newcomers through the screen of their own culture. If they do not fit, they reject them. The smaller the church, the smaller the screen. They know that anyone who has any other exprience but their own is a threat to what they have already done, so they reject them before they can change anything.
The third problem is opportunty.  The nearest town of any size was Bismark, forty-five minutes away. They had to go there for anything. While those who lived there had become used to the great distances the Tristanis were not. Jeanette tried to get her parents who lived in Miami to join them there, but they refused.there was just nothing there for them. Besides, the cold weather put them off.
The people of Hazelton did not understand the problem. Hazelton was heaven to them. Who wouldn't want to live in heaven in spite of the inconvenience.
Small towns and small churches do not have all the opportunities of larger ones. But they have some things that more than compensate for them in the minds of those who remain--family, friendliness, and intimate involvement in one another's lives. But take those things away and what do you have? Going to them is like going to someone else's family reunion.
Small churches are at a disadvantage, but that doesn't mean they are hopeless.  The Hazeltons knew those disadvantages when they first moved there. But they had expected that the warmth and friendliness of the people would more than compensate for it. They expected invitations to people's homes,  ball games in the summer sun, and sleigh rides with happy, loving neighbors. That didn't happen. they people invited each other out, but they did not invit the Tristanis. They probably thought the Tristanis ought to invite themselves.
Then there was jealousy.  Michael opened up a diner in town. About the same town, someone else did, too--a native.  the rivalry between these two places became personal. The owner of the other diner rode by their home, shouting curses at them and their children (of course, everyone said, it had to be Tristani's fault. Our people would never behave that way!) Soon, no one would go to his business, for fear of ostracism by their neighbors. today, both cafes are closed.
Small churches want people to come to their church. they just don't want them to own any of it. They do not want to share leadership with people they hardly know. Sooner or later, this puts them in the position of saying "this church isn't big enough for the two of us!" and the newcomer leaves. Only when the newcomers outnumber th old timers and leadership is shared do the newcomers find a place. Then the old timers usually leave.
What happened in Hazelton has happened in small towns all across America, in small churches in the city and the country. If we are going to be salt and light in the world, as Jesus wanted, we have to love the world we are in more than we love our own culture and tradition We have to realized that if we live in the past, in fading communities, we will die with the past. But if we embrace the lost around us, and show them the true love of Jesus, the essence of what made our community great will be carried on not only in the next generation, but in many generations to come.

Bible Stories

2010-02-11T20:27:00.001-05:00

I had a wonderful time teaching tonight. Of all the things I do, I think I love Wednesday night the best, especially after I gave up lecturing.

We sat around a table, with the Bible in our hands and talked through the stories of Genesis. Everyone had something to say, and all of it was interesting.

Most people don't know the stories of Genesis, of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Oh we think we do, but we don't. We know the sanitized version of them, the King James version, full of these and thous and men in robes strutting across the stage like Hollywood actors. We can just see Charlton Heston ad Abraham, or Gregory Peck as Isaac. We completely miss the stories.

The stories are not like Sunday School, they are earthy, crude, and gossipy. They are full of betrayal, lust, greed, jealousy, and all those things we in the church don't usually like to talk about.

They drip with vice and virtue. If they really made a movie about those stories, it would get at least a PG13 rating. Dallas and Dynasty had nothing on the Bible for intrigue, backstabbing and sheer cattiness.

The stories of the Bible work on two levels. They have all kinds o f human lessons. Virtue is rewarded and evil punished, but there are no heroes and villains. Everyone takes a turn being right, and everyone has a turn at being wrong, just like in our lives. The Bible doesn't conceal the glaring flaws of its heroes.

Even so, there's a divine level to the story as well. It's all about the continuing covenant that God made with one family. In spite of their nastiness and crudeness, God doesn't let them go. He keeps on blessing those who bless them, and cursing those who curse them.

Why? I don't know. But that's what He wants to do. His love is constant as the star, and is not rattled by human disobedience.

Tonight we studied the story of Jacob and his vives and Laban, his father in law. They almost killed each other. For twenty years they were unsteady allies, alternately cooperating and betraying each other. It's a wonder that Jacob survived with his family intact,

But the did. That's the point, I think. He didn't deserve God's blessing, but he got it anyway, simply because God chose to give it. God used Jacob and his family in spite of themselves.

Jacob gives me hope for myself. God may have a use for me yet.

Jacob's story s one big laugh in the face of those who think that they deserve God's love, those who would look at other people and think themselves better. It's also a good natured joke at the expense of those who think they are unworthy of being used by God. If God can use a jerk like Jacob, he surely can use me. And you.

A walk on a Snowy Day

2010-02-02T12:54:00.000-05:00

Snowy das appeal to mhere is a hush on those days, unlke any other day A hush falls on the world under a blanket of white.
Well Saturday was not exactly a snowy day, but it was close. We had at least two inches of sleet, which is considerably more dangerous than snow Still, it had the same effect. The world stopped for two days. How many times do we see that?
Saturday afternoon, I donned my snow boots an headed out for a walk. I carried a small digital camera with me, not to take the usual snowscape pictures, but to look for the little wonders that you find nestled in the storm--icicles on trees, pine cones lying on the ground half hidden, the pattern of snow on a wood shake roof, that kind of stuff.
It was cold, very cold. The windblown ice slapped into my face and froze my beard. Nowhever did I see liquid water. I looked behind me on the path, and could see no foodprints. I was walking on a bed of ice crystals.
I started for downtown, and got about three quarters there, when I suddenly realized my face was freezing,, so I decided to turn around. No use getting frostbite. Along the way home, I go by the Museum of the Waxhaws, our local museum. Its a small building, only about twice the sze of my house. this year, they had added some new features in the small patch of woods beside it. There is a pioneer farm now, and a Catawba Indian encampment in the woods. I decided it would be a good place to tak pictures.
What a treat! It was a still, silent place, and I felt transported back a couple of hundred years. I took pictures of the log cabin walls, the barn, the green wagon parked beside it, the spring house, and just about everything else. Then I walked into the woods, over a wooden bridge, and took pictures of the black and white woods. A little bird hopped beside the path, trying to keep warm.
It is a very small wood. A few minutes later, I came out into the clearing beyone. Just then, there was a racket to my left. About thirty yards in front of me, a large white-tailed deer leapt out of the woods and bounded in front of me. It had a beautiful rack of six pointed antlers. Before I could reach for my camera it was gone, It did get a picture of it, though, about a hundred yards away stopped and looking at me behind a wooden fence.
I wonder why it stopped? It would have been more sens
ible for the animal to keep running, but it didn't It stopped and was staring at me. If it had a camera, it might have taken my picture. Was it curiI hous? Why should a deer be curious? Was it afraid, and wanted to observe a potential predator. Or was it enjoying the sight of me, the same way I enjoyed the sight of him.
I might have been a bit too anthropomorphic in this. there were other sounds of branches in the woods behind me. Perhaps it had a family in those woods, and was looking back in terror, hoping they would make it out. I do not know.
I was glad for the sight of it, though. He and I, and the bird I saw before, seemed to be the only living things in that icy landscape. Just the three of us. I was glad that day to be counted in their number.

Things I wish I'd taught my children

2010-01-29T11:32:00.000-05:00

Now that my children are grown, it's time for a self-evaluation as to how I did as a parent. All in all, I think we did well. They are all Christians, all gainfully employed, even if they are under employed, and they all considerate, caring people. Even so, I look back on the experience and think if I knew what I did then, I could improve upon it.

Here are some of the things I wish I would have done better.
1. I would have prayed with them more. When my children were young, it was difficult to get them to pray aloud. After a while, I just quit trying, and got by with simple, formulaic prayers. Even though they have all learned the value of prayer, I think it would have been better had I set a better example before them.
2. I would have been tougher on them. When children are young, they can take a lot more than we give them credit for. I was always afraid of breaking them. As a result, they find it hard now to manage what we should have taught them long ago.
3. I would not have been afraid to say "Do what I say, not what I do." I know this sounds hypocritical, but some things are just to important to leave out, even if we haven't mastered them ourselves. if we have gone in the wrong direction, we don't want our children following.
4. I would have taught them to look around. When we would ride in the car, I of course did the driving. They sat in the back seat not paying attention to where we were going. They didn't have to. I paid attention for them. When we become adults, we cannot live only in our own worlds We have to learn to notice our surroundings--especially people. There's a big, beautiful world out there, you can't learn anything about from television , the computer. or books. You have to look around and see it
5. I would teach them the art of conversation. Holding a conversation is not hard There are three rules to it. Look people in the eye, ask questions, and listen to their answers. You can get by in any company if your practice them.
6. I would teach them to seek the right kind of friends. We need friends who will challenge us to become better than we are. I am not suggesting that we should dump the needy, but if we don't want to become needy, we had better learn to have ambition and drive. You don't get that from books, you catch it from people.
7. I would have told them not to neglect physical exercise. The Romans had a phrase for it "cprpus mens in corpore sana."" A sound mind in a sound body." Those who succeed physically also succeed intellectually emotionally, and spiritually. We know the fountain of youth. It is diet and exercise. Unless we want to die early, we had better drink from it daily.
8. I would have taught them better the value of money. The rules of finance are eternal and inviolable. A penny saved is a penny earned. If we don' work, we don’t have . No one has it easy when we get older. We had better learn to prepare for tomorrow.
9. I would have taught them to be careful risk-takers. Will Rogers once said that we have to go out on a limb, because that is where all the fruit is. The secret of a successful life is not whether or not we meet our initial goals, it is whether he have learned to prepare so that when we fail we will land on our feet. Once prepared, we can be bold, and we can accomplish more than we ever thought possible.
10. I would have been more affectionate. Frankly, I don't know why I wasn't. I wanted to be, but I didn't hug them enough or tell them enough what wonderful and special girls they were. Happy people are always hugging and touching one another. Unhappy people keep their hands to themselves. Happy people compliment each other constantly. Unhappy people only speak when something is the matter. I think it is best to say today what you wish you would have said to someone after their death, and to show someone the affection you found difficult to say. We only have today to get our priorities right. There may be no tomorrow.
11. I would have taught them to give. I have worked in many charitable drives, but rarely did I take my children with me. This is what life is all about--helping others. If we don't teach our children to give when they are young, they will have a much harder time finding the time to do it when they are old.
Here's a partial list of my childrearing regrets. Even as I write them, I think of many that I have left out. Too many. I hope my children forgive me . But God is faithful to forgive. Regret is the ashes of yesterday's fire. It is best not to wallow in it today, but to get busy living and loving now. That is what I want to do now, with the rest of the time God gives me.

There is a law--by Randy Rayfield

2010-01-10T16:29:00.000-05:00

Randy Rayfield is one of the funniest guys I know. He's a writer, raconteur, and part-time Santa who lives in Monroe. He periodically puts our a email called "Whittlin and Wonderin", giving his observations about life to a small list of friends. Every one I have seen so far is a gem. Randy can be reached at prrayfield@interlink-café.com. Here's an example.

At one time or another all of us has uttered the phase “there ought to be a law” about something that seemed ridiculous. Well, folks, it seems there is a law. Goggle silly, zany laws and you will get a hit of more than 257,000 listings in .26 seconds. Why do I know this? Recently I was listening to the radio and a commercial came on about some service or other and one of the things in it was a comment about a law in Lee County Alabama where it is illegal to sell peanuts after sunset on Wednesdays. This time for some reason, that little piece of information struck in my mind and later that day I did an internet query and found that sure enough there is a law in Lee County (AL) that prohibits the sale of peanuts after dark on Wednesday.

First get your mind around this. Laws are passed because something happen first. In the American legal system, the deed occurs, the citizenry demands action, elected leaders pontificates, laws are written, the law enforcement system enforces and the judiciary judges. While it may seemed the other way around many times, this is how our legal system works.
Using that legal concept, let do ourselves some wondering. What happened in Lee County (AL) on a Wednesday night involving the selling of peanuts causing the good folks of Lee County to have their leaders make it a crime to sell peanuts after sunset on Wednesday? The county fathers just did not decide to pass this law. Something happened that enraged citizens to demand that their elected leaders pass a law to prevent this hideous crime from happening again.
The next time you visit Atlanta don’t tie your giraffe to a street light because it is illegal. Was this a problem in Atlanta at some point? Did the mayor decide to take his wife for a Sunday afternoon drive and found giraffes tied to posts. Did she make a comment leading him to go before city council and demanding something be done? Think about this. Giraffes are not found in the wild in Georgia. Any giraffe in Atlanta had to come from somewhere else. Was the city overrun with giraffes? Do you ride a giraffe? Do you walk one like a dog? How do you tie a giraffe? By the neck? By the leg? I don’t know because my experience with them are limited.
Down the road in Columbus it is illegal to carry a chicken by its feet on Sunday on Broad Street. Again what enraged the citizens in Columbus to make this illegal? Why would it be all right to carry the said chicken by its feet Monday though Saturday? Were enough people carrying chickens by their feet on Sunday on Broad Street to create a public nuisance? I am making an assumption here that the chickens in question were alive. Knowing a little something about live chickens, when you carry one like that they will make a racket. Could it be that all the First Churches in Columbus – First Baptist, First Presbyterian, First Methodist -- are on Broad Street?
Over in Macon it is against the law to eat fried chicken with a fork. This law I can understand. Good fried chicken cooked by Sunday school teachers in cast iron skillets should be eaten with your fingers. And as you are wiping your fingers give thanks to those Christian ladies and the Good Lord.
I have traveled to Kentucky several times but I did not know this. Kentucky requires all its citizens to take a bath once a year. Now this is my wondering question. When you take a job in law enforcement in Kentucky, does your police training include indicators on how to determine if a citizen has violated this law? Is the sniffing out of these criminals given to rookie officers to help them gain experience in dealing with vicious perps? Do you need someone to verified this? A doctor? Your spouse? While we think the evidence would be apparent, how do you determine the length of time between bathing? Will a shower suffice? It could be that this law was adopted from the old country. I have heard of similar laws there. Does the law apply to travelers? Will I need to carry some type of documentation that I have bathed within the recent year?
There is another law in Kentucky that may have influenced the passage of the bathing ordinance. It is illegal to keep a mule in a bathtub. Was it because the people of Kentucky were keeping mules in their bathtubs the reason that a law for bathing was needed? Mules usually do not take to being made to do something they are against doing. While I have never done it, I think it would be difficult to keep a mule in a bathtub. It must have been enough of a problem to make the legislature of Kentucky debate the issue of mules in bathtubs and then pass a law prohibiting it. I guess this is why we need lawyers. What is the definition of keeping? Is it overnight or just long enough to give the mule a bath? Why would you give a mule a bath? If the police came to your house and found a mule in your bathtub, do you need a lawyer? Do lawyers advertised in the Yellow Pages about their expertise in this area as they do divorces? I don’t know if I would want to be a law enforcement official in Kentucky.
Don’t think that strange laws are a southern eccentricity. Think about these and wonder what caused people to demand action from their elected officials.
In Vermont it is illegal to paint a horse. You cannot smoke a pipe after sunset in Newport, Rhode Island. In Hartford, Connecticut you aren’t allowed to cross a street while walking on your hands. You thought that tying a giraffe to street light was a particularity to Atlanta. Well in Michigan it is illegal to hitch a crocodile to a fire hydrant. I am sure that firemen in that state appreciate this effort to keep them safe but are there enough crocodiles in Michigan to warrant this? Of course I would like to buy the guy who originally hitched his crocodile to a fire hydrant a cup of coffee and hear that story. Do dogs and crocodiles have anything in common when it comes to fire hydrants?
If you are traveling to Oxford Ohio with your wife make sure you do not put a picture of you or George Clonney where she can see it because it is illegal for a woman to strip off her clothes while standing in front of a man’s picture. Thinking about it, I would pay a lady’s bond with enthusiasm if she was arrested for this crime involving my picture. Is stripping off her clothes the same as taking them off? It has been my observation that there is a difference. Who put together the statistical data in Oxford to determine this was a problem?
Bathing seem to be a popular topic for lawmaking. In Indiana it is illegal to take a bath in the wintertime. Back in Vermouth you must take a bath every week – on Saturday night. Within the Boston city limits, it is illegal to take more than two baths a month. Virginia forbids bathtubs in houses, tubs must be kept in the yard. And Pennsylvania state law prohibits you from singing in the bathtub.
Another interesting law that is common throughout the United States is the prohibition against carrying an ice cream cone in your back pocket. How does the prevention of this activity help maintain the public well being? While I would not buy a fellow a Starbucks coffee to hear his reasoning for putting an ice cream cone in his back pocket, I think would spring for a small cup at McDonald’s.
I didn’t really want to spend any time checking on crazy laws in California. You just know they are going to have them. Here is some advice if you decide to move to there. Buy a hunting license before you set a mouse trap. It’s the law. You must have a state hunting license to trap mice. If Blythe, California is your destination, be sure you buy two cows before wearing cowboy boots in public. That’s right. You must own two (2) cows in order to legally wear cowboy boots in public.
You say that these laws once passed are not looked at again and forgotten. Wrong. Here is an example of a law being passed and then amended. Again back in Kentucky -- “No female shall appear in a bathing suit on any highway within this state unless she is escorted by at least two officers or unless she be armed with a club.” Evidently they had some issues with the law and has to make a few changes. As amended “The provisions of this statute shall not apply to any female weighing less than sixty pounds nor exceeding 200 pounds; nor shall it apply to female horses.” Did somebody really put a bathing suit on a horse and parade it down a highway?
Just wondering.

The Road to Recovery

2010-01-05T09:56:00.000-05:00

The year's end has come like a soft, beautiful sunset. After Christmas, the whole family traveled to Atlanta to see my parents and sister, who were living together under the same roof again for the first time in forty years. My parents have moved into a new apartment in my sister's house. First they endured, then they survived, then they thrived. It's good to see them smile again.
Joy and I stayed in Atlanta for three days, and celebrated our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. I used to think that when we hit this far-off milestone of marital fidelity that we would be bored and tired, without fire or fun. The opposite it the case. Marriage gets more fun and more passionate, the older you get. Whee!
We came home to some serious concerns. Jill, daugher of my friends Jerry and Helen, was found passed out in her home, in an unconscious state. they flew her to Charlotte, where she is recovering from a possible seizure. It was a trying tearful time for the whole family, but it she is now on the road to recovery.
Right now, my church is full of individual problems. We have had deaths, sickness, blindness, home invasions, and all sorts of problems n the families of our church. It can be overwhelming. It is overwhelming.
But they are all on the road to recovery, now. They are getting better. Just as Joy and I are getting better. Our problems are not over, but we see some light, thank God, a kind of soft, warm line of sunrise on our spiritual horizons.
One image that sticks in my mind in thinking about some of the trials in our lives, and the lives of or friends. The image of a net. we are all interconnected. We cannot survive alone, none of us We all need the comfort, support, and prayers of each other, and we need some strong faith connectios with God. We have experienced the strong support of families and friends over the past several years. We have also seen so man poeple come through their difficulties unscathed, because of that same support. We cannot be on the road to recover, or the road to happiness for that matter without a community of love around us. We have that, thank God, and it is good.

The Chrietmas Bell

2009-12-25T20:07:00.000-05:00

It was a rainy day about a week before Christmas in Atlanta, when the world was swathed in soggy shades of gray. I was in the middle of my Christmas funk. It's not that I don't like the season, but after a while, the season doesn't seem to like me. I was in a round of church parties and school events. It had been a week since I had a single night off.
I had always hoped for a Norman Rockwell Christmas, with snow, carolers, festive people and glowing smiles. But no Christmas in my entire life has fully lived up to my expectations. I have never seen a snowy Christmas. Instead, they are always cold and soggy like this one or dry and sunny, witih a dry, brown winter landscape. That momnt of quiet we all seeom to yearn for at the end of the year, escapes us. Replaced instead by social pressures and frantic shopping. It's business in high gear at the end of the year, which makes us think that the whole world is one giant treadmill. Sometimes, I feel I am like the guy at the gym who turns up the treadmill too high, and has to run as hard as he can to keep brom being slung off. One day, the Christmas machine, and the whole society t supports will come crashing down on our ears. We cannot keep this up foreve.
this particular day, I was trying to finish my last bit of shopping with my last bit of money. I awas at K-Mart walking the aisles of the Christmas section.
Have you ever heard the word kitsch? It refers to the kind of cheap junk which is neither valueaboe, useful, or even tasteful. Chrstmas is kitchy season, to be sure. The aisle of K Mart Christmas department are covered with it. It thought about all those people whose livelihood depends upon selling junk we neither need nor want.
One particular kitschy ornament caught my eye. It was a plastic Christmas bell, made in Hong Kong. There was a plastic ball attached to a white string. It was mostly white with red and green paint badly painted on the top part. I pulled the string on it, and it began to pay "Silent Night" as badly as I had ever heard it play.
The tone was off, the timing was off, and it was barely recognizable. But you could hear the tune, nevertheless. They words came back to me.
Silent Night Holy Night All is celm, all is bright
Round yon virgin mother nd child. Holy Infant so tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace.
Tears welled up in my eyes. I don't know why. I had heard th song so many times before in this frantic season, but somehow I had not heard it.
You wonder where Christmas is, in the middle of the hectic holidays/ Its right there, in the core of our souls. In It's never left, but hides underneath all the glitter and junk of the season. Secular holiday songs ad parties can never fully wipe it out. Commericalism cannot hide it forever. It's there, buried under the pile like a seed ready to spout.
Heavenly peace. It's there. You may not see it or feel it but it's there, deep down underneath it all. God's love in human form. All it takes is a little imagination and a change of attitude to see it. If we look at the outer Christmas, it's a wasteful, commercial mess. But if we look behind it, we see the love of the Father, the sacrifice of he Son, and the touch of the Holy Spirit.
Christmas is what we make it. It's We shoose the Christmas we will have, just as we choose the lives we live all year. We can focus on love or we can focus on obligation and anxiety. Love prevails under the weight of the world, in the silent night of love.

A Christmas Blessing

2009-12-23T22:53:00.001-05:00

This is Christmas Eve Eve. Tomorrow the festivities begin in earnest. The kids will be here in the morning, and they will be super excited. Two of my daughters will be here overnight. There will be food and presents and laughing, no doubt.

But none of this is the best thing about Christmas. The thing that excites me most is the quiet of it. Quiet moments in a Christmas Eve service. A starry sky, Christmas lights twinkling on a hunred lawns, sold, still winter weather. Sometimes, I feel that if I listen a little harder, I can hear a baby cry and angels sing.

This Christmas Eve, I'm going to be working at Hope Inc. in the morning. We'll be handing out food and money to the people who really need it. I can't think of a better way to spend Christmas eve than that.

This year is tough for a lot of my family and church friends. One has lost a mother this week. Another has lost a grandmother. Two of my friends are looking for jobs. Still another is temporarily blinded, and can only hear Christmas. My parents are spending the first Christmas away from their home since he had to move into an apartment. My mother-in-law is just out of the hospital and can barely take care of herself, let alone do the preparations she usually does.

What Do we need for Christmas? Nothing. Nothing at all but the grace of God. Seeing those who are in deep need, I realize that I am already full. Two daughters are engaged. We all have jobs. We are all relatively healthy. God has blessed us so much that we can shower one another with more presents than we need. If I have any more health, wealth, and blessing, I will burst. This Christmas, if I need anything, it is to get my eyes off myself and onto those who really have needs.

I don't know who will read this, but if you really need something, may God grant you your deepest desires. Better yet, may God bless you with the gift of not desiring what we do not need, and make us content with what we have. Love, grace, and the beauty of the world is a far greater gift than we can eve imagine.

Silent Night

2009-12-17T20:16:00.000-05:00

I"m entering the "Scrooge" phase of Christmas today. I go thught this every year. By the time I get to the middle of December, I have been into Christmas for almost a month. By the time I get to the big day, it starts to feel like the dirty dishes from a Thanksgiving meal. We've glutted ourselves on materialism and candy so badly that all apetites have been sated, and all I can think of is getting over it.
On an old Saturday Night Live sketch, Father Guido Sarducci suggested that we should have "big" Christmas and "little" Christmas Every other year we should have a merry "little" Christmas, without all the presence, decoratons, etc. It's not a bad idea, really. Once, I'd like to get through the holidays with my checkbook, diet, and sanity intact.
It's not that I hate Christmas, I dont. It just that Christmas gets buried under a pile of wrapping and tinsel every year, until it becomes hard to find it.
What's Chrismtas for, anyway.
At it's core, Christmas is a spiritual exercise. It's an opportunity to get closer to God by meditating on th comng of the Messiah.
Christmas is the fulcrum f hstory. Its the moment when everything changed. The miracle of s it that it reminds us that every moment could be a new moment of changing Jesus can enter into any waking mmen, and transform us.
It begins in silence. Then there was a baby's cry. No one recognized what was happening at first, but soon they did. Wide-eyed shepherds appeared ut of nowhere with a fantastic story of angels. Oriental mystics appeared, babbling about a star. Then there was more silence, silence for a long time, before all heaven broke loose.
I seek out the quiet moments of life. There seem to be so few of them. I am listening for that baby to cry again. I am waiting for the moment when the Kingdom of God comes in my life and my world.
If only Christmas were the moment it was meant to be, a moment for quiet listening and hearng.
This year, I've enjoyed listening to a Christmas album by Sting. I head him speak about it on NPR one morning. Though I'm sure he's not a Christian, he said something that stuck in my mind. He said that the winter season was a moment for reflection. The cold weather drives us into ourselves, helping to remind us of the possibilities that there are.
I would rather think that Christmas reminds us of the possibilities that God can bring forth.
If only it could be this and not an excuse for indulgence. God, give me a silent night again!

Daily Affirmations

2009-12-04T09:33:00.000-05:00

Today, I will remember that I am forgiven

Today I will remember that I am beautiful in God's eyes.

Today I will remember that I am already loved enough

Today I will remember to give others my honesty and my friendship

Today I will remember the shortness of life

Today I will remember the privilege of living this moment

Today I will remember to be thankful to God for every moment

Today I will remember the holy sensuality of praise

Today I will remember I can do all Through Christ

Today I will remember that I can trust

And in trusting hope

And in hoping know

And in knowing rejoice.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-19T16:00:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving is more than just an act of love. Thanksgiving is love. It is the fabric of the communal experience that holds us together.

Think about a football game. When a quarterback makes a touchdown, one side stands up and cheers. They are giving thanks. True, they are led by girls in short skirts instead of ministers in robes, but the action is the same. Those who are fans of one side rejoice. Their affection for one side, expressed in gratitude for their successes, is the common experience that makes them one. This support of one side might be the only thing that holds them together, but that is enough.

Think about a family saying grace in a restaurant. What distinguishes them from the other diners? Simply that they gave public thanks for the meal. The act of giving thanks in sincerity is enough to make them all one.

Unity comes about through common experience experienced with the same emotions. We are held together by love, hate, lust, or desire, but in this we are one. Mostly, though it is what we are thankful for that makes us one.

I think we could make a case for saying that the act of giving thanks to each other brings us together. AS we express thanks for another, we are accepting them as one. Together we become one family, one circle of friends, or one people. The more thankful we are, the more we will express it. The more we express it, the more thankful we become.

Thankfulness to god is especially important. When we give thanks to God, we acknowledge the rightness of the world. We declare ourselves in harmony with the Creator. We cannot grumble or complain that the world is not to our liking when we thank God for what he is done.

So this next week, let's thank God for our blessing. But let's also give thanks to one another for the blessings we have received. This will strengthen our bonds with each other, and make us more truly a family, a nation, and a harmonious society.

A Religion of Peace?

2009-11-07T21:58:00.001-05:00

The recent massacre at Ft. Hood should make us all concerned. This is the latest in a string of massacres perpetrated by Muslim-Americans in the name of their religion. We need to screen people of the Muslim faith in the military and at the workplace and we need to screen them now.

Major Hasan's family has said that he was a loyal American, and that he was not a radical Muslim. I know. This is what should concern us. Here was a man acting alone according to the dictates of his faith. He screamed "Allah Ackbar" "God is great" the Jihad call that has echoed down through the ages as the battle call of the "religion of peace."

Look at the religious wars fought across the world today. With the exception of the now settled conflict in Northern Ireland, where are the religious wars that do not involve Muslim. We see Muslim-Hindu violence, Muslim-Jewish violence, Muslim-Buddhist violence, and Muslim-Muslim violence. Where are the Christian-Hindu wars or the Buddhist-Jewish wars? They are so minor as to be non-existent. Yet Islam is involved in violence on every side.

I believe there are two reasons for this.

The first is the Muslim belief in unity. It is a matter of pride to Muslims that they see themselves as a single brotherhood, looking out for each other. This seems to be the case with Major Hasan. His writings indicate that we should not be fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq because a war against one Muslim is an war against all. That is not unity. This is paranoia.

The second reason is found in the nature of the Muslim idea of God. The Muslims say they have an all powerful God. Yet for some reason, these same Muslims are convinced that their God needs military assistance to accomplish His ends. Jeremiah mocked the idols of the nations by pointing out that they had to be carried from place to place. How different is it from the Muslims, who think that the honor of God must be defended by military means?

Contrary to popular thought, Jesus was not a pacifist. He said nothing against the military or the police, neither did he ever suggest that executions should not be carried. Jesus just believed that neither God nor His people needed defending by military means. He does not need us fighting for him. He fights for us. He does not need us conquering a world of which He is already Lord. That is why he told his followers to turn the other cheek. It is not because he thought that our enemies should not be punished, but that we should pity them, because it is God who does the punishing. When Major Hasan went on his rampage, somewhere in his mind he must have thought he was punishing our country for what they were doing to him and to other Muslims. He was taking upon himself a role that the Bible reserves for God alone.

All Muslims are not killers, neither are they dangerous. There are good Muslims, generous Muslims, and charitable Muslims. However I it is my opinion that they are good in spite of their religion, and not because of it.

We ought not worry about profiling. We should be careful about putting Muslims who embrace the paranoid, fortress mentality aspect of Islam in places where they care in contact with the armed forces.

I'm sure there are many Muslims who disagree with my assessment of Islam. They are more than welcome to disagree. In fact, I hope that I am wrong. But the evidence suggests that Islam is not a religion of peace with others, but of war against the world. The more Christian a person becomes, the more peaceful he becomes. The more Muslim a person becomes, the more prone to violence he seems to become.

Peaceful Muslims will disagree. Good. I hope they speak out loudly, not only to we infidels, but to their fellow Muslims and say that they really are a religion of peace, and not of violence. With every suicidal maniac who suicidally throws his life away killing others, it becomes harder to believe.