BOTH AND

The Word of God, but not His pen.
Not his ink but that of men.
Creation, yes, but not His hand.
Simple obeisance to his command:

"Let there be . . . "

And so he told the world to spin,
But I've often thought it may have been
The constant work of the musician
That makes it go round and round again.

What is a Christian Nation?

Over the last 200+ years, many have claimed that America is a Christian nation, as many still do today. And yet, two centuries of lexicalization have done very little to clarify the meaning of this phrase. Thus, the titular question of this essay is just as relevant to us now as it would have been to 18th century colonists.

David Barton, a writer for an excellent website called Wallbuilders.com, defines "Christian nation" in a way that seems fairly uncontroversial. He says:

"A Christian nation as demonstrated by the American experience is a nation founded upon Christian and Biblical principles, whose values, society, and institutions have largely been shaped by those principles. This definition was reaffirmed by American legal scholars and historians for generations 12 but is widely ignored by today’s revisionists." (Is President Obama Correct:Is America No Longer a Christian Nation?, http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=23909) If this is the definition people are working with when they use that term, I can accept that. How could America not be shaped by Christian and Biblical principles when indeed Christianity had been the dominant cultural force of Western civilization for over a millenium prior to the formation of our Constitution? This much seems obvious and undeniable.

The problem that I have is that when people use this term, while they may indeed have a definition in mind similar to the one I just cited, they often have MUCH MORE in mind than just that. They seem to mean that America is a Christian nation in a way that, say, Great Britain is not, nor ever was, even though the Bible and Christianity most surely shaped its values, society, and institutions as well. They seem to mean that America is a Christian nation in a way that no other country ever will be. They seem to mean that the angels of the Lord's army lead the Americans to victory in the Revolution, that God himself ordained our laws on stone tablets for us, that Jesus Christ sat down on a mount with our Founding Fathers and taught them how to form a government, and that the Holy Spirit divinely inspired the Declaration of Independence.

These things I do not believe. And no matter how Christian or un-Christian our nation becomes, I will not waver in my belief that Israel and the Church are the only 2 institutions in history that God has sovereignly ordained in a special way (Romans 13 does teach that God establishes earthly authorities. So yes, in this sense, and only in the sense that God has established ALL authorities, God has indeed established the American ones). And while the Bible does teach that the nations are in God's hands and that he uses them to accomplish his purposes (Psalm 22:28), it also teaches that God does not show favoritism (Romans 2:11).

The penultimate line of our national anthem asks, "O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave?" The answer is "no," as it is now the fashion to drape it over a wooden cross.

Do Pets Go to Heaven? Rethinking the Question

You can tell a lot about a person based on how they answer this question. And I don't mean whether they say "yes" or "no," but rather in precisely how they formulate their answer.

I've been thinking about the question recently, and honestly, there are lots of sound, Biblical reasons to answer it in the negative. Biblically, there's no good reason to think that animals have the souls that we image-of-God-bearing human beings do.

That may all be true. However, in thinking about this whole question, I have come to a conclusion that has little to do with the "correct answer" to it. A lot of people who say "no," especially the people who just dismiss the whole idea of animals in Heaven as silly to begin with, do so based on a distorted view of the nature of God. In other words, even if they are technically correct in their answer to the question, they may have a shallow and cold understanding of who God is. (Please note that I said "a lot of people who say no," not "everyone who says no.")

In the same vein, many who believe that pets do go to Heaven, even if they are ultimately incorrect, do so out of a very good understanding of God. It's possible that bad eschatology can arise from good theology.

You know how in math classes the teacher always tells you to "show your work," and how that's usually more important than the answer itself? Yeah, I think when it's all said and done, God might want to see our work. In this and in everything else, let's make sure we're not consumed by simply having the right answer.

Thanks!

P. S., I would answer the question as "probably not," but I would definitely never say "absolutely not." None other than C. S. Lewis speculates in his book The Problem of Pain that just as Christ redeems human beings, it may be possible that human beings can, in turn, redeem our pets. God gave us dominion over the Earth and all the plants and animals in it. If the believer can be raised with Christ because we are under his Lordship, then perhaps our pets, under our lordship over them, can be raised with us.

Ode to the Moon

I composed this in honor of the 40th Anniversary of the Moon-Landing. When writing it, I was thinking about how all the star-gazers and astronomers throughout history must have felt, just dreaming about reaching the moon.

Ode to the Moon

Mystery in plain sight
Across a sea of space and light
Draws me to her every night.

Even when her back is turned
I hardly ever feel her spurn
I just embrace the dark nocturne.

When she’s new, still in my eye.
When she’s full, so am I.
The only thing between us: sky.

If I could see the mystery,
If I could sail the space-y sea,
I would, tonight, draw her to me.

In Praise of the Vibrate Setting

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one who is annoyed by today's cell phones. Aside from the fact that the pocket computers known as the iPhone and its ilk seems to me extremely luxurious and ostentatious, I mainly just get annoyed by the ringtones. Am I missing something or do most phones have 4 settings now: silent, vibrate, ring, and boombox? Seriously, I wonder, do you actually believe that everyone within a 50-foot radius wants to hear 10 seconds of the latest Miley Cyrus song every time someone calls you? Or, are you just utterly convinced that the one thing our world need right now is more noise and distractions?

I've actually had people get mad at me before because I keep my phone on vibrate and sometimes I don't notice it vibrating. Although, generally, a missed call won't go unnoticed for too long because I use my cellphone as a watch, and I like to check the time fairly frequently. But apparently, this is not good enough for some people. Apparently, they just NEED me to be accessible at an instant. Sorry, but I'm not a dog, so I prefer not to be on a leash.

I ain't turning Amish or nothing like that, but I do believe that the cellphone is one of the most obnoxious inventions of our day. Here's to reversing the trend.

P.S. While were on the subject of phones: If you and I are having a conversation, and you get a text, would it just ABSOLUTELY KILL YOU to actually WAIT until we finish our conversation to read and reply. I must confess that I've done this to people before, and I hereby repent.

Mission Missive

"Slow and steady wins the race."
"Pace yourself."
I have believed this for a long time
and still do.

But, maybe, there are times,
special, specific, spaces of time,
when the pistol in the air
hits the pistons in your heart,
and you dart into to the distance.

Wisdom is like oil.
But a Psalm is like fuel
that launches
a massive, inert,
Earth-loving, ground-bound
missile like myself.

Pressure

Living life surrounded by people that love you sounds like every decent human being's dream, doesn't it? I've been reading the Psalms lately, and it seems like the writer is constantly feeling the tension of being surrounded by people who wish him harm. When I read his fears and problems poured out on the page, I am suddenly grateful for the fact that I seem to be flanked by good friends who have a genuine desire to see me succeed and prosper.

While this is a most desirable position to be in, it has the unfortunate side effect of often being uncomfortable. It comes with its own tensions and anxieties, which can generally be boiled down to a single word: pressure. It doesn't sound like such a bad problem, considering the alternative: living a life that no one cares about. Regardless, there's an aspect of being loved and of people having high expectations of you that feels, at least to me, truly tragic. That is, I feel like I live my life in a perpetual and inescapable condition in which, in every action I take, I'm never quite sure whether I'm doing it for God, for myself, or for those people around me.

In other words, I live in a constant state of uncertainty regarding my motives. I'm not sure if this is unusual or not. I just have a sincere hunger in my heart that my motives would be pure. I hate doing good if I feel like I'm doing it to be seen or to fulfill others' expectations, almost to the point that I'd rather do nothing at all.

I guess the challenge is simply to find the will of God, obey, and be content in it. Easier said. But I'm learning. I know who I am in Christ. I know the gifts I've been given. I know the word of God and the will of God revealed therein. I'm going to try to set my eyes on those things and those things alone.

Forgetting Keys

All our lives we look for keys,
sometimes overturning cushions,
other times giving up, in hope
we'll find it when we're not looking.

In all our searching we fail
to see: There's no locks.

No doors.
No wall-surrounded holes.

No combination of numbers
will open up love.
Left, right, right, left
is just a longer way
of going straight ahead.

This isn't cynicism though.
I like it.
Life is more
than a padlocked door.

The Trinity: Explanation?

In a brief conversation with my friend Amanda J. Meadows this morning, I was inspired to think about the Holy Trinity. For those unfamiliar, one of the core doctrines of orthodox Christianity is that the God of the Bible expresses himself in three different persons: God the Father, God the Son (aka Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit. This idea has been the subject of much controversy throughout the 2000-year history of the Christian church, and most consider it to be a profound mystery.

In staff meeting this morning, Amanda remarked that she looked forward to finally understanding the Trinity when she gets to Heaven. The idea that we will understand the Trinity when we are with God for eternity, and that it will no longer be a mystery, makes perfect sense. Even Paul seems to assert that our knowledge will be made complete when we behold God face to face (1 Corinthians 13).

However, for whatever reason, the thought immediately occurred to me that maybe we never will understand the Trinity. Maybe there is no explanation. And I don't think that would be so bad because there's something beautiful about mystery.

Throughout the centuries people have used various analogies as a way of feebly attempting to wrap our brains around the idea. One common one I've heard is an egg (shell, white, yolk, but all one egg). While this makes some amount of sense, it's overall a fairly poor analogy. While all those are parts of an egg, none of them are the egg. Also, the shell is not the white. The white is not the yolk. The yolk is not the shell.

There are two basic ways of not understanding something. One way is incomplete understanding. We're on the right track, but there's some key information missing. If we obtain that information, we can complete our understanding. The second way has not so much to do with lack of information as it does with some fundamental error in the way we approach an idea. We're not even on the right track. A good example of this second way is found in the way physicists discovered that Newtonian laws of physics were practically useless for describing the behaviors of subatomic particles.

I'm thinking that all of our groping around for an explanation of the Trinity is probably along the lines of this second way. And I'm willing to entertain the notion that maybe, just maybe, our attempts at explanation are so frequently frustrated because there actually is no explanation. That God simply is who he is, and that no explanation is necessary. Oddly, I find this idea more attractive than the idea that God is mostly like an egg, except with more complexity that we don't understand yet but will one day.

Fish Thoughts

I have lots of thoughts in my head, swimming around like a school of minnows in a pond. Each of them are things I've considered writing full blogs about, but I can't seem to settle on one. So, I figured I'd just get em all out at once, in brief, and then if anyone wants me to expound on any of them, let me know.

I don't know why more Christians don't read poetry. There's some GREAT Christian poets out there. My favorite is Luci Shaw. Reading her poems draws me closer to God.

I've been wanting to write a blog about the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and how it's about eternal life. It's weird because it holds three contrasting views in tension: resurrection, reincarnation, and worldy fame.

If you haven't yet seen Gran Torino, you REALLY REALLY need to. I'm not sure if it's still in theaters, but at least rent it when it comes out.

One of my pet peeves is when people look down their noses at me because of my love for pro wrestling. It's so judgmental and almost always hypocritical.

Lately my sense of awe about God and who He is has been increasing. He gives a deep and beautiful meaning to the word wonderful.

Maybe it's because of my own insecurities, but I usually have trouble worshiping God when the lyrics of a worship song are all about how I am going to worship God. That might sound weird, but it seems like drawing attention to the act of worship takes my attention off of God.

Speaking of worship, I try to ignore the worship leader when he/she says, "Close your eyes and focus on God. It's just you and Him right now." No. It's not just me and him. It's me and him and the rest of my family of believers. If I wanted it to be just me and God, I could've stayed home.

I love communion. I always feel overwhelmed by the thought of Jesus's body and blood being given for me. And not just that but the fact that believers all over the world are celebrating that in the same way, because he did it for all of us.

I'm rediscovering my love for science. I might go for another Master's some day in the near future, but this time in physics or something like that. I had a chemistry set when I was a kid, and I loved it. I think God created my brain the way it is for a reason, and I think he has great plans for it.

Show holy undue take noon fro, and show holy under ups rue?

Communion Poem

Communion Poem

The God of man

became Man-God

and bought men for God

with his own man-blood.

Flesh AND blood

got caught

on a nail.

Man knew not what sin had wrought

in God until

Wooden, man-built thing

sandwiched between

Creator and creation.

Earth wine-tasting by driplets dropped and

when the sips had stopped,

the cave mouth spread

open then shut to

consume the bread.

Righteous indigestion.

And the throat that had swallowed

kings, priests, and prophets

had to vomit

at the mere thought it had

eaten God.

And yet . . . we may partake.

In Defense of Being a Good Person

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote:

In times of established order, when the law rules supreme and the transgressor of the law is disgraced and ostracized, it is in relation to the tax-gatherer and the prostitute that the gospel of Jesus Christ discloses itself most clearly to men . . . In times which are out of joint, in times when lawlessness and wickedness triumph in complete unrestraint, it is rather in relation to the few remaining just, truthful, and human men that the gospel will make itself known. (Ethics)

This makes immediate sense to me, though I somehow had failed to grasp it before encountering this text. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has been, since the beginning, counter-cultural. So, in times of great moral decay, it seems natural that Christ would find allies in all who do good, whether they are believers or not (see Mark 9:40). After all, everything good rightfully belongs to Christ in the first place. Thus, times of wickedness provide the church with the opportunity to reclaim for herself and for God that which is hers by nature. And God can receive glory in this way, as the church, as his ambassadors, represents him as the original do-gooder, the one who created things and "saw that it was good" (Genesis 1).

This truth that Bonhoeffer so eloquently articulated more than 50 years ago seems particularly relevant today. In this world of ours, rife with corporate greed, irresponsible use of resources, religious terrorism, political chaos, genocide, slave-trading, and so on, it is indeed becoming almost trendy to care for the environment, to consume ethically, to be a voice for the voiceless, and to even be a sort of civilian diplomat in world affairs. (The word "trendy" may be an unfortunate one here, but one need only look to the recent proliferation of celebrity philanthropists, such as Brangelina, to get the point.) Sadly, the church of Jesus Christ often seems to be (slowly) following the trends, rather than leading the way. And what is even more discouraging is that many leaders within the church are resisting the trends, even denouncing them, in the belief that the true, Christ-crucified Gospel is being compromised for the sake of making the church more attractive to the world. What we are frequently missing out on is the opportunity to point the increasing number of "do-gooders" in our world towards Christ by showing how every good and perfect gift has its true origins in our Father in Heaven. The ultimate motivations for living green is knowing God as the benevolent Creator of every green thing on Earth. The ultimate motivation for trying to stop war and genocide comes from knowing how God became a part of his Creation, a human being, and died so that we might have life.

And I say, so what if the church wants to correct her public relations problems? Is that really such a bad thing? Yes, if we water down the message of Christ, then it is. We must preach Christ and him crucified. But, I would challenge anyone to demonstrate to me how promoting good environmental stewardship is in anyway antithetical to that message. Yes, Jesus did warn us to exercise caution regarding our motivations, that we should not do things for the sake of praise from men. But do take note that he was primarily referring to seeking the praise of the RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY. He talks about doing our fasting, praying, and giving in secret. Who do we try to impress with those sorts of activities? Not the world so much as fellow believers! In regard to the world, he actually said that we should let them see our good deeds, that they might praise our Father in Heaven! (See Matthew 5 & 6).

In the passage where Jesus says to let people see our "good deeds" (Matthew 5:16), the Greek word for "deeds" is etymogically related to the English word "work," and just like the word "work" in English, when used as a noun, it tends to emphasize a sense of labor or of something requiring signicant, repeated effort. By using this word, Jesus is not so much emphasizing individual acts as he is talking about being in the habit of doing good and having the character of one who consistently labors for good. Meanwhile, when Jesus warns us about doing our "acts of righteousness" to be seen by men (Matthew 6:1), the Greek behind that phrase emphasizes single acts or concrete expressions of goodness, something visible, tangible. For example, Paul uses the same word when referring to the one "righteous act" of Jesus, his Death, which reversed the curse brought on by the one transgression of Adam. So we see that what Jesus cautions against is doing good things for the sake of being seen by men, but he affirms having the kind of character that cause one to constantly labor for good. In other words, being a good person.

And so I write this essay in defense of being a good person. I defend goodness against two forces: one that denounces goodness simply because it's not what saves us (and I whole-heartedly agree that it is grace, and not works, that saves us), and another which treats goodness as though it were simply a lack of explicit badness. Being a good person requires extraordinary effort, taking a pro-active stance towards the evil that exists in our world, and the church should NOT regard it as a waste of time or a division of our allegiances. Bonhoeffer and Jesus both affirm that it is not simply grace that speaks to our world. The goodness of God's people is a significant element of our witness. Of course we are sinners, saved by grace; of course, as the bumper stickers have it, we are "not perfect, just forgiven." But if it' s only our status as being either condemned or forgiven that matters, then where is the transforming power of the Gospel? What does Jesus mean when he says to "let your light shine"? And to all who are skeptical about the value of social justice, environmentalism, and the like, I would ask, what are your good deeds? If your religious activities, like praying, fasting, and giving, are supposed to be done in secret, as Jesus says, what good deeds are your neighbors seeing in you that would cause them to glorify God?