Li [b/t] eral

As a Christian, there are a number of beliefs I consider important, and I believe them in the most literal sense possible.

I believe that God literally created everything in existence.

I believe that in the historical person of Jesus of Nazereth, God literally became a human being.

I believe that Jesus literally healed people, drove out demons, and preached about the Kingdom of God.

I believe that Jesus literally died by crucifixion.

I believe that Jesus literally resurrected from his tomb after being literally dead for 3 days.

I believe that Jesus literally ascended into Heaven.

I believe that Jesus will literally return to Earth again to literally carry out the judgments of God.

I believe that Jesus has literally sent the Holy Spirit during these last days to empower the Church to spread the Gospel.

I believe in a literal Heaven and a literal Hell.

I believe that God exists in 3 persons, The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Literally.

Yet somehow, for some segments of Christianity, all of this is still not quite literal enough. Weird.

Biblical Gentlemanhood

I believe in gender equality. Not only on ethical grounds but Biblical ones as well. It seems that scholars with any familiarity with the cultural mores of Jesus' time acknowledge that he was positively scandalous in the way he interacted with and affirmed women. (Kenneth Bailey's Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes is an excellent example. He deals specifically with Jesus and women in chapters 14-20.)

At the same time, the Apostle Paul says some things about gender roles that are difficult for modern ears to bear. I'm not going to go through all the passages, but the sum of it all seems to be that men have a more authoritative role, while women are to be more submissive. While for some of these passages I'm quite unsure of what to make of them, I've come to believe in a version of gender roles that I believe still upholds equality. Let me explain.


It's uncontroversial, not to mention provable with DNA alone, that there are biological differences between men and women. Among these differences are that in a strictly physical sense, men are generally stronger than women. Obviously there are plenty of women who are stronger than plenty of men, but men tend to be naturally bigger and to have more muscle mass.

I'm no expert in gender studies, but it would make sense to me to argue that the social differences between men and women, i. e. the current and historical differences in socioeconomic status, rights, privileges, etc., are, in large part, rooted in these physical differences. Because men are physically stronger and more imposing, it is all the easier to assert themselves and have their way in the context of a society. And this is essentially what we have done throughout history and throughout most cultures.

From the Biblical perspective, this is part of the curse of sin. God says to Eve, from that point on, "your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."

But that wasn't the way God wanted it to be, and it apparently wasn't the way things were before the disobedience of Adam and Eve. And now the New Testament provides us with a different ethic. Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians "submit to one another out of reverence to Christ."

Now if you and I submit to one another, and yet you are of a higher status and/or physically stronger than I, then isn't your act of submission in a sense greater than mine? Submission is always challenging. It always goes against the grain of our instincts. But isn't it even more challenging for the stronger to submit to the weaker? For the older to submit to the younger? For the one with more rights and privileges to submit to the one with less?

This is how I reconcile what the Scriptures teach about equality with what they teach about male leadership. In the truest sense, in Christ, there is no longer "Jew nor Greek, male nor female," etc. However, we are not yet completely free from the curse of sin. So if the husband is to still "rule over" the wife, he is to do so via the act of submission. In other words, he is to do it the Jesus way, laying down his life, as Christ did for the Church. He is to lay down all the rights and privileges and power afforded him by his Y chromosome, just as Christ laid down all the rights and privileges and power afforded by being God. In doing so, he finds the true leadership that comes through servanthood.

This also happens to be the way I make sense of gender roles in dating relationships, i. e. the man initiating, paying, holding doors open, etc. It would seem to me that the whole notion of the "gentleman" is predicating on this idea of having power but not using it for personal gain, always submitting it to the one with less.

Anyway, that's just some thoughts I've been having. Feel free to join in on the conversation. I'm especially interested in hearing some female responses to this perspective.

Thanks for reading!

Bell's Hell: The Controversy Surrounding Rob Bell's New Book

I recently read Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. I bought the book primarily because I wanted to be an informed participant in the giant explosion of discussion and debate the book had spawned. Little did I know I would be haunted by the book long after putting it down.

The questions Bell is asking are precisely the questions that anyone who has followed Christ for some time should be asking. They are also precisely the questions that we tend to avoid.

If the common Evangelical view is right--that a person is undoubtedly Hell-bound until they acknowledge Jesus Christ and make a conscious decision to allow him to be Lord of their life, then that means that the overwhelming majority of the 7 billion people on Earth, as well as the overwhelming majority of the people who have lived and ever will live, will experience never-ending torment for all of eternity, with no hope of relief or escape or reconciliation with God.

If that thought doesn't deeply disturb you, you have no heart.

And yet the idea is so familiar that at times it barely fazes us. That's even more disturbing.

We must ask ourselves, and answer with all honesty, are we okay with all of this? Is God okay with it? What kind of picture of God does that create? Has God's plan mostly resulted in a catastrophic failure? Will he really allow endless suffering for most, while relatively few are saved? Is he happy with that? Is there anything he can do about it? Is that truly just? Is it truly merciful? If God has placed in human hearts a deep longing for both justice and mercy, how is it that his way of doing things could seem so unjust and unmerciful? If all this is true, in what sense can the Gospel truly be said to be Good News?

These are all important questions. And yet there's one more that's even more important than all of them: Is this really what Jesus taught?

We can talk about what sounds good or doesn't sound good, what this pastor says or that pastor says. But what does Jesus say?

Answering that question is more than I can do in this writing space, as Jesus talks about Hell an awful lot. So here I refer you to Bell's book. Reading it would not be a bad way to start engaging these questions more deeply. I, for one, am thankful that he is bringing this oft-avoided topic to the forefront of discussion, as it has led me to repent from being too comfortable with Hell.

Baffled, Befuddled, and Bewildered

The world is a baffling place.

The great feats of Newton and the Enlightenment and Baconian science once had us confident that the inner workings of the natural world would soon be known exhaustively. We thought that we would eventually be able to map out, in their entirety, the natural laws that governed all natural phenomena, just like cartographers map out geography.

But ever since the late 19th century, we have been learning that the classical physics of Newton et. al. only describe particular aspects of the world; as for those other aspects, particularly the quantum aspects, it appears that the more we learn about them, the more frequently we are confounded by them. Even though we've come a long way in understanding the quantum realm, we won't have anything near the certainty we once had regarding classical physics until we are able to understand the precise relationship between the micro and the macro and why they operate so differently.

The world is a baffling place.

What's even more disconcerting is that quantum physics isn't the most baffling thing about it. We are.

Our quest to understand ourselves, our societies and cultures, our languages, our behavior and our choices, has arguable yielded relatively little fruit when compared with what we've accomplished in the sciences. For example, we certainly have an exponentially better understanding of the physics of motion than Aristotle did; however, if we ask the question, "Why was Socrates executed?" can any of us legitimately claim to give an empirically better answer than Plato did?

Like someone who's never seen a reflection in a mirror, we seem to understand nearly everything outside of ourselves better than we understand ourselves. Our struggles to understand our very own brains seems like an itch that comes from deep under the skin and all the scratching in the world just doesn't relieve it.

The world is a baffling place.

Even the Holy Bible acknowledges that truth. If you've read Job and Ecclesiastes, then you know that they are books about men who learn faith and humility the hard way, when their philosophies and theologies fail them. They are confronted with the limitations of their minds in the face of a God who refuses, for whatever reason, to spell things out for them.

In fact, this lesson is not only to be found in Job and Ecclesiastes, as most of the Scriptures are written in this way--images, metaphors, parables, crazy stories about people who do crazy things, sometimes brave and noble, sometimes wicked and dumb. And guess what . . . no footnotes!

What baffles me the most then is why on Earth any Christian would feel comfortable being so damn certain all the time.

When the Scriptures talk about faith, it's in regard to what we know about God. Even though we can't by any means prove it, we are to have faith in God's goodness and character, and in the saving work of Jesus Christ.

But faith is not a good way of knowing scientific facts. Nor is it a good way of learning politics. It's not even a good way of knowing why particular things happen to particular people or cities or nations (just ask Job about that one.)

Faith is a way of knowing God, and when it is appropriated in other ways, it is being misused.

Of course, our beliefs about God will influence our beliefs about everything else. That is inevitable, and it's a good thing. But the whole "absolute certainty" thing just isn't Biblical, simply put.

Changes

Hello faithful blog readers!

When I first started blogging, the appeal was simply to have a personal page where I could write whatever thoughts I felt like writing about. Whoever wanted to read could read, and my only hope was that some of my friends would check it out every now and then.

Well, I am excited to say that my ambitions have grown a little bit since then! Many of you that have read my blog have affirmed me as having a gift for writing and sharing thoughts, and over the years that encouragement has lead me to think that perhaps other people than just my friends would be interested in reading my writings.

The changes you see are meant to reflect these new ambitions. I've depersonalized the blog, since I am not a celebrity and people who don't know me won't really be interested in reading about me. Also, I've given it a bit of a focus. Thinking about things related to science and religion has really become a hobby and passion of mine, and I want to try to make the blog exclusively about those things.

I renamed the blog to "Faith + Knowledge," which was inspired by a verse in the Bible in which the Apostle Peter tells us to not be content with simply having faith, but to add several things to our faith, including knowledge. This reflects my personal philosophy that any faith worth having must not be afraid of questions, doubts, new information, etc. My desire is to know Truth, and to be open to all of the methods we have at our disposal for gaining knowledge.

The various portraits in the header are personal heroes of mine. People who had faith, sought knowledge, and accomplished great things as they integrated both into their lives.

To everyone who follows this blog and/or reads it regularly, thanks so much! I hope you will continue to read it and enjoy it. I also hope that other truth-seekers will discover it as well. Not because I have all the answers, but because I know from experience that as people mutually share their struggles with faith, truth, and knowledge, we all learn and benefit.

The Holy Bible: New Oversimplified Version

Don't worry, I totally photoshopped that picture. There's no such thing (yet) as an oversimplified version of the Bible. Many of us would probably be appalled or at least highly amused by such a thing, and few of us would buy it except for perhaps the entertainment value.

However, the striking truth is that many of us buy into an oversimplified version of the Bible every single day of our lives. We really want it to be simple, so we project that desire onto our interactions with the text. We have a sense that it should be simple, which can lead us to interpret it to say what we think it ought to say. But is it really simple? Can you read Ecclesiastes and still say that it's simple? Or what if we asked Job, would he say that it's simple? If it's so simple, why was Jesus so troubled and filled with sorrow in the Garden of Gethsemene?

It's not simple, but we pretend it is every time we tell someone "This verse says [x], therefore [y] is true." We don't take time to consider the context, and we ignore the verses that might seem to contradict the proposed claim.

When considering the idea of Scriptural support for our beliefs, the most important question is NOT, "Can I find a verse or passage that supports this idea?" The most important question is, "Does this accord with the Scriptural revelation of God, particularly in regard to the definitive revelation found in the person of Jesus Christ?"

This is how I will filter my beliefs now. It's harder than the "find a verse" method, but it is also the more honest method of the two.

Loving Yourself

I was listening to NPR in my car recently. I regrettably wasn't listening very well when the artist and song title were mentioned, but this beautiful, sad song started playing and the very first lyrics were something to the effect of "I've never been one to say I love myself; how can you expect me to love someone else?"

There is profound wisdom in those words.

It's tempting to associate self-love with pride or arrogance or just plain cheeseball, New-Age-iness. Talk of loving oneself can conjure up images of Stuart Smalley talking to the mirror: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!"

Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself." In this sentence, the command to love neighbor is predicated on an assumed love for self. You get the sense that if you don't love yourself, you may find it hard to love your neighbor, which is the precise sentiment expressed in the lyrics quoted earlier.

In my experiences, I find this to be true. If I don't love myself, and if I am not aware of and secure in the beauty and gifts endowed to me by my Creator, then other people are necessarily rivals and enemies--points of comparison, rather than other free persons endowed with their own distinct gifts and beauty.

Despite all my faults, which are often quite atrocious, I love myself. I am an expression of God's image. When people ask me why my hair is dark and my beard is red, my response is, "Because God is an artist." I love the mind he's given me. I love the sense of humor he has blessed me with. I love the calm spirit he has bestowed on me. I don't pretend that my glaring faults aren't there. I recognize that I am broken and dysfunctional, and that only his love and grace can restore me. But I also refuse to disparage myself because I know it hurts his heart when I do.

Love yourself. It's okay. He really wants you to.

Advent-ageous

Today is Advent Sunday. If you don't know what that means, relax. As an unfortunate consequence of the Evangelical shucking of all things ritual, you are not alone. Many of us lament the commercialized, mass media-ized version of Christmas that gets thrown in our faces every year right after Halloween. Meanwhile, a perfect antidote lies dormant in a 2000-year old tradition, just waiting for us to dust it off and rediscover its potent properties.

I write about this tradition as an attempt to do just that. As it is, even for those of us who see the tragic irony of commercialized Holy Days, it seems like the most we ever do about it is remind people to "Keep the Christ in Christmas." It's a catchy slogan, but Advent has the potential to be so much more powerful than simply trying to remember to wish Jesus a "happy birthday" while we stuff ourselves with gifts and feasts. (Not that I am at ALL opposed to Christmas meals and presents.)

The word "Advent" comes from Latin and means "coming." It's a translation of the Greek word "parousia," which is the word used in the New Testament to refer to the second coming of Christ. So rather than being a single Holy Day, Advent is a season of preparation, leading up to Christmas. Thus, during Advent we prepare to celebrate and commemorate the birth of the Savior and the wondrous miracle of our Lord's Incarnation. But far from being strictly an object of remembrance, this Savior lives and has promised to return. So while we remember the first coming, we prepare for the second.

The practical side of it is fairly simple. During the season of Advent, we center our devotional life around these two "comings" of Christ. In our reading, in our prayer, in our giving, in our volunteering, in our church-going, and in anything else we do as an act of faith, we keep our focus on Jesus as Incarnate God and Coming Lord.

Advent is a time for both solemnity and joy, hushed reverence and eager expectation. As though standing in front of a campfire, we feel the cold of winter at our backs, while the holy flame heats our hands and faces. So I invite you, come stand by the fire. This hopefully served as a good primer, but I encourage you to do further research about the meaning of Advent, join in the tradition, and maybe even start some traditions of your own. I intend to write more about this in the weeks to come.

Thoughts on Quiet Time

I'm sitting at my desk. It's early, barely light outside. The only sounds I hear are the hum of my computer and the music of Bach's Cello Suites (my favorite "quiet time" music) gently gliding from the speakers.

I love this time. I value it. So much so, that I am often torn about exactly how to use it. I race through the possibilities. If I don't make a decision soon, I'll start to become anxious as I feel the time slipping away.

I could just sit in contemplation and prayer; I could read from the Bible; I could read something from my Kindle; I could read some articles from some of my favorite websites; I could watch a free documentary or lecture online; I could do some research on a recent topic of interest; I could blog; all of these are potential candidates to receive a sizable donation from a bank account called My Quiet Time.

Of course, there are some things that are off limits. I won't do anything work-related, and I won't play games or watch TV.

I could solve the dilemma of having to decide what to do by simply planning in advance, which I do from time to time. If I really want to be diligent about finishing a particular book, or writing about something I've been thinking about, or something of that nature, then I might set aside the time for that. However, I have found over the years that it just doesn't work if I try to plan out each and every morning.

I've often wondered why this is so, and for a long time my best theory was that it was just a lack of discipline on my part. While that certainly is a factor, I've also come to realize recently that it just sucks all the fun out of it. I get joy from the simple act of sitting down, knowing the free time I have, and thinking, "Alright, what can I do now?" "What do I get to do now?" rather than "What should I do?" or "What must I do.?"

My theory is that, as long as certain things are off limits, then I'm not just wasting time or lacking discipline. I'm simply doing things in such a way that I know I will best enjoy them. It's the principle of Sabbath, applied to the first hour or two of my weekdays.

I've begun to apply this same logic to my relationship with God. Granted, there are aspects of my relationship with God that are, rightfully so, based in concepts of duty, obligation, discipline, etc. I'm not devaluing those things. But some important questions to ask are: Do I ever have times with God that I just simply enjoy? Can I tame God to the point of relegating him to a few blocks on a weekly schedule sheet?

I love discipline and formality, but personally, I find that if those are the only ways I live out my relationship with God, then my picture of him becomes, at best, some kind of austere taskmaster. At worst, he becomes an impersonal object, just something I do on a semi-regular basis.

Discipline, properly practiced, makes room for spontaneous joy and genuine affection. We are allowed to experience God as a person, and to delight in him as a Friend and Father.

This is Me on Coffee

I am generally known for being somewhat slow of tongue. I take my time with thoughts and words. My speech is often accompanied by its fair share of verbal pauses, which are tools I use in order to ensure that the next word is the one I really want.

However . . .

There are definitely plenty of times where I get a little quicker . It usually happens when I have a buncha coffee and I get all worked up about something I'm excited about and I can actually talk somebody's head off for awhile until they start to wonder when I might stop because I'm not really giving them a chance to speak or ask questions, so all of a sudden the conversation ends up being pretty one-sided and then I have this "Aha" moment where I'm like, "Whoa, I've been going on for quite a while here and I'm starting to run out of breath," so I just try to hurry up and finish my thought and then stop.

The Lost Art of Moderation

Do not be excessively righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself?

Do not be excessively wicked and do not be a fool. Why should you die before your time?

It's good that you grasp one thing and also not let go of the other; for the one who fears God comes forth with both of them. (Ecclesiastes 7:16-18, NAS)

Ecclesiastes is my favorite book in the Bible. I can't say exactly why. The first time I ever read it, I was exhilarated. It seemed like the exact book I would have written myself, if, you know, I was the wisest man in the world AND being inspired by the Holy Spirit.

I used to try to put my finger on exactly why I connected with it so well. I eventually stopped trying to figure it out when I realized it was a multitude of factors: the brutal honesty, the vulnerability of the author, the rollercoaster-like nature of the Teacher's sequence of reasoning, the beautiful gems of wisdom, the stunning resolve of the conclusion, and who knows what else. It's a fairly complex text, and I don't think I could ever comprehensively list the ways I connect and interact with it. But, as of a few days ago, I can add one more to the list: it is a book of moderation, which has always been something I value highly.

The verse quoted above is a prime example. To be clear, I don't think it's encouraging us to dabble in wickedness, nor to temper our good deeds. The author is confronting the reality of pervasive sin in our world. He's saying that if you indulge in it, you will destroy yourself, AND, by the way, you're not much better off if you try to pretend that you're above it.

Traditionally, we put prophecy and wisdom in distinct genres of Biblical literature, but I sure do wish we could receive words of wisdom as prophetic. These words could speak so directly to the heart of the American church, if we would allow it. My fear is that extremism is too ingrained in our cultural DNA for that.

Everything is permissible, and many things are beneficial.

If you can excuse this blatant distortion of a famous passage of Scripture, I believe I have a valid, and even Biblical, point to make here.

The Apostle Paul originally wrote the following in a letter to the Corinthians, who were apparently trying to justify as much sin as they could get away with, based on the idea of "freedom in Christ":

"Everything is permissible," but not everything is beneficial (1 Corinthians 10:23)

This is certainly a valuable piece of Scripture, that can guide us when we find ourselves tempted to dance right on the edge of the line of sin. It can guide us when we confuse our freedom in Christ for a free pass from God to engage in whatever behavior our hearts desire. I think this is the intent of Paul's words.

Unfortunately, this passage often seems to be used as a kind of all-purpose guilt-trip tool. When there's something we just think is bad or dangerous, but we can't find any clear Biblical teaching against it, we pull this little trump card out of the deck. Game over.

But there's often a double standard. For example, Paul also stated that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). People always point out, and rightly so, that it's the love of money, and not money itself, so there is nothing inherently wrong with acquiring wealth. In fact, wealth is a very good thing when it is used appropriately. I agree.

But you never hear anyone saying, "Well, you should just avoid the temptation to love money altogether by just not having any." No one counsels a man whose getting a raise by saying, "You know Bob, from a Biblical perspective, you probably shouldn't take this raise. No, there's nothing in the Bible that forbids it, but there's a line, and shouldn't you want to stay as far away the line as possible?"

If Paul says "not everything is beneficial," the other side of that is that there are many things that are beneficial. While we should certainly use Paul's words as an impetus for throwing out bath water, let's keep the baby in the tub.

Reflecting at 28

Where I come from, birthdays are sacred.

Birthdays always meant I could eat whatever I wanted.

I could hit my brother, and he couldn't hit me back.

I could watch whatever TV show I wanted, even if my sisters had no interest. I could sit where I wanted. Eat what I wanted . . . wait, did I mention that one already?

All those things might seem trivial now that I'm 28 years old, but for me, birthdays are still sacred.

The things we call "sacred" are simply things that remind us of God. The Ark of the Convenant was sacred because it reminded the Israelites of God's laws and promises. The Eucharist is sacred because it reminds us of the body and blood of Christ, and the promise of his return.

Birthdays are sacred to me because they remind me that my life is not my own. It is a gift, given to me by God. He has blessed me tremendously, with not only life, but health, friends, family, and even his very own Self, given over like bread and wine at a dinner table.

I haven't earned any of these things, any more than I earned being born 28 years ago to this day. They are all gifts that both humble me and drive me to live my life in a manner worthy of them. This is my sacred reminder, my birthday.

And I like ice cream and cake.

How to Avoid Sippin' That Hatorade

For as long as I can remember, it has been one of my core philosophies of life to not hate unnecessarily. In urban terms, having unnecessary hate is referred to as "sippin' that Hatorade." In case you didn't know, Hatorade is bitter, unattractive (except to fellow Hatorade drinkers), and contains no electrolytes. I don't want to have a lot of hatred, so I try to reserve it for things that really matter.

For example, I may not care much for teen pop idol Justin Bieber, but it would be trivial and wasteful for me to actually expend energy on bashing him or trying to convince other people to not like him.

Another example: just because I absolutely LOVE the TV show Lost, it doesn't mean I have to feel threatened when someone tells me their favorite show is 24. We don't always have to compete about everything (cf. Twilight vs. Harry Potter for definitive proof that this kind of behavior is indicative that one has the mind of a middle-school student.)

Another example: speech and grammar mistakes are not moral issues, nor are they very good indicators of whether a person is intelligent or not. If you are one of those self-appointed grammar police, I am begging you, for your own sake, just relax. Your life would be more enjoyable. : )

Another example: it's so much easier to hate when the issue isn't close to home. It's easy to say all kinds of terrible things about homosexuals when you have no gay friends. It's easy to talk about what Muslims "really believe" when you have no Muslim friends. Here's a good rule of thumb: don't post something on a Facebook status or write it on a sign unless you would actually say it, face-to-face, to someone whom you know personally and care about.

In conclusion, while Hatorade can certainly quench our thirst for feeling superior to others, the long-term effects are proven to be hazardous. Next time you're tempted to pick up a bottle, try some chocolate milk instead. You can never go wrong with chocolate milk.

A Muslim President?

I'm sure you've heard about it by now, as it's been pretty much the top media story of the day. A recent study by the Pew Research Center shows that the perception that President Obama is an adherent of Islam hasn't changed much over the past year. The poll indicates that a whopping 12% of Americans are under the impression that the U.S. currently has a Muslim president. Here are the numbers if you want to check it out: http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=509

Aside from the dearth of evidence to the contrary, it baffles me to think that so many people believe that there would even be a POSSIBILITY of a Muslim president right now. Just 50 years ago, it was a HUGE deal that we elected a Catholic president. Obama is our VERY FIRST black president. We still have never elected a female president. And unfortunately, Muslims are even further down on the social totem pole than Catholics, blacks, and women.

This does raise an interesting question though. When, if ever, would we elect a Muslim president? It doesn't seem like it would happen any time remotely soon, and if it were to ever happen, there would need to be some MAJOR changes in popular perception.

During my lunch breaks, I often watch videos on TED.com (Which, by the way, if you've never check it out, PLEASE do.) They add a new video every weekday, and today's video just so happened to be a talk by an Iranian-American who is a founding member of the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour . These are guys who are all of Middle-Eastern descent, and they are making a noble effort to use their comedic skills to both entertain and change perceptions of Middle Easterners. If you want to view this highly entertaining and inspiring video, here it is.

The thing is, fundamentalist, extremist Muslims make up a minute percentage of the total Muslim population. To the extent that we allow the few to dominate our perception of the many, we make the same mistake that has plagued humanity for millenia and has lead to so many atrocities in our world. And of course I wouldn't want a fundamentalist Muslim in the White House, but neither would I want a fundamentalist Christian. So I'm not saying that religious beliefs are irrelevant to what makes a good presidential candidate, but they are not as important as a sense of human decency, justice, and a desire for the common good, which are things that can be held by Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists alike.

Surrender

"Mine" is a word we tend to learn pretty early in life. When we, as children, first begin to realize that there are things that we can call our own, we are, no doubt, thrilled to elation, judging by the overwhelming horror children seem to manifest when "their" toy is taken away. What a cruel reversal of fortunes then, when we reach adulthood and realize that maturity is about responsibility, sacrifice, and other such concepts that go utterly against that "mine" instinct. And it gets even worse if we decide to follow Christ, and he asks us to surrender--not simply making some sacrifices and compromises here and there, but actually saying, "My most precious possession, my life, is no longer mine."

I'm speaking in worldly terms, as if it's a bad thing, when it's actually the best thing in the world. When we first decide to surrender, we feel the liberating power of it, and then how quickly we begin to think, "What have I done?!" Because even though in the moment, we know, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, that's it right, we can't possibly understand all the implications. Fortunately, we serve a God of infinite kindness and patience, who allows us to work out the details as we go along. He doesn't make us sign a prenup!

Spiritual growth can essentially be summed up in this way, as a gradual working out of the terms of our surrender--a gradual loosening of this "mine" instinct that we formerly grasped onto with all of our power. I was in a church service recently, and one of the songs played during worship was the great hymn "I Surrender All" (if you know me well, you know about my love for hymns.) The refrain goes:

I surrender all
I surrender all
All to thee, my blessed Savior
I surrender all

I had a hard time singing along at first because I thought it would be a lie. I couldn't honestly say that I had surrendered quite everything to Jesus just yet. I'm not sure that I ever will on this side of eternity. But then I decided to make the words a prayer, that God would give me the strength to surrender more and more to him. I started to think about what I needed to surrender, and the combination of my love for hymns and the power of this prayer began to overwhelm me.

What was I surrendering that day, you ask? What had I been holding on to? My right to define my own self-worth. My insistence on obtaining significance and value from performance and from other people's opinions of me. I was surrendering my greed--greed for respect, admiration, honor, and the esteem of my peers. As I surrendered, and to continue to surrender, all of those things, I make room for God. He's the only one who loves us unconditionally. He created us; he died on a cross for us; he has forgiven and restored us; he has made us righteous. He should be the only source of our sense of self-worth. My value comes not from what I can do or the tasks I can perform or the things I can produce. It doesn't come from how well-liked or respected I am by the people around me. It comes only from God's unconditional, unimaginably high, deep, wide, long love for me.

Just earlier today I struggled with this issue again, as I'm sure I will continue to. Something someone did made me feel like they didn't respect me or value what I had to say. I felt rejected and excluded. And then I thought about the fact that I haven't been rejected at all. In fact, I've been accepted by the God of the Universe. And the only reason I got upset was because I had forgotten that, and was once again desperately trying to derive self-worth from others, even to the point of overreacting to a false perception of rejection that wasn't even intended to be mean or disrespectful. I apologized for my overreaction, and in doing so, I won a small victory against my "mine" instinct. I surrendered the mindset of, "I deserve and demand the respect that I crave," and I allowed the love of God to replace it.

I hope these words can encourage you to surrender something that you're holding on to.

How to Not Be Triflin'

While there seems to be some confusion, even among experts, about the exact meaning of triflin', it's negative connotation is universally understood. Of all the adjectives in the vast lexicon of English, triflin' would probably be in the top 10 of most people's "I hope no one ever calls me that" list. Lately, I've been trying to make sure I ain't triflin', and so I figured I would pass on some tips to everyone else.

Urban Dictionary gives one definition as follows:

to play with someone in a bad & poor way, like in destiny's child's song "bills, bills, bills":
"You triflin',good for nothing type of brother
Silly me,why haven't I found another
A baller, when times get hard he's the one to help me out
insted of, a scrub like you who don't know what a man's about"

This particular editor made a slight mistake in the definiton--the definition is for the verb form of triflin', while the example from the Destiny's Child song is clearly the adjective form. For our purposes, we should attempt to adapt this definition into a more adjectival one. Before we do that though, it's helpful to look at the dictionary.com definition for a different, but related, word: trifling. As usual, the commonly-used, online dictionary gives a plethora of definitions, but they all share a common sense, and that is of something trivial, meaningless, having little value, minor, etc:

1. of very little importance; trivial; insignificant: a trifling matter.
2. of small value, cost, or amount: a trifling sum.
3. frivolous; shallow; light: trifling conversation.
4. mean; worthless.
–noun
5. idle or frivolous conduct, talk, etc.
6. foolish delay or waste of time.

So, with both the Urban Dictionary and the dictionary.com entries in mind, if I were to take a crack at defining it, it would be as follows:

triflin': adj., applied primarily to persons; having the quality of habitually living for trivial matters, or treating life as a game or a drama; lacking substance in important areas of life (relationships, career, etc.), esp. in such a way as to make one unsuitable for dating.

More clearly stated, someone who is triflin' is pretty much someone who ain't grown. It's someone who is living for games and fun, reveling in lack of responsibility, and reaping destruction by not giving due thought to the consequences of such actions. A triflin' person is a man or a woman who still lives like a boy or a girl.

It may surprise you to learn that in the Holy Bible, the Apostle Paul actually counsels some of his readers to not be so triflin'. He writes, in his 1st letter to the Corinthians (who were a triflin' buncha suckas if there ever was some):

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." (1 Corinthians 13:11)

I don't want to be the "triflin' type of brother" that Destiny's Child sang about. I don't want to live according the "get-what-you-need-at-any-cost" ways of the world, like a child screaming in Wal-Mart till he gets the toy he wants. I don't want my decisions to be based on a need for approval, or a fear of rejection, or a desire to manage my self-image. These are the ways of children and teenagers. I want to live according to the wisdom of God's word, and love for God and neighbor, and the desire to honor and respect others above myself. These are the ways of a real man or woman.

In the words of Paul, let's put triflin' ways behind us.

A Brief Critique of the Intelligent Design Movement

According to Herman Wouk, the famous physicist Richard Feynman is purported to have described calculus as "the language God talks." Even though Feynman was agnostic and was waxing ironic when made that remark, I love the perspective it offers. Notwithstanding the flurry of attacks on faith by the New Atheists, this perspective has for centuries been a dominant, driving force for scientific inquiry. The very true idea underlying Feynman's ironic remark is that the more we uncover the hidden design of our universe, the more we learn of its designer.

How sad is it then, that this ancient human impulse to learn more about our Creator by studying his creation, has been tangled up with and made nearly inseparable from politics. Don't be deceived--Intelligent Design is neither a spiritual venture nor a scientific revolution. It is a political movement; its aim is to forcefully wrest scientific authority from the hands of scientists and place it in the hands of clergy.

The problem I have is not in simply saying that the Universe has a designer. I believe that. It needs to be asserted and held up against the aggressive proponents of dumb luck and purposelessness. The problem I have with supporters of ID is that they don't want to just say that there is a designer; they also want to define the parameters for saying precisely how he did it. I'm sorry, but that privilege should be the domain of science. Last I checked, most seminaries weren't offering advanced degrees in hard sciences, so I don't trust religious institutions on these kinds of issues. Flexing political muscle in order to advance our interpretation of Scripture over scientific evidence is a recurring mistake that has exacted a severe toll on the credibility of the Church.

I'm hopeful though. History attests that in the end, truth tends to win out over its suppressors. The atheists and ID people can launch rockets in each other's direction all day long; meanwhile, the quiet candle of truth will keep burning to illuminate more reasonable minds.

Harvard University's "Justice" is Edu-tainment at It's Finest!

Before you proceed, please watch the following highly compelling trailer. If you can watch the first few minutes without being interested, you need not continue reading.

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Michael Sandel has recently become a personal hero of mine, as I believe he is doing our country a huge favor right now. He is providing a service to our college students, and our nation as a whole, by making sure that our political conversations are undergirded with a proper understanding of the moral and political ideas that shaped our government in the first place. By drawing out the philosophies that lie at the roots of our ideologies, party alignments, and voting habits, Sandel helps us to understand the full implications and consequences of whatever stance we happen to take.

In my prideful opinion, this is precisely the kind of thing that we need more of right now. In watching these lectures, I've come to realize that a vast majority of the political conversations going on right now are somewhat akin to people arguing about what it means to be a Christian, without ever having read the Gospels. Or about what it means to be a Muslim, without ever having read the Koran. Or what constitutes good fantasy literature, without reading a word of Tolkien. Or what it's like to be a pro wrestler, without ever getting elbow dropped from the top rope. You get the idea. (I'm sure you got it without all the examples, but I was having too much fun listing them.)

And I have a hard time imagining anyone doing it better than Sandel does. It's evident that he is a master at what he does, judging by the fact that his students are awake and fully engaged at every lecture.

If you have any interest in politics, in moral or political philosophy, or even in seeing the minds of bright, well-educated young people at work, you don't want to miss these lectures. This is probably one of the coolest things happening on a University campus, and the kind folks at Harvard have made it accessible to us. I highly recommend taking advantage.

Harvard University's "Justice" with Michael Sandel

Beauty and Taste (Part I)

I've had a number of great conversations with people lately on the nature of beauty and art, and how objective or subjective they are. Then I had this idea for a series of blogs that would keep the conversation going. So here's some thoughts to get us started. Please respond in the comments section if you have any thoughts on the topic whatsoever. I am fascinated by this, and I want to get some dialogue going.

For this 1st part, I want to pose a very simple question that I think is a key starting point for a discussion like this:

Is there anything, anything in the entire world that you would consider to be 100% objectively beautiful? Meaning, there's just no room for argument or disagreement. It's beautiful, and if someone doesn't find it beautiful, they must have something wrong in their heads.

Personally, I would say yes. A very simple, but perfect example would be a rainbow. I don't know about you, but I've never heard anyone say that a rainbow is ugly. I've never even heard anyone say something like, "Yeah, I guess rainbows are alright, if you're into that kinda thing." The beauty of a rainbow is inarguable, and if there is anyone who doesn't see the beauty in it, then their sense of aesthetic pleasure is either seriously dulled or somehow distorted.

Agree or disagree? Thoughts to add? Discuss amongst myself.