As I Was Saying…

Last week, I tried to suggest that the Christian doctrine of sin is rooted in an extremely lofty–rather than extremly low–view of human nature.  Today, I came across this bit in Debra Rienstra’s book that made the point much more clearly:

Maintaining a robust view of sin, paradoxically, is the best thing the world for self-esteem.  If we truly value ourselves, we will not be satisfied with some mild, namby-pamby version of good enough.  The highest standard of goodness is the one that most highly rizes our humanity, most fiercely insists that we were designed to be something so much greater than what we are.  Christianity is picky about sin because of the magnificence of its goal: full reconciliation with God–perfect peace, perfect shalom.  Nothing less can satisfy the longing in our hearts and God’s.

….As long as you think you are good enough right now or could be soon, you limit yoruself at best to a dim shadow of goodness in this life.  Christians believe that even the brightest of these dim shadows is still a shadow, still an address in the neighborhood of sin.  But you could have something infinetely better: an entirely new kind of life, made possible by God’s power.  Sin is the lock on the door to this life; you can’t open the oor unless you recgonize there’s a lock and that you need a key.  This is not a reason to be discouraged but a reason to be glad.  Now you know what kind of problem you’re facing.  (Debra Rienstra, So Much More, pg 58-59.) 

I hope it’s not a sin to say I wish I had written that.

Good Books

I don’t often recommend books to others. However, I just finished up Timothy Keller’s latest, The Reason for God , and can’t help myself. Read this book. Whether you’re just curious about the Christianity, a committed believer, or somewhere in between, take some time to ponder what Keller has to say. You won’t regret it.

Revelation

A week or two ago, someone at church handed me a copy of Jon Krakauer’s book Under the Banner of Heaven. The book looked interesting, but after glancing at the cover, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it (just yet). You see, I’ve just read some other books that are rather disturbing (namely: “King Leopold’s Ghost”) and wasn’t sure I was ready for what Krakauer had to offer: an investigation into the murder of a young mother and her daughter at the hands of two brothers, Dan and Ron Lafferty–two Fundamentalist Mormons who carried out the killings after receiving (they claim) a direct command from God.

Well, Jill was gone last week and I found myself with a little extra time on my hands and nothing to read. So I grabbed Under the Banner of Heaven and dug right in. I’m glad I did.

The book was fascinating to me because Krakauer didn’t just tell the story of the murder. Instead, he chose to dig into the “roots of their crime [which] lie deep in the history of an American religion practiced by millions”–Mormonism. Krakauer gives a fairly detailed history of Mormonism (and more specifically, the underbelly of the Mormon Church–Mormon fundamentalism) and, occasionally, pauses to apply his observations of Mormonism to religion in general.

One particular aspect of Mormonism/religion that seems to fascinate Krakauer is the idea of “revelation”. And with good reason. After all, when Joseph Smith founded the Mormon Church 170 years ago, it was on the basis of a (alleged) revelation from the Angel Moroni (near Jill’s hometown of Palmyra, NY, by the way). During the following years, Smith (and his followers) reported countless revelations/interactions with God detailing everything from where they should settle to what they should drink to whom they should marry to when the Civil War would begin. Krakauer’s fascination with religious revelation is also understandable because (as I mentioned above), it was on the basis of a Revelation from God that the Lafferty brothers committed their murders.

From my perspective, Krakauers discussion of the Mormon Church, the Lafferty Brothers, and revelation stirred up two related thoughts.

First: What is it that leads Mormons to believe, so fiercely, that they have indeed had revelations from God? As a Christian, I don’t (necessarily) doubt the possibility of God communicating with individuals. But I DO (as a Christian) presume that at least 97% of the supposed revelations received by Joseph Smith and his followers are in fact false. So what are we to make of this (and for that matter, the “revelations” received by adherents to other religions)? Are these individuals simply deluded? Have they been duped? Do they just have a bad case of indigestion? Or have they actually heard “voices”, but mistaken the voice of God for the voice of someone/thing else? How do we explain this phenomenon?

The second point, related to the first, concerns the “Revelations” that we claim to be true as Christians. Because, make no mistake, even if we don’t believe that God communicates directly with individuals anymore (a hotly debated question in some circles), our religion is nevertheless a revealed one. It’s a “revealed religion” because, even though we can deduce some general truths from reason/nature (e.g. “God Exists), ultimately, we need the Revelation of Scripture (and the Person of Jesus Christ) in order to show us the full truth.

So, that being said, how do we know that our “revelations” can be accepted as from God? How do we know that we’re not crackpots, misguided zealots, or just plain gullible people who have been duped? How do we know that we can trust the apostle Paul, Matthew Mark and Luke, Moses, Isaiah, and the other writers?

This has actually been a question that has troubled me for some time. And after reading Krakauer’s book (and let’s face it, sometimes after reading Scripture itself), it’s easy to see why people might be skeptical. But regrettably (in my opinion), this is one area in which it’s hard to get to a real nuts and bolts, “rational” answer. Sure, we can point to things like historical/archeolotical evidence and manuscript studies–but these only take us so far. At some point, I think we simply have to believe it because, well, we believe it. It’s a matter of faith. It’s a matter of the Spirit’s testimony in our hearts. It’s a matter of trust. We believe the Bible because the Bible (and the Spirit) says we can believe it. It is a vicious circle, and probably not the most satisfying answer to skeptics (Christian or non*), but thus far, it’s the best answer that I can come up with. Anyone smarter than me have a better one?

*Krakauer, a self-proclaimed agnostic, would likely shake his head at disgust at my answer. In the prologue of his book, he writes: “Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a crucial competent of spiritual devotion.” Krakauer also adds this rather provocative charge: “when Religious fanaticism supplants ratiocination, all bets are suddenly off. Anything can happen. Absolutely anything. Common sense is no match for the voice of God–as the actions Dan Lafferty vividly attest.” (xxiii)

Inside Joke

This week, I’ve been reading Richard Mouw’s book Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport. It’s a fine book written in an engaging style that avoids overly technical and cliche explanations of Calvinism’s “Five Points” (AKA: “TULIP”) and their broader implications.

There are, of course, many mysterious elements in this “system” of belief.” One of these mysteries is raised by the “P” in “Tulip”–”Preservation/Perseverance of the Saints”. This doctrine states that, by God’s grace, those who are “in ” the Kingdom will always be “in. There is nothing they (or any other force/factor) can do to cause God to let them go. It’s a fine doctrine of great comfort, as far as I’m concerned, but the natural question that it raises is how people who appear to have had genuine faith can appear to lose that faith. Hence Mouw’s little joke (and apologies if this is only amusing to seminary/pastor types):

Four theologians are standing alongside a train stopped between stations. They are looking at a dead body beside the tracks, arguing about what happened to the person. The Lutheran said he jumped from the train and was killed by the fall. The Catholic said he must have been pushed. The Methodist insisted he fell accidentally. But the Calvinist said that if he was really off the train, then he had never been on it in the first place!

ba-da-bump.

A Grief Observed

A month or two ago, I finished C.S. Lewis’ classic, The Problem of Pain. It was a fine book that looked at pain from an “objective”, outsiders perspective. As usual, Lewis was thorough, logical, and compelling. If you want some good, rational discourse on how a good God can allow suffering and pain in the world, this is a book you may consider reading.

However, if you want to get a glimpse into the heart of a person who is suffering, if you want to walk along side of someone through the process of their grief, if you want to see pain from the inside, you may want to read A Grief Observed instead. In this book, which consists of excerpts from Lewis’ diary, we get a raw look at Lewis’ pain after the death of his wife. Although Lewis’ experience is likely different than yours or mine (it’s A Grief Observed, after all, not All Grief observed), we may find common ground with him as we seek to understand our own grief.

One of the things I found interesting about Lewis‘ little book is the progression that can be seen in the way he understands God’s presence. Consider these few excerpts from the beginning, middle and end of the book:

• “Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be—or so it feels—welcomed with open arms. But go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?….Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about him.” (6)
• “I have gradually been coming to feel that the door is no longer shut and bolted. Was it my own frantic need that slammed it in my face? The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help my be just the time when God can’t give it: you are like the drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear.” (46)
• “When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of ‘No answer.’ It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent , certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, ‘Peace, child; you don’t understand.’” (69)

I also was intrigued by the way Lewis tried to describe what grief feels like. Here are a few examples:

• “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.” (3)
• “I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels like suspense. It comes from the frustration of so many impulses that had become habitual. Thought after thought, feeling after feeling, action after action, had H. [his wife] for their object. Now their target is gone. I kept on through habit fitting an arrow to the string, then I remember and have to lay the bow down. So many roads lead thought to H. I set out on one of them. But now there’s an impassable frontierpost across it. So many roads once; now so many culs de sac.” (47)
• “There is spread over everything a vague sense of wrongness, of something amiss. Like in those dreams where nothing terrible occurs—nothing that would sound even remarkable if you told it at breakfast-time—but the atmosphere, the taste, of the whole thing is deadly.” (35)

And of course, Lewis being Lewis, there are also plenty of intriguing little snippets that can stand on their own. Here are few to think about:

• “Bereavement is not the truncation of married love but one of its regular phases—like the honeymoon. What we want is to live our marriage well and faithfully through that phase, too.” (xvii)
• “It is hard to have patience with people who say, ‘There is no death’ or ‘Death doesn’t matter.’ There is death. And whatever is matters.” (15)
• “Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect you don’t understand.” (25)
• “I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process. It needs not a map but a history…there is something new to be chronicled every day. Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape…not every bend does. Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left behind miles ago. That is when you wonder whether the valley isn’t a circular trench. But it isn’t. There are partial recurrences, but the sequence doesn’t repeat.” (59-60)
• “God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t.” (52)
• “What do people mean when they say, ‘I am not afraid of God because I know He is good’? Have they never even been to a dentist?” (43)

There you have it. There are, of course, other bits in this book that make it a worthwhile read. Or, if you’re sure that I already took all the good parts but still want something of this sort, you may want to consider Nicholas Wolterstorffs wonderful little book (also a daily journal) Lament for a Son.