God shows up in some astonishing ways when we're opening to seeing him.
Like many children, my daughter Evangeline has plenty of stuffed animals, none of which has mattered much at all to her. That changed when her grandmother died. Suddenly, Evangeline bonded with a handmade stuffed rabbit that she has had since she was born, whom she calls Cinderabbit. Evangeline has slept with Cinderabbit every night since Grandma's funeral, and for a while she took her everywhere she went as well.
As my close, personal friend Rykie once observed about the divine love that shone through her own imaginary friends, so I have seen with Evangeline and Cinderabbit. Cinderabbit demands nothing in return from Evangeline for the comfort she gives. She stays as close as Evangeline wants, loves her unconditionally, and listens to the moans and sighs Evangeline doesn't know the words to express.
She is the very expression of God's love in my daughter's life, and couldn't be any more real if her coat were made of velveteen.
Copyright © 2008 by David Learn. Used with permission.
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Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Friday, October 03, 2008
Fred Gipson's 'Old Yeller,' and grief
"Your mother told me about the dog" remains one of the best, most understated lines I've ever read in a children's book.
The line comes from "Old Yeller," one of the best stories ever told in the English language about a boy and his dog. The book is set in Texas, not long after the Civil War. The boy's name is Travis, his little brother's name is Arliss; and the dog comes into their lives while the father is on a cattle drive up north. Even if you've never read the book, you probably know what happens to the dog, and what Travis' mother told his father once he returned from the cattle drive.
It was something of a surprise to me that my daughter didn't cry when Travis had to shoot the dog, but then she does internalize a lot of her grief and then express it through other ways, particularly in art.
When we lost Isaac, she took to drawing with a passion she hadn't shown in months. When we attended her grandmother's funeral, Evangeline merely grew very quiet when it was time to scatter her ashes, and said nothing at all on the subject until a few hours later, when she finally broached the subject with me in private.
She inadvertently has reminded me of something my close, personal friend Rykie once said, about God reaching out to children through their imaginary friends.
Until her grandmother died, none of Evangeline's stuffed animals mattered much at all to her. Then, suddenly, she bonded to a handmade stuffed rabbit she had had since she was born, whom she calls Cinderabbit. Evangeline has slept with Cinderabbit every night since Grandma's funeral, and for a while took her everywhere she went as well.
As Rykie observed with her own imaginary friends, so I have seen with Evangeline and Cinderabbit. Cinderabbit demands nothing in return from Evangeline for the comfort she gives. She stays as close as Evangeline wants, loves her unconditionally, and listens to the moans and sighs Evangeline doesn't know the words to express.
She couldn't be any more real if her coat were made of velveteen.
* She isn't a John Wayne fan, either.
Copyright © 2008 by David Learn. Used with permission.
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The line comes from "Old Yeller," one of the best stories ever told in the English language about a boy and his dog. The book is set in Texas, not long after the Civil War. The boy's name is Travis, his little brother's name is Arliss; and the dog comes into their lives while the father is on a cattle drive up north. Even if you've never read the book, you probably know what happens to the dog, and what Travis' mother told his father once he returned from the cattle drive.
It was something of a surprise to me that my daughter didn't cry when Travis had to shoot the dog, but then she does internalize a lot of her grief and then express it through other ways, particularly in art.
When we lost Isaac, she took to drawing with a passion she hadn't shown in months. When we attended her grandmother's funeral, Evangeline merely grew very quiet when it was time to scatter her ashes, and said nothing at all on the subject until a few hours later, when she finally broached the subject with me in private.
She inadvertently has reminded me of something my close, personal friend Rykie once said, about God reaching out to children through their imaginary friends.
Until her grandmother died, none of Evangeline's stuffed animals mattered much at all to her. Then, suddenly, she bonded to a handmade stuffed rabbit she had had since she was born, whom she calls Cinderabbit. Evangeline has slept with Cinderabbit every night since Grandma's funeral, and for a while took her everywhere she went as well.
As Rykie observed with her own imaginary friends, so I have seen with Evangeline and Cinderabbit. Cinderabbit demands nothing in return from Evangeline for the comfort she gives. She stays as close as Evangeline wants, loves her unconditionally, and listens to the moans and sighs Evangeline doesn't know the words to express.
She couldn't be any more real if her coat were made of velveteen.
* She isn't a John Wayne fan, either.
Copyright © 2008 by David Learn. Used with permission.
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Monday, November 26, 2007
'into the woods'
One of the big things at our house the past few weeks has been the Stephen Sondheim musical "Into the Woods."
I bought Natasha the soundtrack to the 2000-ish Broadway revival with Vanessa Williams, and for her birthday we bought Evangeline a DVD of the original production, with Bernadette Peters, and the girls have been going around singing one tune or another from the show for more than a month. Rachel's humming "You are Not Alone," one of the songs from the show, right now.
The first act of the musical weaves together the fairy tales of Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and original Sondheim bridging material that can be called "The Baker and His Wife," into one more or less cohesive story.
The stories go pretty much the way you expect to, with some pretty good music along the way, and some rather hilarious comments on the tales themselves, such as when one of the princes comments, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel. What kind of a name is that?"
The first act ends like you would expect a fairy tale to end. Jack is wealthy, the Baker and his Wife are expecting their child, Rapunzel and Cinderella each have married their princes, and so on. Everything has ended "happily ever after," just as you’d expect it to.
And then the curtain rises on Act 2. Everyone is still happily-ever-aftering when the giant's wife comes down another beanstalk, looking for the boy who repaid her hospitality and generosity by stealing from her husband and then killing him. On top of that, Rapunzel has gone mad from years of living in a tower all by herself and then suddenly being thrust into palace life after giving birth to twins, all by herself, in the middle of the desert.
Oh, and the princes, having had everything they ever wanted and having believed themselves to have fallen in love with women they couldn't have ― Cinderella kept running away at midnight every night of the festival, and Rapunzel lived in a tower with no door ― have grown bored with their lives now that they once again have everything they ever wanted, and are in love with two new women, one of whom is in enchanted sleep within a forest of briars, and the other who lies in an enchanted sleep within a casket made entirely of glass.
It’s an incredible story, although it does get a little intense when everyone's arguing over how to stop the giantess and whether they shouldn’t just hand Jack over to her. (They tried having her kill the Narrator, but that didn’t work out.) When we watched it last week, Rachel -- who took a haunted house in good stride ― was so wigged out that she started shaking during that scene.
Like any good story, the show functions well at several levels. The first act is memorable because of the way it retells the fairy tales with all the charm and excitement found in the originals, albeit with a little more characterization. But by the time the second act is drawing to a close, the protagonists have been forced to grow up and assess their fairytale lives to find out what went wrong.
There's the message about letting someone else tell our stories for us, and letting them decide what should happen to us. Cinderella of course has lived the life her dead mother told her to, even going regularly to her grave for further guidance; and the Baker is horrified when the others kill the Narrator (God), because "Now we'll never know how our story ends."
In the end, the four who remain -- Cinderella, Jack, Red Riding Hood and the Baker -- are forced to determine how their story will go. Rather than running from its unpleasantness, they realize that the bulk of the misery everyone's experiencing comes from focusing only on what they wanted, and not considering how a blind pursuit of their own goals would affect everyone else.
So in the end, Sondheim uses the vehicle of fairy tales to critique the message of fairy tales and to pass on a lesson to adults about the life lessons we teach our children through the decisions we make.
One thing I find amusing is that while the decision to kill the Narrator is essentially an effort to throw off the yoke of subservience to God and experience freedom and self-determination, the characters don't really do that. The story remains scripted, orchestrated, and choreographed down to the final drop of the curtain.
No one got killed at all. At best, all they did was shake off the familiar representation of him that was at the moment engaged in pointless moralizing about their situation. His hand and his guidance remained on them no matter what they did.
Copyright © 2017 by David Learn. Used with permission.
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The first act of the musical weaves together the fairy tales of Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and original Sondheim bridging material that can be called "The Baker and His Wife," into one more or less cohesive story.
The stories go pretty much the way you expect to, with some pretty good music along the way, and some rather hilarious comments on the tales themselves, such as when one of the princes comments, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel. What kind of a name is that?"
The first act ends like you would expect a fairy tale to end. Jack is wealthy, the Baker and his Wife are expecting their child, Rapunzel and Cinderella each have married their princes, and so on. Everything has ended "happily ever after," just as you’d expect it to.
And then the curtain rises on Act 2. Everyone is still happily-ever-aftering when the giant's wife comes down another beanstalk, looking for the boy who repaid her hospitality and generosity by stealing from her husband and then killing him. On top of that, Rapunzel has gone mad from years of living in a tower all by herself and then suddenly being thrust into palace life after giving birth to twins, all by herself, in the middle of the desert.
Oh, and the princes, having had everything they ever wanted and having believed themselves to have fallen in love with women they couldn't have ― Cinderella kept running away at midnight every night of the festival, and Rapunzel lived in a tower with no door ― have grown bored with their lives now that they once again have everything they ever wanted, and are in love with two new women, one of whom is in enchanted sleep within a forest of briars, and the other who lies in an enchanted sleep within a casket made entirely of glass.
It’s an incredible story, although it does get a little intense when everyone's arguing over how to stop the giantess and whether they shouldn’t just hand Jack over to her. (They tried having her kill the Narrator, but that didn’t work out.) When we watched it last week, Rachel -- who took a haunted house in good stride ― was so wigged out that she started shaking during that scene.
Like any good story, the show functions well at several levels. The first act is memorable because of the way it retells the fairy tales with all the charm and excitement found in the originals, albeit with a little more characterization. But by the time the second act is drawing to a close, the protagonists have been forced to grow up and assess their fairytale lives to find out what went wrong.
There's the message about letting someone else tell our stories for us, and letting them decide what should happen to us. Cinderella of course has lived the life her dead mother told her to, even going regularly to her grave for further guidance; and the Baker is horrified when the others kill the Narrator (God), because "Now we'll never know how our story ends."
In the end, the four who remain -- Cinderella, Jack, Red Riding Hood and the Baker -- are forced to determine how their story will go. Rather than running from its unpleasantness, they realize that the bulk of the misery everyone's experiencing comes from focusing only on what they wanted, and not considering how a blind pursuit of their own goals would affect everyone else.
So in the end, Sondheim uses the vehicle of fairy tales to critique the message of fairy tales and to pass on a lesson to adults about the life lessons we teach our children through the decisions we make.
One thing I find amusing is that while the decision to kill the Narrator is essentially an effort to throw off the yoke of subservience to God and experience freedom and self-determination, the characters don't really do that. The story remains scripted, orchestrated, and choreographed down to the final drop of the curtain.
No one got killed at all. At best, all they did was shake off the familiar representation of him that was at the moment engaged in pointless moralizing about their situation. His hand and his guidance remained on them no matter what they did.
Copyright © 2017 by David Learn. Used with permission.
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Monday, February 12, 2007
What if God has left the building and isn't listening anymore?
A friend of mine preached a sermon yesterday on experiencing the presence of God. I don't recall exactly what he said, but it put me in mind of an image I've had lately of a choir singing to an empty auditorium, as a type of the American church. That started me thinking further, and I recalled this passage from the minor prophets:
I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!
— Amos 5:21-24
What if God has left the bulding? Would we even know? The news Amos brought must have seemed like a shock to the Israelites when they received it. The feasts they were celebrating were the ones that God had commanded they celebrate for all generations, the music was good, and if that was their style, I'm sure the Israelites "felt the presence of God" when they worshiped. If God isn't listening to our worship, and doesn't want our offerings, how would we even know?
It's not just a rhetorical question. Music is a great way for us to cover up our emptiness and feel spiritual. Younger churches in particular like their worship like they're having a rock concert. The music is loud, and the pounding pulse of the music beat induces an adrenaline rush that we all-too-easily accept as a sign that God is really moving in our midst, especially once the church reaches the tipping point and everyone's properly excited. Older-style charismatic churches play this game too: leaders launch into praise choruses with fast tempos and then at midway switch into slower, more worshipful songs. The pace and tone of the service is so well sculpted and so structured that if you go to the same service long enough, you realize what's happening and you can't help but ask whether these weekly moves of the Spirit -- which too often have tears right on cue -- are really nothing more than clever artifice. Nor are older churches, with their familiar songs played on the familiar sound of the organ, exempt. Sentiment for a familiar hymn, the safety of structure, and sculpted regimen are just as good for filling in the void as adrenaline and masterful manipulation.
What if God has left the building? Would we know?
One of the comforts of fundamentalism is that it provides surety. God is this way. To understand the Bible, you have to use this approach. Anyone who commits these sins is going to burn in hell forever. Among themselves at least, evangelicals aren't quite that severe -- at least many aren't -- but there's still a tendency to reduce God to clever sayings, tidy cliches, comforting Scripture verses and attitudes pertaining to divine sovereignty, grace, Christ's essential friendliness, and the coming judgment on the ungodly, non-Christian world.
What if we're structuring our churches, our doctrines, our Bible studies, and our lives just so we can hide from ourselves the fact that God is sick of the insincere flattery we shit out of our mouths every week about how much we love him ("If you love me, you will obey my commands"), want to see his kingdom come on earth as in heaven ("Do not be hearers of the word only, do what it says"), and how we love everyone (except gays, liberals, conservatives, blacks, whites, Arabs, Jews, Muslims, environmentalists, George Bush, Bill Clinton, James Dobson and Benny Hinn)?
Sometimes I wonder if God has told us fuck off, and we were so busy listening to ourselves being spiritual that we never heard him over the din.
If so, we'll probably be the last ones to notice. A friend of mine who is a Buddhist by philosophy told me a few weeks ago that he actually had been an evangelical Christian for a few years, back when he was a teen. He finally left the fold because he was sick of all the junk in the church.
Another friend of mine has said a few times that the attitude of other Christians toward her because she is gay has driven her away from any sort of church-based corporate worship. Yet another friend, raised Catholic, can't say a good thing about Christianity, although like the other two, remains intrigued by Jesus and by his message.
Usually when I read stuff like this online, there's some piece at the end that wraps it all up and points to a sign that the church still has it together, or that somebody else over yonder is showing us how to get back on track. Some really daring people will give three or four easy steps to put things right.
I suck at giving comfort. Deal with it. What if God has left the auditorium? What if he doesn't want our money, our religious holidays, or even our worship? How would we even know?
Saturday, January 29, 2005
pigs' ears and silk purses
It may sound odd, but early last year after we lost our son, I found renewed comfort in the book of Ecclesiastes.
The book of Ecclesiastes, known as Qohelet in Hebrew, is part of the Bible's wisdom literature, written by an author known only as "the preacher." In contrary to much religious writing, Ecclesiastes paints a fairly morose view of life, one where there is no advantage in being young, being wise, being strong or being wealthy. No matter how wonderful things are, hanging over all of it is the certainty of death to come, an ending that renders everything meaningless.
It's always been one of my favorite books in the Bible, but the preacher's brutal honesty helped me get through the darkest time of my life to date.
What did I take away from it? That popular platitudes notwithstanding, everything does not happen for a reason. Sometimes life is just so horrible, all you can do is crawl under the covers and ask why you didn't die the day you were born, and when you're done crying, get up and go through the motions of living, since that's all you have left to do.
And after a while, you start to see that even though to live is still to suffer, God has placed eternity in our hearts so that we can glimpse heaven and God's mercy in the world around us. We have friends who lie down with us to keep us warm (it's still cold, but someone is helping us make it through); we can still eat and drink, and enjoy what modest pleasures those bring us; and at the end of the day, we can escape our misery in a few blessed hours of sleep.
In the annoyingly oft-quoted Romans 8:28, Paul writes that God is working in all things for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purposes.
The way I came to understand that verse is that it's true that God can sew a silk purse out of a pig's ear. It may not change the fact that it's a pig's ear, but that doesn't change the fact that God made a silk purse out of it.
And lastly, of course, the preacher wrapped up his ruminations by saying, "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." A friend of mine once commented that he doesn't understand why the preacher says to fear God instead of saying to love him.
After what I went through, I think I understand: It's because it's not always possible to love God in the way that we usually understand it. Sometimes, all you can do is to live in fear and trembling of that dreadful joy, and follow the commands he has laid down.
Copyright © 2005 by David Learn. Used with permission.
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It's always been one of my favorite books in the Bible, but the preacher's brutal honesty helped me get through the darkest time of my life to date.
What did I take away from it? That popular platitudes notwithstanding, everything does not happen for a reason. Sometimes life is just so horrible, all you can do is crawl under the covers and ask why you didn't die the day you were born, and when you're done crying, get up and go through the motions of living, since that's all you have left to do.
And after a while, you start to see that even though to live is still to suffer, God has placed eternity in our hearts so that we can glimpse heaven and God's mercy in the world around us. We have friends who lie down with us to keep us warm (it's still cold, but someone is helping us make it through); we can still eat and drink, and enjoy what modest pleasures those bring us; and at the end of the day, we can escape our misery in a few blessed hours of sleep.
In the annoyingly oft-quoted Romans 8:28, Paul writes that God is working in all things for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purposes.
The way I came to understand that verse is that it's true that God can sew a silk purse out of a pig's ear. It may not change the fact that it's a pig's ear, but that doesn't change the fact that God made a silk purse out of it.
And lastly, of course, the preacher wrapped up his ruminations by saying, "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." A friend of mine once commented that he doesn't understand why the preacher says to fear God instead of saying to love him.
After what I went through, I think I understand: It's because it's not always possible to love God in the way that we usually understand it. Sometimes, all you can do is to live in fear and trembling of that dreadful joy, and follow the commands he has laid down.
Copyright © 2005 by David Learn. Used with permission.
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Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Reconciling hell with the love of God
One of the most frequent criticisms I hear leveled against orthodox Christianity concerns the doctrine of hell. The question is, "How can a loving God send people to hell?" The answer to that, I suppose, depends on what we mean by "a loving God" and what we mean by "send people to hell."
There was a fairly forgettable movie in 1998 called "What Dreams May Come," starring Robin Williams as a doctor who finds himself in heaven after a car accident. One scene in particular, set shortly after Williams' character arrives in heaven, illustrates what I think most people mean when they talk about God's love. Cuba Gooding is showing Williams around an idyllic heaven, lit from above by celestial brilliance. Floating through the sky overhead are choirs of angels singing blissful hosannas.
"Where's God?" Williams asks. Gooding responds: "He's up there, somewhere, shouting 'I love you.'"
That's it. God is somewhere out there, loving us so effectively that we need to ask where he is.
As love goes, that's pretty bland, pretty empty and pretty useless. It reminds of what Coleridge described as a religion of no particular creed or sect, but merely filling oneself with charitable feelings to all men: an indiscriminate and blaise warm fuzzy, a sort of doddering senility that leaves the person so loved with no desire to stick around.
Loving someone like that means having no appreciation for what makes them tick or what matters to them. It means not knowing them, not connecting with them, and failing utterly to relate to them in any real or meaningful way.
A God who does that and claims to love people doesn't understand the emotion at all. At best, that's merely liking someone, and it's not even enough to make me want to go out for pizza with him.
Scripture reveals a God who is intimately and dynamically involved in every aspect of his creation. He not only knows what makes us tick, he cares immensely about the things that matter to us, whether it's how to pay the bills, whether we pass the big exam, or how we're going to make it through another joyless day, or a long and lonely night. When we bleed, he cries real tears. When we love, he rejoices.
So if God loves us that passionately, how does hell fit into everything?
An illustration from human life: I have a daughter, E. Let's say that in another 30 years, E decides to end her relationship with me. All her life she's had to endure stupid jokes about her name only being one letter long, and she blames me.
That hurts me terribly, so because I love her, I try to mend the relationship. I call E on her birthday, hoping for reconciliation, and she tells me to go to hell. On Christmas, my cards are returned unopened, and I can't even track her down. She's moved, and left no forwarding address or telephone number that I can use. I have no way to get hold of her.
Do I still love her? Absolutely, with all my heart. She's my daughter. How could I not love her? All I want is for her to come back to me, but she won't even acknowledge that we're related. More time goes by. Eventually, I'm 83 years old and on my deathbed. Still she doesn't come back, and my last words are, "Tell E I love her."
For the rest of her life, E will stew in her own bitterness and resentment because of the tattered mess she made of our relationship. Tell me, who is responsible for this divide? Is it I, who did everything I could to find my daughter and restore the relationship; or is it my daughter, who rejected every olive branch I extended and determined never to see me again?
It's the same way with sin. Our sin is a rejection of God. He never stops loving us or waiting for us to come back, but our sin -- the lies we tell, both small and great; the blind eye we turn to others in need, both near and far; the self-absorption that mars our souls; the thoughtless anger; the pride; the thoughtless greed and hate; or any number of other behaviors -- our sin is our way of running away from him.
For our entire lives, we push God away by refusing to live the way he calls us to -- and even the best of us know what rotten stinkers we are deep inside -- and then when we die, we discover how great the divide is that we have made, and we complain that God is unjust and unloving.
Judgment Day isn't a day when God will pass sentence on people and toss us by the forkload into eternal fire. It's a day when everything will be revealed, and we will see for ourselves where we stand in relationship to him. The gospel of John says that "he who does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son" (3:18, if you're keeping track).
I'm not going to be with God in the great hereafter because I belong to an elect club, nor because I attained some deep spiritual awareness. It's because I'm in a relationship with him.
Those of us who have refused to live in community with him and one another, who insisted on being alone, are going to find out in the end just how alone we are, only this time we won't be able to blame someone else.
"Where's God?" Williams asks. Gooding responds: "He's up there, somewhere, shouting 'I love you.'"
That's it. God is somewhere out there, loving us so effectively that we need to ask where he is.
As love goes, that's pretty bland, pretty empty and pretty useless. It reminds of what Coleridge described as a religion of no particular creed or sect, but merely filling oneself with charitable feelings to all men: an indiscriminate and blaise warm fuzzy, a sort of doddering senility that leaves the person so loved with no desire to stick around.
Loving someone like that means having no appreciation for what makes them tick or what matters to them. It means not knowing them, not connecting with them, and failing utterly to relate to them in any real or meaningful way.
A God who does that and claims to love people doesn't understand the emotion at all. At best, that's merely liking someone, and it's not even enough to make me want to go out for pizza with him.
Scripture reveals a God who is intimately and dynamically involved in every aspect of his creation. He not only knows what makes us tick, he cares immensely about the things that matter to us, whether it's how to pay the bills, whether we pass the big exam, or how we're going to make it through another joyless day, or a long and lonely night. When we bleed, he cries real tears. When we love, he rejoices.
So if God loves us that passionately, how does hell fit into everything?
An illustration from human life: I have a daughter, E. Let's say that in another 30 years, E decides to end her relationship with me. All her life she's had to endure stupid jokes about her name only being one letter long, and she blames me.
That hurts me terribly, so because I love her, I try to mend the relationship. I call E on her birthday, hoping for reconciliation, and she tells me to go to hell. On Christmas, my cards are returned unopened, and I can't even track her down. She's moved, and left no forwarding address or telephone number that I can use. I have no way to get hold of her.
Do I still love her? Absolutely, with all my heart. She's my daughter. How could I not love her? All I want is for her to come back to me, but she won't even acknowledge that we're related. More time goes by. Eventually, I'm 83 years old and on my deathbed. Still she doesn't come back, and my last words are, "Tell E I love her."
For the rest of her life, E will stew in her own bitterness and resentment because of the tattered mess she made of our relationship. Tell me, who is responsible for this divide? Is it I, who did everything I could to find my daughter and restore the relationship; or is it my daughter, who rejected every olive branch I extended and determined never to see me again?
It's the same way with sin. Our sin is a rejection of God. He never stops loving us or waiting for us to come back, but our sin -- the lies we tell, both small and great; the blind eye we turn to others in need, both near and far; the self-absorption that mars our souls; the thoughtless anger; the pride; the thoughtless greed and hate; or any number of other behaviors -- our sin is our way of running away from him.
For our entire lives, we push God away by refusing to live the way he calls us to -- and even the best of us know what rotten stinkers we are deep inside -- and then when we die, we discover how great the divide is that we have made, and we complain that God is unjust and unloving.
Judgment Day isn't a day when God will pass sentence on people and toss us by the forkload into eternal fire. It's a day when everything will be revealed, and we will see for ourselves where we stand in relationship to him. The gospel of John says that "he who does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son" (3:18, if you're keeping track).
I'm not going to be with God in the great hereafter because I belong to an elect club, nor because I attained some deep spiritual awareness. It's because I'm in a relationship with him.
Those of us who have refused to live in community with him and one another, who insisted on being alone, are going to find out in the end just how alone we are, only this time we won't be able to blame someone else.
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
god and morality
In a discussion thread over at CHRefugee, a friend asked, "Do actions contain an inherent moral value if God is not part of the equation?" His question was precipitated by an often-amusing and thought-provoking comic strip called Tom the Dancing Bug.
My understanding is that we can have morality without any sort of religious underpinnings, but unless morality is based on the character of Deity, then it is wholly arbitrary and relative.
In the Judeo-Christian worldview, it's God himself who is the standard by which we measure whether things are good or not. It's not a matter of a divine police officer or heavenly lawmaker saying "Do this" and "Don't do that." Goodness is neither laid down by God nor something that he appeals to; it is a self-evident characteristic of his, so that all things can be measured against him. Where our hearts deviate from his, we call that evil, or sin; when we conform to his likeness, we call it good.
Remove God from the equation, and there still can be good and evil, but they're a far paler and less hardy substitute. Do we determine goodness by man? Men change; we are fickle and capricious and what is good to us one day may not seem good to us the next. Do we determine good by common consensus? That's what society has chosen to do, and as a result, every moral compass we have is thrown out of whack and every person is left to follow an individual guide, to go along with the shifting sands of morality the rest of us make in aggregate, or to try to redefine morality for our generation by pushing the envelope in whatever direction suits us.
Even if there arises a great person, and all of us flock to him or her for a generation, and define our morals on that person, sooner or later that person dies, and we are left either to elect a new standard to follow, or to reinterpret the morals left us by the departed leader.
So while morals have nothing to do with Christianity -- Christ's concern is with our salvation and with the love we show for one another, not for our behaviors -- I don't think you can divorce morality from God in such a manner.
My understanding is that we can have morality without any sort of religious underpinnings, but unless morality is based on the character of Deity, then it is wholly arbitrary and relative.
In the Judeo-Christian worldview, it's God himself who is the standard by which we measure whether things are good or not. It's not a matter of a divine police officer or heavenly lawmaker saying "Do this" and "Don't do that." Goodness is neither laid down by God nor something that he appeals to; it is a self-evident characteristic of his, so that all things can be measured against him. Where our hearts deviate from his, we call that evil, or sin; when we conform to his likeness, we call it good.
Remove God from the equation, and there still can be good and evil, but they're a far paler and less hardy substitute. Do we determine goodness by man? Men change; we are fickle and capricious and what is good to us one day may not seem good to us the next. Do we determine good by common consensus? That's what society has chosen to do, and as a result, every moral compass we have is thrown out of whack and every person is left to follow an individual guide, to go along with the shifting sands of morality the rest of us make in aggregate, or to try to redefine morality for our generation by pushing the envelope in whatever direction suits us.
Even if there arises a great person, and all of us flock to him or her for a generation, and define our morals on that person, sooner or later that person dies, and we are left either to elect a new standard to follow, or to reinterpret the morals left us by the departed leader.
So while morals have nothing to do with Christianity -- Christ's concern is with our salvation and with the love we show for one another, not for our behaviors -- I don't think you can divorce morality from God in such a manner.
Tuesday, December 18, 2001
God laughs; therefore, I am
I've been wondering for over 31 years what point there possibly could be for such a thing as a "David Learn" to exist in this world, aside from affording God some laughs. I have to admit I'm still not entirely sure what the point would be of such an entity.
Friday, December 14, 2001
genocide in the bible
A friend of mine wrote a very intriguing piece on two of the genocides mentioned in the book of Judges, specifically the slaughters of the Canaanites and of Amalekites, that used to be on his now-defunct About.com web site. I don't remember all the nitty-gritty, but he tackled the subject from the perspective of graded absolutism.
A simple example of graded absolutism: Violence is wrong. Letting someone be beat to death also is wrong. If you see someone being beat to death, are you justified in using force to stop the assailants? Of course you are, and depending on the circumstances, you probably could even see your way to using lethal force.
As I recall, the contention of Greg's piece -- and if it's still online, I don't know where it would be -- was that for God to order the destruction of the Amalekites and Canaanites, their sin was so grievous there was no other way to handle it. He also gave the whole thing an important perspective: the command to wholesale destruction of a people were not given as frequently as people usually think.
Me, I still feel uncomfortable thinking of those orders.
A simple example of graded absolutism: Violence is wrong. Letting someone be beat to death also is wrong. If you see someone being beat to death, are you justified in using force to stop the assailants? Of course you are, and depending on the circumstances, you probably could even see your way to using lethal force.
As I recall, the contention of Greg's piece -- and if it's still online, I don't know where it would be -- was that for God to order the destruction of the Amalekites and Canaanites, their sin was so grievous there was no other way to handle it. He also gave the whole thing an important perspective: the command to wholesale destruction of a people were not given as frequently as people usually think.
Me, I still feel uncomfortable thinking of those orders.
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