Shameless Attempt at Traffic

I recently read that Ben Stein’s upcoming documentary Expelled was the biggest buzz in the blogosphere on a particular day in March…sorry, but after looking through my history folder in Explorer, I can’t find the website with the story that gives the exact date. I believe you can find out on Technorati…but I digress.

With so many folks being interested in this film about how “educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired – for the “crime” of merely believing that there might be evidence of “design” in nature” I figured I ought to jump on the bandwagon and write a post about it. The only problem is, I don’t really have anything to add to the conversation.

However, desperate for traffic to this blog as I am, I thought I would share something that those who are better informed than I am might have missed.  Scientific American’s 60-Second Science podcast recently devoted just over three minutes to a criticism of Stein’s film. Here’s what Steve Mersky had to say after seeing the film…twice.

If my shameless capitalization on a controversy to draw traffic to this blog works, would those of you who come by please leave your answer to the following questions:

Does Steve’s “rebuttal” effectively negate the filmmakers’ point? Does the rest of the quote really lead “to kind of the very opposite impression of Darwin that the filmmakers want you to take away”? Why do you think so?

Thoughts on Slavery

I recently told a Christian co-worker about my plan to return to the states at the end of the next academic school year. We got to talking about how intimidating it is to return home after being away for almost 9 years. I mentioned that the next year and a half would be spent saving up money to buy our first home. At this point, in a sincere attempt at being helpful, my brother suggested that I go into debt to flip some real estate on that the local market in order to build up even more money for a down payment on a home.

Since I was introduced to Dave Ramsey and my family worked its way out of debt, I can’t hear about such “investment opportunities” without thinking of Proverbs 22:7, “The borrower is slave to the lender.” This time was no exception. All I could think about was being enslaved to a mortgage for a piece of property in this host country where it is not uncommon for the laws to work against foreigners and fail to protect them, particularly from locally sponsored ventures. For me, it’s one thing to go into debt for the house that I’m going to live in. It’s another to put nearly all of my savings at risk on a property deal for a chunk of sand in a place that I’m trying to leave in the hopes that the overly inflated market is going to yield a 20% or more return on my investment. I think the financial term for this is “too risky”, but I’m not sure.

Anyway, this got me to thinking about slavery and what the Bible says about it. At first glance, it appears to some folks that the Bible isn’t exactly against slavery. One point that I’ve heard people use to criticize the apostle Paul, the Bible and Christianity is that none of them, in their own ways and times, opposed slavery as strongly as they should have. Particularly with regards to Paul, who gets credited by these folks as the “real” founder of Christianity, I’ve heard people say that he should have encouraged Christians to resist Rome on the issue. While I’m certainly not sympathetic to the detractors, I do see that the argument does capitalize on a fact: there is no Biblical condemnation of the practice of owning slaves. There is plenty of condemnation for the abuse of human beings, both slaves and free people. There are regulations in the law of Moses for the proper treatment of slaves, which includes both setting them free and retaining them for life. Paul teaches slaves and their masters how to relate to one another under the lordship of Jesus, while encouraging those Christian slaves who can gain their freedom to do so. I would sum up the Biblical position on slavery this way: Freedom is better than slavery, but slavery is not the worst thing that can happen to a human being.

I don’t say that glibly. My wife and I recently watched “Amazing Grace”, the story of Wilberforce’s efforts to abolition slavery in the British Empire. I comprehend the atrocious abuse which attended the slave trade as it was depicted by the film. However, not all instances of slavery in the Bible describe a similar existence for slaves. Joseph, from the time he was bought from his brothers until the time he was put over Potiphar’s house was a slave. It’s reasonable to assume that the quality of his life, if it was ever so bad as that shown in the Wilberforce film, improved quite dramatically…apart from that stint in prison. Daniel and company were slaves in Persia and it seems that they also lived fairly well in spite of it. Basically, some slaves had horrible lives and some didn’t. A slave with a master who followed the law of Moses or who exercised his authority bearing in mind that he must answer to Christ, his own Master, may not have seen his circumstances as being all that bad. It’s not uncommon for people to give up freedom for security, even today. Conversely, a slave with a lawless master may have wished for death daily until it finally came. Even the Israelites found slavery in Egypt, where they had food, clothing and shelter, more appealing than dying in the wilderness.

Perhaps I should look more closely at the Bible’s perspective on slavery.

Jesus Hears a Who

Perhaps the seed for the question was planted by the most recent adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s “Horton Hears a Who” which I took my children to see about a week ago. There’s a moment in the film when Horton, speaking to the mayor of Whoville speculates that perhaps “we” (being he and the audience) are also living on a speck which is currently being viewed by someone much larger, just as Horton is doing. Perhaps this is what was driving the question that my four-year old son asked me on the way to church recently. He said, “Dad, are we a play set?”

I didn’t immediately understand the question so I repeated it to him. “Yeah, are we a play set?” What did he mean by “play set”? As I so often do when I haven’t a clue, I turned it back on him and said, “What do you think?” He said that he thought we are but that he didn’t know who was playing with us. At this point my six-year old chirped up. “I know who’s playing with us; Jesus!” The four-year old said, “But I don’t see Jesus over those cars. He’s not a kid.” Then I realized that by “play set”, my son meant something like the Legoes that we have in our house with buildings and people (Spiderman, Mary Jane, a cop and Venom!). As the philosophical depth of my child’s question dawned on me, I heard him say, “Dad, is Jesus playing with us?”

Hmmm…

Forgive or Forget About It

In one way or another, I’ve said this before: there are teachings in the Bible that are difficult to understand and there are others that are difficult because I understand. While I’d like to place the following teaching in the first category, I’m afraid that it actually belongs in the second.

I’ll paraphrase: According to Jesus, if we want God to forgive us of our sins, we must forgive the sins of other people. Or we can word it in the negative and say: If we don’t forgive people when they sin against us, God will not forgive us when we sin against Him. (Read Matt 6:13-15, Matt 18:21-35, and Luke 6:36-38.)

Recently, I listened to a sermon by a guy out of Texas whose response to this teaching was, “Did Jesus really mean that?” That’s what I’d like to know. I mean, what about being saved by grace through faith; what about removing my sin as far from me as the east is from the west; what about no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus? Does Jesus really mean that God’s forgiveness of my sin is contingent upon my forgiving others? It certainly sounds that way, doesn’t it?

The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, so he gave them a model to follow. Matthew’s version shows Jesus finishing the prayer and then adding an aside, so to speak, as if to say: “By the way, you need to understand that before you ask God to forgive you of your ‘debts’, He expects you to forgive the ‘debts’ owed to you.” The idea being, of course, that our sin creates an imbalance in God’s moral economy. When we sin, we owe God something, namely our lives. (Rom. 6:23) I taught this
model prayer to my sons and to this day my four-year old still says, “Forgive us of our sins if  we forgive those who sin against us.” Textually inaccurate, but theologically sound…right?

Jesus capitalizes on the debt concept again later in Matthew 18 when he tells the story of a servant who owes the king and insurmountable debt. The king mercifully forgives the servant who then goes out and prosecutes a fellow servant for a miniscule loan the man owes him. When the king hears about this, he revokes his forgiveness and requires the first servant to repay the massive debt. At the end of the story, Jesus spells it out; “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.” Jesus is telling God’s chosen people, the one’s with the Law and the sacrifices to atone for their transgressions of that Law, that God will do exactly as the king in the story: revoke forgiveness and require payment, whenever they do not sincerely forgive their brothers.

Before we get distracted by a discussion of who those brothers are, let’s take a look at what Jesus said about praying in Mark 11:24-26. Jesus tells Peter and company as they’re heading into Jerusalem together for the last time, that when they are praying they must forgive “anyone” for “anything” that they have against them. In this way, Jesus makes it clear who these brothers are. He also gives the reason they must forgive; “so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” Since we are also his disciples, isn’t Jesus talking to us too? Yet, weren’t our sins forgiven when we believed with our hearts and confessed with our mouths that Jesus Christ is Lord? Weren’t we told that when God forgives us of our sins, He forgives ALL of them, past present and future? Doesn’t that include the sin of withholding forgiveness?

I don’t want to be disingenuous and leave the impression that my questions indicate that I’m afraid of “losing my salvation”. (I don’t believe we lose it but rather that we repudiate it, but that’s a post for another time…or not.) It’s just that as someone who has been churched almost my whole life, and a Christian almost as long, I often blow right by bits of Scripture without a thought. When that Texas preacher paused and asked if Jesus really means that we have to forgive in order to be forgiven, I thought that it’s an important question to take the time to think about, especially since my thoughts and prayers focus so heavily on receiving forgiveness, as opposed to giving it.

 

Blogging Grace

Gracious speech is easy enough to recognize when folks are face to face. However, when our conversations occur in writing, as is the case with blogging, then gracious speech can become difficult to recognize. A visitor to this blog asked me to explain how someone can recognizably “offer grace” when blogging. After mulling this over for a bit, I think I’m ready to attempt an answer.

Before I get started, I need to say the following: when I use the word “blog” as a verb, I’ll be referring to both posting and commenting. I think that most people simply mean posting. Additionally, I’m not always a gracious person, either in speech or in writing. Consequently, I’m a bit embarrassed and uncomfortable advising folks on how to blog graciously. I suppose I could take comfort in the fact that, judging by the number of hits so far, I’m writing mostly to myself.

In order to communicate grace when blogging, I think we need to be mindful of the obvious. Bloggers are writers. Every writer has a voice and every voice has a tone which communicates an attitude. Grace is a “heart-attitude”. When the attitude of the heart is not gracious, the writer is unable to offer grace through his words. Said another way, “Out of the overflow of the heart…” the blogger blogs.

Grace is widely defined as “unmerited favor”. Favor can be understood as “friendly or well-disposed regard, goodwill”. Often we express our goodwill toward someone or something by saying that we are “for” them. Consequently, a gracious attitude can be characterized as being “for” someone without that person giving you a reason. To offer grace through our blogging, we have to be “for” the reader.

When we blog, it’s a good idea to check our attitude to see if we are “for” our reader, keeping in mind the following: It is possible to disagree without disdain. Expressing confusion over some point or issue is not ungracious but expressing contempt for the reader is. Disapproving of a method, a mode of reasoning, a conclusion or even the poor expression of a position or point is not ungracious. However, disapproving of some one because of these things is ungracious, especially among Christians. To blog graciously, we have to strive to communicate that we are “for” the reader even though we may be against his methodology, reason and / or position.

The Bible says that “wholesome speech” builds up the listener. I think this applies to gracious speech, (spoken and written) as well. Since gracious blogging builds up the reader, we ought to ask ourselves  “Does what I write build my reader up?” There are many ways to build up one’s reader. The following are a few that I’ve thought of thus far.

One way to build up the reader is by using appropriate language. An expert edifies his amateur/novice readers by avoiding unnecessary jargon and providing lots of explanations. He doesn’t expect the reader to rise to his level of expertise and writes accordingly. A gracious blogger expresses understanding of why the novice (erroneously) thinks the way he does, and then explains why his understanding is erroneous. If a blogger presents himself as being knowledgeable and obviously isn’t, we are not justified in using the language of our expertise to pummel him into silence or shame. Sure, lofty egos need to be torn down but we must pause and ask if we really are the ones to do it. When we catch our fellow blogger in the sin of pretense and fallacious argumentation, we must remember what Paul said to the Galatians .

Another way to build up the reader is by avoiding sarcasm. As a teacher, I’ve seen how sarcasm not only shames a student but also creates an obstacle to communication, effectively shutting down the learning process. While it may be fun to write and entertaining to read (when not aimed at us), sarcasm tends to tear down, not build up. Jesus never used it against is disciples, and neither should we.

As I said earlier, offense is unavoidable. Despite our good intentions, we’re bound to offend someone at sometime and so gracious blogging is apologetic, without being defensive. When we become aware that we have unintentionally offended someone, we ought to be quick to apologize for the offense, not to defend our words. When we go on the defensive, we demonstrate that we are “for” ourselves more than we are “for” the offended. However, a timely and genuine apology (followed by a clarification of point if necessary or beneficial) shows that we are “for” the reader and builds him up. Sometimes, when my little sons are playing they accidentally hurt one another. When they do, my wife and I make them apologize immediately. Their instinctual response is to defend their actions/egos by crying out “But I didn’t mean to! It was an accident!”. It’s as if they’re saying “I didn’t do anything wrong, so I don’t need to apologize!”  We then explain that the apology is a way of accepting responsibility for our actions and showing genuine care for the hurt person. Caring about the physical and emotional hurts of others is gracious.

Bloggers, especially God-bloggers, tend to be passionate about their subjects. Consequently, our emotions tend to run high. The Bible affirms both zeal and anger in their proper places, not that these are our only two emotions. However, above these two and all other passions (and virtues for that matter), the Bible exalts love, so when we blog graciously, we love.

Certainly, there are others who have blogged about this more succinctly and more eloquently than I have. Even so, just working through this has been good for me. Hopefully, if you’ve also worked your way through my prose, it’s been good for you too.

Doctor, My Brain Hurts!

I’m just posting to say that I won’t be posting this week. (Feeling a bit woozy from the Buick )

Instead, I thought that I’d share some links to some interesting things that I’ve read and listened to over the past 2 weeks.

From Reformed Perspectives Magazine- a critique of Sola Scriptura (found this by accident!)

From Stand to Reason-”Bad Arguments Against Calvinism“

By way of Theopedia-a lecture on Calvinism’s take on salvation (really appreciated this!)

Steve, a former Calvinist, offers this.

Fred, a current Calvinist, explains why Steve is wrong.

I know that it’s pretty lame to post a bunch of links like this, but I need the break and if nothing else, I now have a place where I access these things again at a later date if I want to.

And if you’re curious, when next I post, it won’t be about Calvinism, Calvinists, and/or Reformed Theology… and if it is…(whimpering) help me.