Good God

Ladies and Gentlemen,

   First off, I would like to apologize for the lapse in chapel blogs of late, I took the week off only partly due to an obscene personal schedule.  Secondly, I would like to apologize for continuing to neglect chapel as what I am about to say has little to do with it.
   The thing that I would like to communicate today is that God is indeed good.  I know, we've heard it all before, but still.  Recently I've been living a life, a good one, but one of despair.  I've not been desperate as such, but rather consigned to the 'fact' that life is too much.  I have been overwhelmed and frustrated and fed up with people, school, work, myself, and pretty much everything.  I even composed a poem the other day which I read over today and was quite amazed at how tragically sad and hopeless it seemed.  So, over the past week or so I began to complain to God.  I know, very mature.  Anyways, He came through as He never ceases to surprisingly do.  Today culminated a series of events that I cannot begin to explain in detail, but God essentially blitzed me with a parade of wise people such as God, pastors, teachers, family, nondescript people I don't know but have to listen to, and dear friends who've all said everything to me at the right time in the right way which was always exactly what I needed to hear.  I've always considered myself an optimist, and times like this just go to confirm the validity of such a disposition.
    I realize the cryptic nature of this post, but I'd rather not bore you with the mundane details, I just wanted to give you the basic rundown of merely one small way in which God is and remains good.  You may consider yourself encouraged.

  In Christ,
          Peter Ellison

Doubt, Salvation, and Doubting Our View of Salvation

Once again, it’s time to talk about two chapels in one post. It’s just me (Tim) today. Peter seems to have actual responsibilities that this week amount to like six papers. So it is up to me. I realize we’re getting very slow in posting these days. Also, I’m writing this in the afternoon, so my brain is well past its peak activity period, so I apologize for whatever may come next.

Friday 10/23/09 – Doubt

Last Wednesday, I didn’t go to chapel because I was locked in a little room taking the GRE. I did, however, turn on my phone afterwards to find messages telling me that I missed a great chapel. It was Dale Durie and he was doing one of his storytelling chapels. That seems to be his thing and I always enjoy it. Friday was a continuation of his storytelling. I don’t know what he talked about on Wednesday, or who his character was, but on Friday he was Thomas talking about doubt. I really liked it a lot.

First of all, I love storytelling. I think it’s an amazing way to communicate and in contemporary society, we just write instead of telling. So when someone does tell a story in some way, shape, or form, I really like it. I don’t have much to say I guess about the story itself, other than it was a little bit different of a perspective than we’re used to hearing. He talked about the Last Supper and resurrection, mostly.

He said some things about doubt that I appreciated. I have to say I’ve never really had objections to doubts, nor have I understood anyone who feels that doubts are terrible. Dale pointed out that doubts don’t necessarily destroy faith, but if it’s done well, it can deepen faith. This is been my experience in life. He also said what he thought “doubting well” means.

Thomas doubted in community and he dared to ask the tough questions. I think these are both really important things. When we doubt and have tough questions, it’s easier to keep them to ourselves. But when we ask them in community, it can deepen the faith of all of us. Dale had us take out our phones and text someone a doubt that we had. Of course, I was unable to think of anything at the time because thinking takes me several hours, but I still felt like it was a really cool exercise. What if we did share our doubts and uncertainties? How far would that go to not only help us answer them, but to help us to know and have authentic relationships with those around us? Let’s doubt well.

Monday 10/26/09 – Salvation, I think

Matt talked today about Zacchaeus. I’m not entirely sure what the official topic was. I didn’t quite follow the stated flow of the message, but I did enjoy it and thought it was good. He said he was going to solve a couple of issues: the “once saved always saved” question and the “is salvation by grace or by works” question. I must have missed the part where he talked about the first, or else it was woven throughout and I wasn’t paying close enough attention. Both likely possibilities, given the fact that today is Monday. This chapel was filled with fun videos and such. Very engaging, I thought, even if I didn’t make all the connections from one thing to the next.

He essentially talked about what salvation is, which sort of encompasses both those questions, I suppose. He pointed out that Jesus said that through Zacchaeus’ actions, he had shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. He was saved. But he didn’t pray a prayer or anything to do so. So what was salvation? He said that Zacchaeus was saved because of his obedience, which resulted from repentance in his heart. I really liked this way of putting it. He then listed several things that salvation is: repentance, repair and restoration, action, and rescue. Again, I liked this. I’m tired of the “believe in Jesus” monkeybusiness that we learn in Sunday school. Let’s do something different so that we don’t all feel like cognitive belief is all there is to it, and then spend years wondering why it doesn’t seem to be enough.

Not too long ago, I was talking to a friend about the “sinner’s prayer,” or what some of us refer to as "the magic prayer." Most of us who grew up in Evangelical families can often point back to the moment we prayed that prayer as the moment we got saved. And maybe it was, I don’t know. And I’m not saying that it’s a horrible thing, I’m just saying I don’t think salvation is that simple. It’s ongoing. It’s not a cognitive recognition of who Jesus is, like we like to say it is.

Salvation is a choice for obedience. We don’t often obey. One of the professors I’ve had is fond of pointing out that in a number of cases where Paul’s words are translated “faith in Christ,” that phrase would perhaps better be translated “faithfulness of Christ.” Jesus was obedient/faithful to the Father and that is how salvation entered the world. And we are “in Christ” as Paul likes to say. We have to obey, not just acknowledge. I don’t think anyone would argue with me about that, but it doesn’t seem to happen all that often.

The same friend recently reminded me that at times, I live in something of an alternate universe. And it’s true. I spend the majority of my time shirking the very few responsibilities I do have and instead spending my time playing sports, watching sports, having nerf wars with my roommates, having all my needs met by others for a nominal fee, and generally just goofing around. I mostly play, and it’s so fun! And I don’t those things are bad, but they can’t be the only thing I do with my life. I think that a lot of Christians live in an alternate universe, too. We do our daily thing and we don’t see what goes on around us. Most of us don’t have to because it’s hidden behind the scenes, or even behind the masks we all wear.

I submit that if we even acted out our salvation a little bit, we’d see so much more than we do. I’m not even talking chiefly about the impoverished and homeless and abused, which we are clearly called to help (though most of us still don’t). What about the person on your left and your right every day? What about the people like Zacchaeus who make their salaries by cheating the system and taking advantage of others? They need to God’s love, too. We need to act out our salvation for them and to see them as God does. Our mission isn’t primarily to “get saved” so we can avoid worrying about where we’ll go when we die. That would be an insult to the Gospel. We are the Kingdom, so who will act it out if not us?

“Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose”

As a side note, Matt mentioned that the Freeset guy is going to be here on Thursday night at 7 in the Underground. He was really good last year when he came and the ministry is amazing. Check it out at http://www.freesetglobal.com/. Anyone want to go with me? Also, there’s an interreligious dialogue thing coming up on the 3^rd, I think? People should go to that, too!

Reconciliation Chapel: take two

Tim: Ross talked today. A friend told me as I headed to chapel that it was another reconciliation and I said “ohhh boy.” But I have to hand it to Ross, except for one little part that I didn’t think really fit into the message, I would have to say it was one of the better reconciliation messages I have heard. I will address my issue first and get that out of the way.

In the midst of pointing out that we want the benefits of reconciliation with God, but without the cost, he went on a short spiel about how some people who go to church think “oh I don’t like this music” or “I don’t like this pastor” so they go somewhere else. Some people even come to chapel and then walk away and say things like “that message just didn’t speak to me” so they don’t like that chapel. Such people, he said, are being selfish and individualistic. Naturally, I thought of this blog, which of course is a shining model of that very thing. Now I think I get what he’s getting at, and I agree that church and worship is not all about us.

But, isn’t there some aspect of our relationship to God that relates to us as individuals as well? Further, if I’m in a church that never challenges me or encourages spiritual growth in me because the messages are all terrible, am I just supposed to sit there and suffer because to desire a challenge in my life from my fellow churchgoers would be selfish? A lot of messages in my life “just weren’t for me” at the time. That only reflects selfishness if you already believe it’s all about you. Just because I express that a message didn’t hit me where I may have most needed it, it doesn’t mean I think that it’s a worthless message.  Neither church nor chapel should be set up to cater to one particular person. But I hope it should, at one time or another, engage everyone. By expressing the particular times it doesn’t, we don’t have to be being selfish. Perhaps we’re just reacting and maybe even that will stimulate some good discussion about the topic.

Having said all that, I have to say that I loved the rest of his message. He talked about a couple aspects of this issue that I don’t hear about often. One was self-reconciliation. This, I think is huge. Forgiving ourselves. I have said in previous posts how I feel about living in constant guilt. I think we need to forgive ourselves and reconcile with ourselves in a way, as weird as that sounds.

A second thing he mentioned was that we want is the benefits of reconciliation with God, but not the cost. We want our reconciliation with God to be nothing more than a cognitive recognition of what he did for us on the cross. I agree that this is pretty common and I can see it in my own life as well. Jesus doesn’t say “take up your cross and acknowledge me,” he says “take up your cross and FOLLOW me.” We don’t like doing it, but we can’t just cognitively believe in Christ, we have to BE in Christ. “Abide in me” he says.

The third thing he said was something I really liked as well. He talked about our tendency to attack various symptoms of our sin infection (or nature, if you prefer). We attack things like lust and racism. But they keep growing back. He said something I have tried to express many times, which is “if we could defeat the sin nature through the blood of Christ, racism would take care of itself.”  Reconciliation is so much deeper than attacking racism. It is attacking the sin engrained in us and our world. I’m not saying we shouldn’t fight the symptoms, but that we need to attack the disease if we really want to get anywhere substantial. Of course, that’s not easy to do.

Peter: Today chapel was about ‘the God who reconciles.’  He laid out a three-tiered philosophy of reconciliation including reconciling to ourselves, reconciling to God, and reconciling to others.  He spent relatively little time on the first two.  Surprise, surprise the emphasis fell on the third aspect of reconciliation: reconciling with others.  He made a few intriguing and a few less such points.

First I would hearken back to what Tim mentioned about not always liking all the songs, sermons, or whatever in various worship venues.  When he mentioned that Tim and I made eye contact because we both thought immediately of this blog.  I agree with Tim, in that just because certain songs or sermons don’t resonate or relate to me in particular doesn’t mean I’m anti-reconciliatory.  Enough said.

Second, I almost choked when I heard him talk about sins at the end of the night, not because he aid anything particularly odd.  Mostly because he mentioned greed, and how we tend to pass certain sins off while concentrating on others… and he was like ‘greed, meh, we’re Americans, I mean, everyone does it, so it’s not that bad…’ and he went on to the next sin.  The reason it stuck out overtly so was because of what he had said not five minutes prior.  He had been talking about how the devil uses all categorization to create enmity, and how we use categorization to create labels to in turn control others.  Well, if that is true, why does he categorize Americans as ‘greedy’ to make a point to tell us how to think.  That being said I somewhat disagree with most of what he said about categorization.  Just the idea that categorization isn’t a good thing Is, I think, bogus.  It is how humans think.  If we didn’t form categories or stereotypes we would function on such a low level.  I do agree that they can be abused, which is what Manders was talking about.  I don’t think, however, that stereotypes in and of themselves are ‘bad.’

Lastly, I admired greatly his conclusion.  He stated that we have an errant tendency to concentrate on individual sins, some over others, instead of focusing on the root problem, that is, ‘the sin nature.’  If you read an earlier post of mine, you will know that I am undecided as to what exactly the sin nature is, however I would agree that the root of sin is deeper than sin itself, and that is where one’s energies should be concentrated, as Ross purports.  However that being said, although all sin is equally sin, I would say there is good reason for treating the sins with varying degrees of attention.  We should always treat the evil, but like I’ve stated in earlier posts, I don’t know if you can separate the evil from the sin.  Maybe you can, but I don’t know how.

Do Not Be Afraid

Peter: Fear.  Fear is real for many people, if not all people.  As the saying goes, ‘of course I am afraid, what sane man isn’t?’  There is a deep truth to this, and as deep a truth in Jesus, who says to not be afraid.  I thought it was interesting that Laurel grouped so many various fears together though.  She had this list, including things such as fear of death, fear of bugs, fear of heights, and other fears.  I don’t know, I just never thought of the fear of heights [guilty] as even in the same category as the fear of death.  I don’t even consider the fear of dying in the same category as I do the fear of death.  It was interesting for me to see fear treated the same regardless of the ‘type’ or degree of fear.  So my question I guess, seeing as I’ve never considered the concept of the fear of heights being in the same category as the fear that is loneliness, or of death.  Are there types of fear, do some have a ‘spiritual’ (to reluctantly use the dichotomist perspective) basis while others don’t?  I’ve never considered my fear of heights as having any bearing on my Christian life, but should I?  I would hesitate to say yes, as I see my fear of heights perfectly rational.  My fear of hypodermic needles however, is a bit irrational.  I don’t see Satan working deviously through these fears, however, but I’ve been wrong before.  It’s just a question. 

A second question I have is what in the world did Laurel mean by saying she believes that it is our ‘job to run full steam into culture, church, relationships, society, and Satan.’?  She started by saying that she believes that daily we are ‘called’ not to fear.  She also said that we must know the word of God in order to wrestle with our fears that we don’t have anymore… and finished off by saying we need to run full steam into all of these random places such as relationships, because, why, I don’t know, he’s on third and I just don’t understand.  I mean, it could very well be that I wasn’t following her properly, but I’m also at a complete loss as to how she got from one point to the next, and how in the world this ties in with fear.  Is this her way of saying we need to ‘face our fears’ because Jesus calls us to ‘be not afraid’?

Lastly, she stated in her conclusion that fear and faith have a lot in common, and proceeded to state how, besides relating to the unseen, they were opposites.  Besides that being an amusing coupling of statements, it was intriguing.  I guess I’ve always considered doubt more of an opposite of faith than fear.  Laurel is the first person I’ve heard ever equate fear as the opposite as faith.  I’ve asked friends and acquaintances what they thought the opposite of faith was, and I got the typical ‘disbelief,’ ‘self-reliance,’ ‘doubt,’ and ‘mistrust.’  Nobody mentioned fear.  That’s not to say the concept isn’t intriguing.  can one have faith and fear?  Are they mutually exclusive?  There is an obvious argument against their coexistence, but at the same time it’s hard to reconcile their mutual exclusivity with the claim that ‘everybody deals with fear, even Jesus did,’ as laurel stakes her claim.  If Jesus did fear, was his faith lapsing?  If he didn’t fear can he understand our fear?  If so, how?  Does he need to understand in order to be ‘willing and able to meet and cure our [fears]?’

In conclusion, I apologize for not really saying anything and merely asking questions, but in this case I have few opinions and many questions.  That being said, I don’t really know what to think of fear.  I don’t consider myself a person racked with fears, but according to Laurel I feel like I should be.  Maybe I’m reading it wrong.  But I’m not doused with self-doubt, gripped with terror, or paralyzed with uncertainties.  Does that make me unchristian?  Laurel gave a stern warning to those who ‘weren’t listening’ or thinking that what she was saying really applied to them, because, she said, if we live life right we will deal with fears, and so I guess I’m just not living like a Christian should, because I don’t have the fears Laurel dwelt on.

Tim: The message was about fear. I will be perfectly honest, I don’t remember much about it, because I was slow in writing this, so other than the few things I scribbled down out the time, I haven’t got a lot. This is probably good for everyone else, because that means I won’t ramble so long. I won’t say much about this one, because my notes don’t help me much in remembering and to go off a few lines I remember nothing about would not do justice to the message. I remember only a couple things, really.

First, I remember that she talked about being just overcome with fear, to the point of being paralyzed. She asked us if we had ever felt that way. I can’t think of a time that I ever have. I don’t know, am I supposed to have felt that way? I have been nervous almost to the point of being paralyzed, but I don’t know if I’ve been afraid like that. She also mentioned a number of common things that people are afraid of, like failure, disappointing God, etc. I guess I’m afraid of those things, maybe? But I don’t know if it’s fear.

That brought me to the question that I pondered the rest of the time. What exactly is fear in comparison to, say, nervousness or worry? I’m always worried that I will goof something up or never find a job, but I don’t know that I would say I’m afraid. I remember some of my more traumatic first days of school upon moving to America, and I don’t know if I was afraid or nervous. I would say more nervous than afraid, but is there a solid distinction? I don’t know. I think in most situations in our lives, we can and do use “fear,” “worry,” or “nervousness” interchangeably. I would like to hear more about what distinguishes fear among those.

The last thing I remember is that she said that fear and faith are similar: they both demonstrate a belief in what we can’t see. But fear says no and faith says yes (I’m assuming that means fear tells us everything will be terrible and faith tells us otherwise). I hadn’t really thought about that before, and it was a cool perspective.

Forgiveness, among other things...

Tim: Forgiveness was the word of the day. Jay Barnes spoke. I love when he speaks because he is so open and honest about himself and his experiences. As always, he was sweet. He’s Jay Barnes after all! I don’t have much to say about this message, though, mostly because I was a little out of it during chapel. I was super tired and struggling to stay awake while I fretted over whether or not I am doomed to get swine flu just in time to take the GRE. Unfortunately those things were sufficient to consume the majority of my attention.

I won’t talk about the message overall other than to say it was about forgiveness and that I had trouble following it at points. But I do want to comment on a couple things he said. The first thing that I thought was cool was that he made a connection between God’s love and forgiveness. He talked about the woman washing Jesus’ feet with her tears and he pointed out that to her, his love and grace were much more real than to others. She was acutely aware of her sinfulness, so she felt God’s love deeply. The Pharisees were blissfully unaware of their issues or their need to be forgiven, and thus had little interest in God’s love. A lot of times we’re like the Pharisees, he said. We don’t honestly think about how dependent we are on God’s forgiveness and his love. I thought that was an interesting point that we might not think about very often.

He also said “God is never going to think of our sins, but it’s sure easy for us to remember them.” This stood out to me because it reminded me of something that my theology teacher said two years ago. He told us that there is no place for guilt in the Christian walk. Our guilt takes control of us and ultimately, it drags us back into sin. I didn’t know how to feel about this, because I had always devoted a good deal of time and energy to feeling guilty about past indiscretions. Guilt was almost like proof of repentance as well as motivation to improve. He suggested though, that we ought to acknowledge and learn from our mistakes, but then instead of feeling guilty about them, “move on to do the next right thing.” It seemed almost too simple, and certainly not self-deprecating enough to be orthodox! But in the end, I decided he was right, and in some subtle way, it revolutionized my perspective on life.

Among other things, it made me question our focus on not sinning. I’m not saying we shouldn’t avoid sin. I just think sometimes sin is bigger than God to us. I think that I was impeded in my walk for years because all I could think about was avoiding sinning. I see the same thing all around me. For instance, I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard arguments around here regarding whether swearing is bad. If it’s bad we shouldn’t do it; if it’s neutral, we can get away with it. Is the focus really supposed to be on if it’s bad? Shouldn’t our question be “is it GOOD?” If it’s good, then we should do it. If it’s neutral, then I’m not going to object to it, but may be less inclined to participate. Shouldn’t we focus on actively doing what’s good, rather than on not doing what’s bad? I realize I have long since left the topic of forgiveness behind. But what can I say? I go where my mind leads me. It’s now leading me to go find some lunch…

Peter: I’m going to keep my end of this short, because honestly I don’t have much to say, and most of what I would say has been said more eloquently by my esteemed friend Tim.  I didn’t have much to say, because honestly Jay didn’t say much.  I love Jay, I respect him deeply, but besides a few interesting points here and there, mentioned by Tim, he stated what we all know: God forgives us.  It seemed to me, however, to be somewhat of a paradox when put together with Edee’s talk.  She emphasized the sin nature over the sin, and said that what’s actually wrong is the sin nature.  Well if that’s true then is God forgiving us for our sin nature, and does he not care about the sin?  I mean, God looks at the heart, and he’s not a legalistic sort of fellow, and perhaps it’s merely my orthodox upbringing, but I think that God forgives the sin as much as the motive, the actions as well as the heart.  Jay seemed to suggest the that God forgives us our sins in the traditional sense of the term, but Edee seemed to suggest that ‘sin’ was not even ‘sinful’ so much as the ‘sin nature’ was.  Actually, to be honest I probably just don’t understand either person’s talk.  Regardless, I still question the validity of separating the two, in which case it wouldn’t matter.  I think sin is as important as sinfulness, because I think that they’re of the same entity.  Refer to the trinity if you don’t understand.  Obedience is important to God, and from a sincere heart we should examine the merits of our actions, as well as our beliefs, because as the great Batman once said: “…it's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you.”  Yes, that just happened.  But the main point I guess is that whatever your view of sin, God forgives it.  He’s like a sin vacuum.  A sin-eating machine.  I just find it interesting how our conceptions of sin seem to change depending on the topic.  So yeah.  According to Jay, and myself, your sins/sinful nature/whatever is/are forgiven by God because God is just that amazing.

Jay used amazing a lot, I’m not sure why besides the fact that he was trying to get us to ‘realize the incredibleness’ of what God has done.  Of course, I was talking to a friend afterwards and she said that it was impossible to do so, because it’s more amazing than our conceptualization can conceptualize.  This made me wonder why she was frustrated at the people who don’t try to conceptualize God’s amazing forgiveness, because in my eyes they’re just saving themselves a lot of effort in futility.  If they can’t understand it even if they did try, their understanding is as complete as anybody else’s understanding, because God’s forgiveness is infinite (east from west).  Think about it.  Unless we can understand the infinite nature of God’s forgiveness, our understandings of it are equally defective no matter how much effort we put into our understanding.

And in regard to Tim’s last point, I would say that yes, we do need to do what is good, but we also need to not do what is evil.  If we are to do unto others as we would have them do unto us I would contend that that includes not doing unto others what we would have them not do unto us.  It also follows from the greatest commandments: love the lord your God with all your heart soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.  Well, gee, if loving God means respecting authority, and not doing what is evil, well then… yeah.  Of course if it doesn’t, then… I’m not sure where I’m going with this.  My point is that I don’t think you can separate ‘doing good’ and ‘not doing evil’ as separate entities.  I harken back to Isaiah 1:16-7 when God says to ‘stop doing wrong, learn to do what is right.’  The emphasis should be on both sides of the coin, so to speak.  So good is, well, good, but it is too narrow of a focus, as is evil.  A valid separation could be the legalistic side versus the sincere side of things, which might be what you’re getting at, in which case I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Sin and Us

Today is an exciting day because we have two posts, both of which are late. The Reconciliation one is from last Wednesday (10/7) and this one is from Monday (10/12). We had no school and thus no chapel on the Friday in between. Sorry we were slow.

Peter:
Edee Schultz spoke today, and I like her style in that she’s funny and sincere all at the same time. Her topic was sin, and she had various things to say about it, the one which I appreciated most being her reference to the sin nature perverting good rather than being an entity unto itself. Personally I subscribe to the Dantesque idea that “The human impulse to love pleasing things is seen as the root of all virtue, but it can also be 'perverted, weakened, or misdirected to become the root of all sin'" (Brown, 1998).

That being said, there were a lot of questions that I had which went unanswered. The use of ‘Christianese’ pervaded Edee’s talk, which does more to convolute what she was saying than clarify. For instance, she used prolifically the term ‘sin nature’ and ‘predisposition to sin’ but failed to clarify where this nature comes from, or why this ‘predisposition’ exists. Why is it a predisposition and not a disposition? What is this ‘sin nature’ entity thing? Albeit they may be more peripheral to her point, but valid questions nonetheless. Recently I’ve been questioning the validity of the ‘dualistic nature.’ Mostly because it comes as difficult to understand. Can one have a ‘sin nature’ and a ‘God-given good nature’ as implied by Edee? That would seem to subscribe to a more Taoistic understanding of good and evil, almost a debased Manichean understanding, but how else would you understand good and evil? On that note, how does evil relate to sin? Are they equivalent? Identical? And if there is a two-nature system, how similar are the natures? If evil is fissiparous as advanced by Edee, why wouldn’t good be fissiparous as well? And if Edee states that ‘evildoing isn’t as big a problem as ‘evilbeing,’ why do we try to deal with evildoing? I question the validity of even drawing the distinction… but I don’t know. Can you separate evildoing with evilbeing? There are just so many questions I could ask, but I’ll stop for now, suffice it to say that Edee got screwed with a very difficult topic in sin, and all things considered she made her point, but a point buried in a host of unanswered questions.

Brown, J., (1998). The Seven Deadly Sins in the Work of Dorothy L. Sayers. Kent: Kent State University Press.

Tim:
First of all…Peter, did you use APA formatting for that reference? It looks suspiciously like it. I really feel that nothing quite lives up to the Chicago style, and it makes me sad inside when I see anything else. I apologize for my rant. I also apologize for my excessive use of analogies, stories and metaphors in the following paragraphs. If you’ve had many discussions with me know this is just how I talk. I realize they only go so far, but I just love them so!

Unlike Peter, I really didn’t have so many questions, so I will try to quickly say a couple that are both a response to Peter’s musings and are things that I wanted to talk about anyway. First, I think we say “sin nature” because it’s the easiest way most people have found to express an extremely difficult concept. If we effectively defined terms, it would consume the whole time period allotted for the message. Related to that, I think when we say we have a “sin nature” and a “good nature,” we are using “nature” differently. It is only a subtle difference, to be sure, but I think it’s important. I think of it something like a genetic disease, say hemophilia. I may be born a hemophiliac. It is part of my nature as me. But at the same time, it is not my nature as a human being. As a human, I was not intended or created to have this condition. Yet, it plays out in my life as if it were. So I guess I think of us having both natures, but one is primal and one is (or was, through Adam) acquired.

Similarly, I think there is a subtle but important distinction between evildoing and “evil being.” The problem is it’s something I don’t know how to express. So I will just tell a story. When I was little, I heard about the “bad” things or sins that weren’t allowed. Like any curious little guy, I grew up and proceeded to do them. During that, I did not question their badness – it was quite apparent in my life. But I knew there was something more about it that I had missed. And it was that it wasn’t the sinful actions that were the major problem. Those were only symptoms of my much more profound failure to live up to the person I was made to be – a person created in God’s image. Now, if I read this several years ago, I would say “duh.” But now, it’s somehow profoundly real. I hesitate to say that I don’t care about people’s sinful actions, but in a sense, I don’t. I care about the causes and effects of those actions in their souls and in their relationships. Similar little story: as a Christian guy, I grew up with the feeling that one of my primary tasks in life was to fight against lust. But as I have grown and seen other guys involved in groups and reading books about how to do this and never making any progress, something just seemed off. And eventually I realized that it’s not about the lust. It’s about filling my heart with God’s love for those around me so that respect, not lust, will win out. It’s about seeing the world through God’s eyes. It’s about crowding out the “evilbeing.” Again, I realize anyone who reads this will be like “well yeah, of course.” I would have for my whole life, but it was never real until I experienced it. But, sadly, it is really impossible to express. I have tried my best…

Finally, I want to go back to what she said about sin perverting good. This is something that I have been thinking about in recent years and something that has become very real. She mentioned something about people being a certain way before they were Christians and still being that way afterwards, and that that is not bad. We often think that we have to change the way we are. I struggled with this for many years. I don’t know how old I was when I realized that my gifts didn’t lie in the areas of, say, encouraging people, asking good questions, engaging in deep relationship. If ever I was supposed to comfort someone, I found myself full of compassion, but staring blankly, wondering what to do. The things I was good at were things like analyzing an argument and picking it apart, or writing, or in picking up on certain subtle distinctions or connections (but definitely not being able to articulate them). I also noticed that the things I was good at often resulted in me hurting people’s feelings, frustrating those around me, or at the very least, immense frustration of my own. None of these seemed like things that were compatible with the Kingdom. I felt that my gifts and God’s work were at odds.

One day, I realized that I really enjoyed being a history major and I could do fairly well at it because I was naturally good at things like picking apart arguments, writing, and making connections. Then it dawned on me that those gifts in my life had been twisted and used in ways that were contrary to God’s work, but that in fact, I could turn around and use them for him. The best part is, as I learn to do that, I have to fight myself less and less. Being able to use my gifts for good gives me immense joy. As that happened, I was able to open myself up for God to develop in me those areas in which I’m less gifted. And, while I’m still at about a 1.5 on a scale of 1-10 in those areas, I’m finally growing in them. As I grow into myself and God uses my gifts, he also begins to fulfill my heart's deepest desires. All this is to say that what she said really resonated with me and I think she’s totally right. And in my opinion, one of the most effective ways Satan keeps us down is by turning our deepest (good) desires and gifts around on us and having them lead us astray. In fact, those desires and gifts that cause us to sin are the same ones through which we can do God’s will and bring about the restoration of this world.

I did a quick Google search on Ps. 37:4, which is the “desires of your heart” verse and got a whole bunch of results about how when you grow in Christ he will change the desires of your heart. There were also pages about how to discover the desires of your heart – things like the desire to love and be loved, or to feel special, or whatever similar things there are in our hearts. We don’t have to change them, we don’t have to discover them. They’re already there and we’re already very familiar with them. When we turn ourselves over to God for his use, he will fulfill those desires.

I apologize for my preaching. I just really liked this message and I wish I could actually express it.

“Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” – Psalm 37:4

Reconciliation Chapel

Tim: Today was reconciliation day. I have never before attended a reconciliation chapel, because I have never heard good things about them in the past. This year, though, I had heard the speaker was going to be a good one, so I was excited to go. His name is Pete Menjares (I think) and he’s from Biola. He was excellent.

My main issue was the fact that we hardly got to hear him talk. The intro took forever. Then there was a little symbolic ceremony, in which a number of faculty/staff people lifted up a big rope that was supposed to represent taking responsibility for reconciliation. Then at the end, they had ropes down the aisles that we all were supposed to hold, symbolizing that we were all playing a part as well. While I got the idea of it, it still seemed a little strange to me, but that’s probably because I’m not creative enough for symbolism. Mostly, I felt like it took even more time away from the speaker. Grr.

When the message finally arrived, I was quite pleased. He talked about reconciliation in a way that was simple and meaningful, which I always appreciate. He talked about how when he became a Christian, he was such a Bible-thumper that his mom kicked him out of his house. Years later, he came back and apologized. She spoke to him about why she was hard on him as he grew up without a father, and their relationship was healed. They were reconciled. I like that. Maybe the reason I like it is just that it’s simple and heartwarming, without the difficulty of huge social concerns and implications. I don’t know how well his story parallels reconciliation of different groups of people. I guess I just tend to feel like group reconciliation is best going to happen when we all learn to do it individually, with all our neighbors, no matter who they are.

Having mentioned group reconciliation, I have to say that he did an excellent job of reconciling Minnesota’s subtle bitterness toward California when he began by thanking us for giving them Tori Hunter and the Lakers. I liked him immediately! I like people who make me laugh.

On a deeper level, he got me thinking about how I think about reconciliation in the world. Maybe I’m the only one, but for most of my life, when I heard things like “God is reconciling the world him Himself,” I have generally thought in terms of restoring the ability to have relationship with him and to go to heaven. Through Jesus, the barrier was broken down, allowing us to live in relationship with God, and as we spread this news, the entire world is allowed to be reconciled to God. Makes sense, and is true. But should it end there? Some would be so bold as to suggest that God reconciling himself to the world doesn’t end with allowing the restoration of relationship, but includes the actual process and result of that relationship – meaning there are huge social implications.

Now this is just my interpretation, but it sounds to me like the idea here is that “God reconciling the world to Himself” comes to mean God (and His people) actually remaking the world, not just the individual, in His image. I think in our post-World War era, we have kind of lost the idea that there is actually any hope of this, so we focus on individual salvation (in terms of going to heaven) rather than on bringing blessing and deliverance (on every level) to the world. I also think that we are a little scared of this thought, because it can sound an awful lot like Social Gospel. But I think we need to think about it

None of this is anything that hasn’t been said before, but I wonder how often we really think about it. What are our views on this? Is God allowing us to have relationship with him, or is he trying to restore creation as a whole? I would say both, and I’m guessing most people would agree with me. But do we really think and act like it’s both?

Peter:  So before this chapel I was talking with a friend about it, and we were exchanging thoughts on the past reconciliation chapels, and as my friend was a reconciliation major I asked if she had any particular thoughts on reconciliation chapel, and of course she did.  She said that reconciliation chapel had frustratingly been about racism in past years, which she told me emphatically, was ‘not what reconciliation is about.’  To be sure, the principles of reconciliation apply in a racially charged atmosphere, but in the words of another friend, also a reconciliation major, reconciliation is about bringing together people and people groups with God and with one another who have previously been separated from God or one another.

            In the sense that the speaker this year approached reconciliation from this holistic perspective of it, it was a good chapel.  Although I would agree with Tim that he had a short time to speak, and that the object lesson either needed work or I’m a defective object lesson person, he did have a simple and to the point talk, with a lot of good things to say.  His message culminated in espousing John 17:20 which describes Jesus’ longing that ‘they [we] would be one.’  It is this that I feel like I need a lot of work on, but so do most Christians, at least the ones with high levels of visibility.  There are so many ways in which we as Christians divide ourselves, it’s really frustrating.  I remember reading in one of the Bethel publications a short story which made me kind of mad.  It was a short story whose purpose was to bring a realization to the hypocrisy of the church… but ended up merely condemning conservative Christians.  I don’t consider myself conservative any more so than I consider myself liberal.  I believe that in our society, and in our Christian community we have this tendency to polarize issues.  One of my pet peeves is when people take an issue and set up two sides.  I think it merely limits the scope of the issue as well as creates enmity among those interested.  You’re either protestant or catholic, you’re either liberal or conservative, republican or democrat, you’re individualistic or communal.  Everything does not fit into a one-dimensional continuum.  I’ve heard more people extrapolate on the evils of individualism, and it makes me want to hit them, because guess what, communalism and individualism aren’t mutually exclusive.  Think about it.  And I feel like there are so many issues where people have the same concerns, the same beliefs, and still find a way to disagree about it (i.e. views on how to address poverty in the united states).  We don’t have to polarize everything, and we don’t have to agree on most things.  So I guess what I’m saying is that, hey, Menjares was right on.  We should reconcile ourselves, our communities, and our world with God, and with one another.  I appreciated, as did my reconciliation friends, the mature and holistic approach to reconciliation made by menjares, and I would encourage it to become more common.  I apologize for the convoluted nature of this post, I had a lot of things going through my head and it was difficult to put it on paper coherently, hopefully something made sense.

Holy Spirit, Legalism, and Tupac

Short post today. Peter slept through chapel because he worked all night, so it’s just Tim. The speaker was an intern in the campus ministries office. I really enjoyed it. His goal was to talk about the Spirit in terms of practical life. Like in all of this series, I think the thing that was missing is discussion of discernment. However, his message was good, except that he went to college in Green Bay. Down with the Packers!

He talked about legalism in Christianity. He became a Christian when he was a freshman in college and encountered what we think is normal: Christianity’s behavioral expectations. He wondered why we are supposed to not drink or dance or do anything fun. In a British accent, he described many Christians’ Victorian ideas about sex. No, he wasn’t saying that we should sleep around or anything. I give him brownie points for speaking in an accent. It was amusing.

Anyway, he talked about how he grew up idolizing Tupac. If you don’t know who that is, then consider yourself blessed… When he became a Christian, he didn’t understand why people were telling him he wasn’t allowed to listen to that music anymore. He thought that was silly. Why did Christians have all these rules? So he didn’t comply. Then later in life he started to realize, “hey, this music isn’t influencing me in a good way and is getting in the way of my relationship with God.” So, he stopped listening to it. His point was that the Spirit led him to change his life. Legalism didn’t. Our good behavior should be a result of relationship, not rules.

I agree with him. Especially when we grow up in Christian communities, we know what we can’t do, but we never actually have to deal with the reasons why. When we break the rules, we figure it out and the Spirit guides us out. But I think a lot of people struggle with these things and rebel because they never have to deal with them in a real way. We just know they’re bad, even if they aren’t necessarily. Sadly, though, I also think lots of people take it too far the other way and do whatever they want because they don’t like the legalism. As much as I don’t like legalism, we ought to at least consider that those “rules” were made for a reason. Maybe they are too much, but it seems like lots of people discount everything just because they can.

That said, I do still think it’s important that we live guided by the Spirit, not necessarily by rules. But again, what about discretion. There is bound to be that person who thinks the Spirit is calling him to do something like sleep around, but is he really being called to that? I wouldn’t say so. So again my ultimate question is how do we learn to discern. Sometimes it’s easy, but other times it’s not. I have rarely heard anyone tackle that question with any success.

Good job, Intern Guy. And skol Vikings!

accents, obedience, murderous rampages...

                Peter:  My parents are missionaries.  I respect missionaries, because I believe in what they do, which is to bring God’s love to the peoples of the earth.  That is only a part of the reason I’m taking missions for the twenty-first century, a class taught by the man who was my parents’ professor when they were in seminary.  In that class and throughout my life I’ve heard of the ‘mission mandates’ of the bible, which is more than just the great commission.  Almost all the missionaries or mission books and articles I’ve read reference God’s covenant with Abraham as the beginning of missions.  Specifically they mention the fact that God blessed Abraham so that through him all nations may be blessed.  This, ‘they’ say is a clear reference to God’s love for all nations and peoples on earth.  Evidently that didn’t include the Amalekites.  One reason I love reading the Old Testament is because there are so many cool things there that don’t exist in the New Testament.  The other reason I love reading is because I find it a lot more difficult to reconcile with the God I know and love.  Sometimes impossible.

                The guest speaker today spoke of obedience to God; specifically I found intriguing his use of 1 Samuel 15.  If you simply look at Saul’s response to God and Samuel, yes, obedience, or disobedience is clearly a theme.  However, what about the whole story?  Stacey Foster kind of read through the story, and he spent a lot of time assessing where in the story Saul was disobedient, you know, when even though he killed the Amalekite men, women, and children, he ‘didn’t kill what was good.’  As if that wasn’t confusing enough, he mentioned two things about it.  First, he went on to relate ‘good things’ in the reference to ‘self-deceit.’  That is, he said that if God says to get rid of something, even if we think it is good, get rid of it.  He then mentioned things he used to think of as good, such as cigarettes or whatever, and that he was convinced to get rid of them in his life.  And I don’t know if that was a valid application of the passage.  To be sure, I would agree with doing what God says, but I also don’t see the relationship between Saul not killing all the Amalekites and their cattle with not smoking.  Secondly he did acknowledge the seeming genocide of the Amalekites, but I think by acknowledging it he gave himself less credence, because he essentially said that God said to destroy the Amalekites because He knew they were idolaters, and that Israel was prone to neighboring influences in that arena.  Somehow I don’t think killing somebody else because they might be a poor influence on you is justifiable through the bible, yet this is the connection he made.  I realize this wasn’t his point; however, it was the justification given for making his point through the text, and I don’t think it was valid.
                All that being said, he did make a few profound points that often get overlooked: first, that partial obedience is disobedience.  I think that often I fall into this trap myself, enough said.  This brings me to the next thing, which is that our actions do matter, and that disobedience to God is wrong.  That is, our actions matter.

                The one thing I wish he would have mentioned in relation to his points on obedience is that of conscience.  I think that is something taken for granted as well, or at the very least overlooked quite often.  We spend a lot of time talking about right and wrong, shoulds and shouldn’ts, and we oft mention the fact that the Bible is the measure of all of that.  Which it is.  However, I would say that beyond the law, beyond the Bible, beyond upbringing, the conscience does much to guide in what is right and wrong.  Paul talks about the conscience and its integral role in living life, and he also talks about the fact that God has ‘made himself evident,’ so that there is no excuse for those who do not serve God.  Albeit, he also mentions that the conscience can be corrupted, and it is often corrupted, which is what Stacey was describing when he was talking about self-deception.  But despite this fact I’ve heard far too many sources ignore the conscience and its role in our lives.

                Lastly I just want to go back to the text he used, and there are other texts similar to it.  How do I reconcile a God I believe is loving, and who blessed Israel so that all nations might be blessed, and then goes on to brutally kill off various nations who seem inconvenient?  Even if a nation is evil, it’s one thing to destroy nations, and I think it’s quite another to be a light unto the nations.  Even if God calls for the destruction of a nation, in that its culture and society are corrupt and need to change, does that imply that all members of the society must die?  I think that killing people off merely eliminates the hope that they will change.  And I can’t see my God, the God that I believe in calling for such things to be done, and the Bible clearly and blatantly has examples of this.  I’ve heard various explanations, and I’m having a rough time accepting them.  If anybody can reconcile a good God with a good God’s killing sprees, please enlighten me.  I cannot ignore the passages where God specifically orders His people to destroy other people, even children, but I also cannot take them into account satisfactorily with my current understanding of God and the world.

                I apologize for the disorganization of this post, I poorly constructed it.

Tim:  Apparently today was “Compassion Day” in chapel. For this special day, we had a guest speaker come from Compassion International. He showed a video clip that I really enjoyed. What stood out to me most was an boy saying, “I want to get a good job so that I can look after my grandparents.” In some ways, I think the wealthy miss more than the poor. If that kid were me or most people in my position, they would be hoping for a good job to make money, live comfortably, and raise a family. I don’t really have a problem with that, but I have a problem with it being our ultimate goal and prize. Getting a job in order to help others just strikes me as a lot more meaningful. Sometimes I’m jealous of poor people. Don’t get me wrong, I want to help deliver people from poverty. I just struggle with the fact that as people come out of poverty, it seems like we trade the values of the impoverished for the demands of the entitled.

May it be known, too, that when narrator started speaking, I pegged her as an Aussie. This makes me 3/3 on accent diagnoses in chapel! No one cares, I know. (Peter: it’s true, he’s impressive at identifying accents.)

Our speaker talked about obeying God. His passage for this was from Samuel, regarding when Saul didn’t completely obey God’s command to completely destroy the Amalekites. His point was essentially that we, like Saul, find ways to avoid complete obedience and incomplete obedience is just not sufficient. We do these four things: refuse to give up our favorite things, live in self-deception, play the blame game, and fail to understand the consequences of our sin. He spoke about how he had done these things in his own life. I would have to say that I have diagnosed at least a couple of them in my own life as strong forces holding me back from what God may be wanting me to do. I think the main thing he called us to do was to identify our “good things,” whether they are relationships, possessions, behaviors – and surrender those things to God. If we don’t kill our disobedience, it will kill us. I have to say, I enjoyed his message and thought that it reflected a lot of truths I have found in my own life.

There were three things, though, that I wonder about. The first two go together. He said we need to “get the man together before we can change the world.” He also said that partial obedience is disobedience. I know what he’s getting at and I agree that we out of our faithfulness to God will come change, and that we need to fully embrace obedience and faithfulness in order to be most effective. But with both of his statements, I wonder kind of the same thing. Can we wait until we’re “together” to try changing the world, and isn’t partial disobedience better than, say, complete disobedience? David didn’t completely obey, but God still calls him a man after His own heart. Granted, he could have done much more for God had he obeyed completely, but I still think he did better than if he never obeyed at all.

I guess I get a feeling sometimes that people think they can’t make a difference until they get their act together completely, which causes them to spend their lives trying to fix themselves and doing very little for the world around them. I have often felt that way myself, but sometimes working to change the world helps us “get ourselves together.” I’m certain he wasn’t suggesting we never do anything for God unless we’re perfect, but I feel like it’s an idea present in our society.

Peter: on this note, this is one of the problems of new churches: they feel like they can’t reach out until they’ve fixed all their internal and local concerns, but for some reason I don’t believe that God’s orders to go to ‘Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the ends of the earth,’ while progressional, is successional.

Tim:  Also, often in my own life, my question is not “am I going to obey God,” but “is this really what God wants me to do?” Am I simply denying it’s God because I don’t want to do it? Or could I be legitimately uncertain whether it is something God actually wants me to do? I’m often paralyzed by uncertainty and don’t even know if I’m being disobedient.  

lastly: we always encourage thoughtful commentaries, and Naomi Thorson did just that on her blog, which although i have deep reservations about a few of her comments, we believe it to be a very thought-provoking and sincere reaction to this chapel.  here it is: http://simplyshalom.blogspot.com/2009/10/condoning-genocide.html

Holy Spirit: An Oft Misunderstood Mystery

Tim:
Since it’s possible we have offended some with our critical comments, I would like to say that we sincerely appreciate, respect and admire our speakers, even if we are critical. We don’t mean to be insulting, though we realize it can come across that way. For that we apologize. Hopefully, in some ironic way, the fact that we are questioning reflects how serious we are about hearing God’s truth. Given our frequent cynicism, it is only fair that we acknowledge a message that hits us right where we need it.

Thus, I would like to congratulate Laurel on what I thought was an outstanding and much needed message. She spoke to us about the Holy Spirit. She said, and I agree, that the Spirit is probably the most difficult and misunderstood aspect of God for most people to grasp. This is certainly true in my own life, as everything about the Spirit seems kind of mysterious and uncertain. It’s not talked about enough. She touched on some things that I really appreciated, though I have a couple of questions.

First, she mentioned that many of us have lost touch with the fact that the Spirit is really alive and moving. I wholeheartedly agree, and have long pondered the sense I get in this part of the world that the Holy Spirit is only some sort of quasi-member of the Trinity. The whole concept of spirits is, I think, difficult for many people. She reminded us that he is equal with the other two parts of the Trinity, which I often subconsciously fail to think about.

Second, she mentioned John 14, which I have been mulling over recently, myself. Something about the Spirit in this passage just reaches out and grabs me. But who is this mysterious character who is supposed to guide, comfort, and counsel us? What exactly do we mean by “Spirit?” She touched on this, but I still failed to understand. I have never really been certain how to think of the very concept of “spirit.” Not physical, yet real and present. The harder I think the less I can wrap my mind around it. All I know is that it’s real. I really wish I understood better.

That brings me to my questions. Laurel described the Spirit as being “a person.” I’m not entirely clear on what she meant by “person.” I’m assuming she meant something along the lines of “a real, living entity, like any of us.” I guess I just leave still unsure how to think about the Spirit, not because I don’t have ways to describe him, but because so many of the concepts surrounding don’t easily fit together in my mental framework.

The other question I have concerns discernment. She mentioned a couple things that related to this. First, she said that the Spirit reveals the heart of God. I absolutely agree. Along with that, she mentioned that “with the Spirit, there is no scripture you can’t understand.” How, then, do we discern what is from the Spirit when two Christians, presumably both with the Spirit, understand the same scripture in opposite ways? Does that mean it hasn’t fully been revealed it to either of them? Does it mean that it has more than one possible interpretation? What are the implications of that? I think there are no certain answers to such questions, but they are important for us to ask.

She also said that many people ask how we can know He’s working in us. I often do, as well. We tend to sit around waiting for some “feeling” to come over us. But he is above our feelings. I agree, but for me, it can be hard to discern between the guidance of the Spirit and my own feelings. I really liked the last thing she mentioned: we can see him in lives and that through sharing our testimonies with one another, something I’m in favor of.

Thank you, Laurel, for speaking on something so few of us really understand, and for not shying away from the tough questions.

Peter:
After chapel I spoke to a friend about what he thought about chapel, and he mentioned that he was appreciative of the multiple ‘avenues’ of worship offered. Which I have to say I identified with. I am not a singing kind of person, but I am a listening type of person, and the strings and piano at the beginning of chapel was, for me, one of the best worship sessions that have been in chapel. That also caste a new light on the interpretive dancer they had on stage. I think interpretive dancing is weird, simply put. It makes me uncomfortable, and I don’t understand it. But I guess if I prefer to worship in listening to God’s beauty rather than singing, others can through watching… I just feel very uncomfortable with interpretive dance. It’s weird.

Chapel today was about the Holy Spirit, the final third of the trinity. Laurel mentioned, correctly I believe, that the Holy Spirit is the least-understood of the three parts of the trinity. It is the part I understand the least, but that’s in accordance with humans as well. It’s easy to understand somebody’s mind and person, but their spirit is hard to discern, and it’s easily veiled, and even easier to misinterpret. So too God’s spirit is difficult to understand. But I think Laurel brought up some good topics. Three in particular which stuck out to me: the manifestation of the spirit, the role of the spirit, and the effects of the spirit.

Probably the most appreciated point made was that of the manifestation of the spirit. She mentioned that the spirit is often misinterpreted as merely something that makes people go nuts and start talking in tongues, screaming and rolling around on the floor. She then went on to say that’s only one small way it, sorry, ‘he’ as she specifically made a point about, works in people. She said that when we have the spirit in us it shows. And hallelujah, amen, she made the point of the fruits of the spirit. As my friend mentioned after chapel, typically the fruits of the spirit are thought of as spiritual disciplines, things we strive for to become ‘better Christians,’ and he went on to say that it was refreshingly refreshing to view the fruits of the spirit as just that, the results of the spirit in somebody’s life.

A second thing mentioned was the nature of the spirit, or role of the spirit. Specifically she mentioned that the spirit is not a feeling, ‘he’ is not going to manipulate your emotions, but rather reveal truth. I don’t know whether or not that is the primary role of the spirit—revealing truth, but I have to say, I don’t believe God manipulates emotions, or changes feelings. I believe God is Love, take it or leave it.

Lastly, I again was frustrated at the blatant disregard for the good of this world. At the end of her talk, which was an excellent one, Laurel mentioned that when we get the Holy Spirit in our lives this world matters much less, that when dealing with the Spirit ‘he’ illuminates the power beyond ourselves which belittles our world. The Holy Spirit does nothing of the kind. If anything, the Spirit, and God make this world more significant than ever. I know she referenced pain and struggle frequently and how the Spirit relates to alleviating those, but pain and suffering aren’t what this world is about, and it’s frustrating for me to keep hearing that it is. The way I can explain it best is to let somebody else explain it:

“Ye can call it the Valley of the Shadow of Life. And yet to those who stay here it will have been Heaven from the first. And ye can call those sad streets in the town yonder the Valley of the Shadow of Death: but to those who remain there they will have been Hell even from the beginning.” (67)

This quotation is from CS Lewis’ book The Great Divorce. I would apply this passage to our world, in that those who are saved see heaven from the first; they see God’s good in this world. And to be honest I think Laurel, despite what she said at the end of her talk would agree with me. It seems obvious to me that Laurel has a great joy and love for this world and its inhabitants, as God’s creation. I just wish the pain and suffering wouldn’t always define our world. It’s merely the broken part of a good, God-breathed creation.

The Son: Jesus and Social Justice...and a Hint of Social Gospel?

Today Tanden spoke and we had the opportunity to meet with him afterwards. Peter talked with him for a good while and Tim showed up for the tail end of it. It is our hope that this will lead to further discussion on these important questions and issues. We also spoke about this blog, and we hope it will become a tool for constructive and respectful dialog. If you get a chance to read this, Tanden, we intend any apparent criticisms not as condemnations, but as respectful reflections of our questions and concerns as we wrestle with these matters.

We apologize for the extra length, but we feel it’s slightly justified since we got to talk in person to Tanden, so it goes a little beyond simply chapel. This entry will be in three parts: Peter’s response to chapel before talking to Tanden, Peter’s response to the conversation with Tanden, and Tim’s response to both (mostly chapel) after talking to Tanden.

Peter on Chapel:
Tanden spoke today, supposedly, on the Son. That is, it was supposed to be about the son third of the trinity, which he proceeded not to do. Which is fine, I just get tired of people not talking about what they are supposedly talking about. He set up his talk by framing a ‘central question’ which was “what does Jesus say to those whose backs are against the [proverbial] wall?” He proceeded to then answer the question ‘what does Jesus say to those whose backs are not against the said proverbial wall?’ He kept reiterating the phrase: “you have to enter into a life of pain.” The general message seemingly was that since Jesus decided to come to earth as an underprivileged person, so too should we acknowledge that. Jesus brings a Christianity of pain was one of the last phrases he uttered.

While this was all well and good, ok so not wholly coherent as far as I could tell, it did raise three questions for me: what did what seemed like the social gospel have to do with the trinity, specifically the Son? What in the world did he mean when he said “you must enter into a life of pain and acknowledge who you really are.”? And lastly, what exactly is it that Jesus says to those with their backs against the proverbial wall?

Peter on the Conversation:
Well, I actually was stumped by these and other minor questions floating around in my head, so I went up after chapel and asked to speak with this Tanden person. We had a real heart-to-heart, and I got to pick his mind for a while. I hope I didn’t come across as an inquisitor of sorts, but I may have asked a lot of questions. Like a lot. So I asked how this talk had anything to do with the trinity. His answer was interesting. He said that he viewed Jesus as the embodiment of the trinity on earth. Which seemed to fall, in my mind at least, into one of the three ‘heretical’ views of the trinity Ross outlined at the start of this whole thing. Of course, I agree with Tanden’s view just as much as I did with Ross’s. I hold to my original thoughts on the matter.

Regardless, Tanden explained what he didn’t in chapel, which was that Jesus reached out to and indeed was a member of the uderprivilaged class, which he equated with the oppressed class, which he also seemed to equate with those whose backs are against the wall, three similar yet nuanced statements which weren’t clearly defined. But since Jesus identified as such a person we too should realize that that is how God/the trinity would emphasize life: as painful. Tanden spent a lot of time emphasizing the pain in the world, which I think was great, because let’s face it, pain is a reality.

But his driving point was that ‘we,’ that is the perceived uppermiddleclasswhitefolk, have a ‘gospel of privilege’ which is disconnected from the pain in this world, both internal and external to ‘ourselves.’ He said that we should ‘enter into pain’ the way Jesus did by entering the world as a peon. Trying to pin down this guy is difficult though. Question after clarifying question simply seemed to bring more questions. Maybe it’s just a love of questions on my part, but the main point of difference I seemed to be getting the feeling of, although I may just have misinterpreted his words (not unheard of by me), was that Tanden seemed intent on pain, on the epic struggle of the oppressed, and all that. I like that in somebody; to serve and love ‘the least of these’ is in my opinion too often overlooked.

But where I feel like we differ is that I cannot fit into his worldview. He believes the gospel to be a message of God reconciling the oppressed to ‘shalom’, whereas I view the gospel as a message of love with reconciliation merely the consequence and only one aspect of said love. He seemed all too focused on the oppressed versus the oppressors, on the pain in this life. To be sure, there are far too many good examples in history of this, as my compatriot Tim said during our conversation. However I cannot limit my focus to such a small portion of God’s creation, or such a small portion of our lives. He made the point that we all have pain, and ‘our’ gospel doesn’t deal with said pain. As true as that may seem, the gospel has so much more than a message to the pained. It has a universal message, a message of love which begets the reconciliation, not of reconciliation that begets love. So I think Tanden was right on, we do need to realize this world has the broken, to mention just briefly to remember in your prayers the half a million flood victims in the Philippines, and such pain needs not only be acknowledged, but also addressed; but I cannot accept a picture of reality so limited, so focused as to lose sight of the rest of what God does and says.

Tim:
Today was a challenge for me. I have struggled with some of our speaker’s messages in the past. However, I tried to have an open mind and a good attitude. I will readily admit that once I feel a certain way, I tend to jump on anything that supports my feelings (I’m guessing most people, if they’re honest with themselves, would admit the same thing). In this case, it isn’t because I think it is wrong. It is precisely because I agree with his heart so profoundly. It is hard to see a message I care so deeply about come across in a way that is easily misunderstood.

He was talking about the Son, as this is a series about the Trinity. I will confess, though (and I know this was not the intent), that it came across to me more like it was using the Son to discuss social justice. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m totally in favor of social justice, and I think the Son is as well. My heart aches for those less fortunate and the plight of the poor and needy stirs up a passion in my soul. Many times it has brought me to tears. I know the same is true of our speaker. However, in this case I felt that those of us who grew up in middle-class Christianity were being characterized as “hotel-dwellers” – people are people who live their lives blissfully unaware and unconcerned about the troubles that plague those who are lower in the power structure than we are.

He was suggesting today that we think about how Jesus would react to those with their backs against the wall. I have no problem with this and I think it is something many people forget about. But like I said above, it came across to me as if to say that no one there had given the less fortunate a second thought. To anyone who doesn’t know me, I am simply a white, middle-class face in a sea of such people. I’ll admit there have been aspects of “hotel-dwelling” in my life. But that’s not all I am, nor is it all I care about. The more I build relationships, the more I find that all my neighbors are in a place a lot like mine. I struggle with anyone around me being thought of as “hotel-dwellers,” because I know that even though I may look like one and often act like one, that is not where my heart is. How then can I assume that those around me are in a different place than I am?

I grew up in the midst of poverty, too. I’ve known people who have been stabbed in drunken knife fights. I know people who have been the victims of domestic abuse. I have close friends who have experienced suicides in their families. I know people who have grown up with broken homes, with only one parent. I know people who have lost their jobs, or who have been depressed. When my own brother was in high school his best friend died in his arms (Sorry, Steve, if I’m not allowed to share that). As I write, the Philippines, my other “home,” is suffering massively as a city of over 15 million finds itself under five feet of water. Almost half a million people have lost their homes, and most of those may never recover. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33053600/ns/weather if you’re curious).

I don’t say these things to suggest that I have lived a difficult life and deserve sympathy. I have lived a tremendously blessed life for which I will never be as grateful as I should. I say these things simply to say that I am familiar with suffering, despite my socio-political position. Pain breaks my heart, too. And I don’t know a single person who has lived a life free of suffering, no matter where we are in the political and social structures. We at Bethel often ignore suffering around us. But ironically, we too, are the suffering. And the members of our community, too, need God’s love and encouragement.

I don’t disagree with the heart of this message. On the contrary, this is a passion in my own heart. I agree with the call to embrace those who are suffering. I agree that Jesus calls us to do this, and this type of love is the heart of the Christian message. We, as the church, are not called to condemn but to be a faithful blessing to the nations of the world. Jesus was not primarily a social reformer. Like Peter said, I believe he is much, much more than that, though social justice is an inextricable part of the Kingdom. He was a faithful and obedient servant of his Father. All else is contingent on this. As he said:

“'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" – Matthew 22:37-40.

So no matter our class, gender, race, or experience, I suggest we look at those around us who have also fallen short. Let’s join with each other. Together as God’s children, let’s be faithful to His commands to bless the nations; to love our neighbors; and act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with Him. Through our faithfulness in this, God’s Kingdom – with its justice, love, and mercy - will take its place in the world.

“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these…” – John 14:12

The Governor's Spouse

First of all, can we just say that this whole pillow fight thing that replaced cram the car for homecoming this year was just dumb? Because it was. Moving along…

Peter:

I got to see the governor!  Governor Pawlenty was at Bethel today, and was in chapel… as was his wife, a bethel graduate who is the bethel alumnus of the year.  She was also the featured speaker.  Which would have been awesome had they let her speak.  I checked the time while they were still introducing her, and it was ten forty five.  Which means that there were only fifteen minutes of chapel left, and we still hadn’t heard from Mary Pawlenty.  Which is why I don’t really have much to say… that and she didn’t say much with the time she had.  At least she told us that we’d heard what she said countless times before she repeated it, unlike many chapel speakers who think they’re innovative by telling us to trust God, or by telling us God loves us, or whatever redundant message they happen to be espousing.  Mary’s message was that we should trust God with our future, and that God will guide us through our ‘authentic relationship’ with him, and so we should walk with God however long we happen.  She used no biblical texts, but she didn’t have to mostly because she was telling us things that we’ve been told countless times before.

The most intriguing thing she said was that she made a statement ‘it’s about our life of service’ in reference to a quotation from Rick Warren she had minutes prior spoken: ‘it’s not about us.’  I guess my question would be how in the world does that make sense?  First of all ‘it’ is wholly ambiguous.  What’s not about us, and how is ‘it’ about our life of service, and how does that fit into the context of her talk about our trust and walk with God?  Now I’ve heard it said, and it makes fairly plain sense the statement: ‘it’s not about us, it’s about God.’  But never had I heard the claim that ‘it’s not about us; it’s about our life of service.’  Now to be fair, Rick Warren goes on to say it’s about God using us for His purposes, so in the sense that our life of service is God using us for His purposes, it is actually about our life of service.  Maybe I just answered my own question, maybe not.  But if anybody can tell me what the proverbial ‘it’ is, and why ‘it’ is always about something, and maybe even if I’m conceited by thinking that ‘it’ could very well be about us.  I mean, we were created by an almighty God, and we are infinitely less than said God, but did God create me so that He could feel loved or so that I could feel loved?  Or none of the above.  In fact, God’s creation has always kind of stumped me.  Why?  And don’t give me the glory of God crap, I want a reason for the fact that six and a half billion of us are wandering this little planet of ours.  Were we created to judge the angels?  Were we created because God is a creative God and we just happened to be the fallout of His creativeness?  Were we created for the advancement God’s kingdom, created as soldiers for His army?  Are we created to care for the creation, in which case what’s the point of creation?  It’s long been an intriguing question for me.

Tim:

I came within three feet of Governor Pawlenty today. It was awesome because first of all, he’s awesome and second, his name is Tim. He was here because his wife spoke. She spoke last year and was great. She is a Bethel graduate. Today was homecoming chapel, so we got to honor the athletes for their greatness. I’m not going to say I’m a huge fan of this, partly because I question whether the priority of the sports teams and athletes is really on sharing the gospel. Sometimes I think the football players are playing football because, well, they want to play football. When are we going to have a chapel honoring the good students who work hard and go to class? Just a thought…

            Anyway, I was very excited to hear Mary Pawlenty. Like Peter said, it was somewhat disappointing that chapel was basically over by the time she talked. It makes sense, because it was a chapel honoring her as alumnus of the year, not as a guest speaker. I didn’t realize that going in, but it was still good to hear her. She told us about her path to where she is, saying essentially that she goes through life with “open hands.” I liked hearing that, even though I’ve heard it before.    Somehow, when she says it, I hear it more. Maybe because she readily acknowledged that she had no idea what she was doing when she was my age, and neither do I.

            Regarding what “it” is, I figured it was just life. Our lives aren’t about us. I think that’s what she was trying to say. Maybe our reason for existence is to somehow be an embodiment of God’s love. Maybe that’s all and maybe that’s enough. I don’t know if that’s orthodox or not, but I can’t imagine it’s a too terrible a thought.

            I don’t really have that much to say about today, otherwise. My favorite part of the whole chapel was when she told us that when her husband told her he was considering running for governor, she laughed at him. She was sure he’d lose and they’d get to return to regular life. Now, he’s been the governor for like seven years. And he’s the best ever. After chapel, I stood and waited for them to walk out so that I could say I saw him in person. He passed within in a couple feet of me. This is my new claim to fame.