Think It Through

Have you ever embellished a story when you told it? You add a little something here to make it sound better, or take out something so you don’t look so bad. I know I have. Doesn’t make it right, but we have all done it. Why? Mainly because we are worried about what others think when we are telling the story. We add to it to look braver, smarter, or better in some way. We take away so we don’t look as bad, or so we look humble. We do it with a purpose. Typically a selfish purpose.

Now admitting that everyone does this in one fashion or another, why do you think the writers of the Bible included what they did? Why would they not leave some of it out or add to it? Christianity is completely different from any other religion in this sense. By the time the other leaders died in other religions they were seen as great men in their faiths and were pretty successful. Muhammad died in the arms of his wife, and was brought a faith that solidified the Arabic community. He was in his 60’s when he died. Buddha was in his 80’s and was seen as a great man who brought enlightenment to many people. He died surrounded by his followers who loved him deeply. When their followers write about them, it is in reverence and their holy books reflect how they were holy and how others saw them in this fashion.

Compare that with Christianity. Jesus was considered by the Jewish leaders, and He was a Jew, as a blasphemer. They said his powers came from Satan, and they killed Him at the ripe age of 33. None of His followers stayed by His side and He was not surrounded by loved ones at His death, but instead people hurling insults at Him. By all worldly standards His earthly ministry at His death was a failure, as He was utterly alone on that cross. If you were to write about Jesus, and you were one of the apostles, would you write it this way? Would you want in there that you ran away naked, or that you denied Christ three times? No way. You would leave that out, right? What would it hurt to leave that out of the story? If it was up to you to write, wouldn’t you make yourself look a little better? You might say that you had no choice but to leave because the soldiers kept you away, instead of admitting you were hiding afraid for your life while Jesus faced the mob alone.

Do you see the difference? Jesus is so much different in every way, as in how they were presented in their core faith writings. It means that they were very careful to include all the truth, even at the embarrassment of themselves, because it was about Christ and not about them. They were not worried about what others thought, but instead of about what Christ thought.

When you start to think through the faiths, you will see some other differences, as how they present themselves in their faith books. There are many other ways that they are different as well. All faiths are not the same. Christianity is definitely different in just about every way then all the other faiths out there. They are not all basically the same and they certainly do not promise the same things and they do not give the same path to attain eternal life. Christianity is set apart.

More to come. . .

Culture is Changing!

I was talking with a family member the other day and while we were discussing some business opportunities, she mentioned something that really hit me. She said that when it comes to doing business the culture is changing. People are not going to stores in person as much anymore and instead shopping online. It is hard to have a “Mom & Pop” shop today, because you compete with direct sellers from the internet, and the fact that people just do not really go out to shop anymore. It is just easier to sit in the comfort of your home without the worry of salesmen/women bothering you, not having to worry about packing the kids up or going out in bad weather, and you save the gas that it would take to drive there.

It all made sense to me, as my wife and I shop online much of the time, for the very reasons just mentioned. But then I started to think about the church culture and how that is being reflected in today’s Christian life. Now you can listen to sermons live via the internet from the comfort of your own home or you can just listen later. You can chat via text, IM and Facebook with your friends without ever seeing them in person. You can play video games on the internet with people all over the world from the comfort of your own home just as easily as you can attend an online church. The culture has certainly changed.

George Barna in his research has stated that if the current trends continue in the direction they are then the church is going to lose nearly half of its life within the next 15 years. This is astonishing. He will say a lot of it is because people have been and are being hurt by the church today in a variety of ways. I think, though, that we can certainly add that the culture is changing in this form as well. In this case it is not for the betterment of the church or the Christian life, because we are designed for community. Not just IM, text and email community, but face to face community. There is something much more intimate when you are together with the church family instead of hiding behind a computer screen, and I think we are losing this aspect of our church life.

There is a danger of too much individualization, and this leads to less and less community. The question becomes how do we manage the two, as there are certainly great aspects of the internet age and what it has allowed us to do, but we don’t want to make this gift a curse by losing the body of Christ, as we are called the body?

We need to find ways to build the body through discipleship and regular interaction within the body of Christ. How do we do this in today’s changing culture? This is also a challenge because we cannot just tell people to turn their computers off, because they won’t. There needs to be some new creativity in bringing the Church community together and not just on Sunday. We need each other, yet we are isolating ourselves from each other.

Ephesians 1:18, “He is also the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He might come to have first place in everything.”

1 Corinthians 12:13-14, “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. So the body is not one part but many.”

Hope in Nothing?

Job 27:8, “For what hope does the godless man have when he is cut off, when God takes away his life?”

Some of you reading will be able to do this easily as you have kids and others will not, but try to put yourself in this situation for a moment. You’re coming home with your spouse on a snowy afternoon and see that your driveway is fairly covered with snow. Enough that you know if you do not shovel it now it will be nearly impossible to get out of the driveway.

You tell your spouse that you will get out and shovel the drive, and they are to move the car in the road until it is clear. Your spouse tells you to watch the children, as they are already jumping out of the car, as it is hard to contain a six year old and an 18 month old when they see snow and they are home. You nod and turn to go and get the shovel, but that moment, that one moment you turn towards the door and take your eyes off your child the unthinkable happens. In that brief moment you hear a noise no parent ever wants to hear; a shrill scream that sends a shock up your spine that is indescribable.

Turning quickly toward the shriek, you find that your eighteen month old child is now underneath the tire of the car. She has stopped making any noise and is motionless. Your adrenaline kicks in now and you panic, yelling for your spouse to back-up and you jump down to your knees and try to revive your child while screaming for your spouse to call 911. Reaching the hospital you are told that there is nothing the doctors could have done, and that your beloved daughter is no longer alive. You just lost your youngest child by a freak accident, and you may never be able to forgive yourself or your spouse.

Before you think that this is a made-up story to elicit emotion to make my point shortly, you would be sadly mistaken. The story is very real and happened to a family not too long ago. This is a story that could cause anyone to question the very existence of God. Why would He allow such an innocent child to die so early? When in fact the question should be asked, is how could anyone make it through such a tragedy if there was not a God in Heaven that cared about His creation? What hope would there be? If there is no God then there is hope in nothing, but if there is a God then there is a hope that one day you will see your daughter again. Psalm 25:1 says, “LORD, I turn my hope to You.” At this time in a family’s life, this is all one can do, as 97% of families that have a child who dies by accident like this end up in divorce. Unless there is hope that there is someplace better then it is all worthless, “If we have placed our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone” (1 Cor. 15:19).

It is easy to see logically how the atheist can give no hope to such a family. Seriously, what do they say that can be comforting at all, except “I am sorry.” Absolutely nothing, because they don’t think there is anything after this life. The question then is what do the other religions give as hope for in such an occurrence? Not much. Hindus will give them the hope that they can be reincarnated so they can come back to this sinful planet and try it all over again. I guess they should be happy that they do not remember all the turmoil and heartache that they felt the first or tenth time around. They can only hope that they move to enlightenment, but again there are different views as to what it takes to attain that state. That does not sound very hopeful to a family that just had a great loss.

You can take this for every religion, except Christianity because we see that Jesus came and gave us this hope. He defeated death and resurrected for us, giving us a hope for something much better. If there is something better then there is hope for a tragedy in this temporal time. That parent can have hope if one day they know they will see their daughter again in Heaven. Before anyone asks about children in heaven, read my answer on a previous blog (http://aleris.blogspot.com/2008/09/all-babies-go-to-heaven.html). 1 Peter 1:3-4 tells us, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, uncorrupted, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.”

How did God use this tragedy for good? Glad you asked. One of the parents went on to talk about how God used this very heavy tragedy to bring them closer to Jesus and used it to bring many of their neighbors to salvation through Jesus. Do they mourn for her? Yes, of course, but they also have hope that they will see her again and are so thankful that God can cause some good out of this horrible tragedy. In the end they say, “. . . Christ Jesus, our hope:” (1 Tim. 1:1).

The challenge is can we say the same as they did? “LORD, I turn my hope to You” (Psalm 25:1).

Psalm 147:11, “The LORD values those who fear Him, those who put their hope in His faithful love.”

Morality: Evolved or Created?

“All sects are different, because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same, because it comes from God.” – Voltaire

“Morality is herd instinct in the individual.” – Friedrich Nietzshe

“What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like, and immorality is what they dislike.” – Alfred North Whitehead

If you watch a debate with Christopher Hitchens involved, you will see an interesting argument that surrounds the issue of morality, and ethics in general. Mr. Hitchens, an Atheist, will say that he does not need God to know what is good and to do good. He states that he can just as easily send a check to a poverty stricken area, just as much as any religious person. He would say that he can feel empathy for those hurting, just like Christians. If he can figure this out on his own without religion, then why do we need a God for our moral standard?

In one respect Mr. Hitchens is right, that a committed Atheist can do good acts just as much as a religious person. An Atheist can also lead a “good” life just as any Christian could, and act just as nice as any Wiccan or Muslim. The goal of this post is not to prove the idea of a Christian God, but to demonstrate in some instances that to have any consistent morality within society it presupposes a God or Intelligent Designer.

One could spend an entire book on the subject of morality in general, and many have, but since this is a blog, it needs to remain more concise and just impose some thoughts as to why there has to be a God for morality to even exist. Can there be any sustaining morals that are standard for every society if there is no God? If there are, how do we go about figuring out what those are?

C.S. Lewis on his journey to become a Christian dealt with this from one direction. One of his biggest struggles was the issue of evil and how can an all Good God allow evil and suffering in the world. The more he pondered this, the more he started to wonder how he knew something was evil at all. If there was no ultimate ideal of good then how can one know there is evil? Don’t read this argument too fast, and take time to let it sit in, because it is very deep, though only a few sentences long.

Every culture does not like to have their stuff stolen, and feel that it is a “bad” thing to have happen. Yes, I know there are cultures out there that have a “share” mentality, in that if it is out in the open within the tribe then it is the tribes as a whole and anyone can take it. But. . .if someone outside the tribe were to do this then it would be seen as an unjust act by the clan. Again, they see stealing as an act of evil done against them. Even cannibalistic societies view the murder of their own tribes as an evil and will seek revenge against the other tribe. These are just two examples of “evils” that can be seen across cultures around our world. There are many more when taken to their core meanings.

Going back to C.S. Lewis, how do all these societies know that having something stolen from them is evil? How do we know it? You can try to say that we were taught it, but it started somewhere and again this crosses all cultures, so it is not just some random rule brought about by a majority vote somewhere and imposed on society. No, we naturally do not like things being stolen from us. Just look at a child and how fast they learn the phrase “mine!” They were not taught that, as most parents teach the opposite, to share their things. Where did the natural concept of “mine” come from? The child feels there is an evil committed, because someone took something from them without their permission, which is the basic definition of stealing. How does the immaterial emotion evolve? Was there a time in history where there were no emotions like this? History does not seem to think so, as there have been wars and turmoil over such things as far back as we can trace human history, no matter where you draw your sources.

These moral laws seem to be natural and ingrained in us from our beginning. If they are ingrained or natural, and we naturally make these moral standard arguments, then maybe there is within us a natural inclination toward the ultimate good. An infinite Good that we base these ideals on whether we want to admit it or not. Maybe think of it like this: You walk into someone’s house and you see this 52” flat screen TV hanging on the wall. You say, “That is the biggest TV I have ever seen.” Why did you make the statement? You based it on other TV’s that you have seen. You based it off an ideal of a TV that was in your mind. And saying “that you have seen” clarifies that there could be bigger out there, but you have not seen it yet. There could be some TV out there even bigger and not just based on what is seen before you.

Now take it a step further and while you were there someone else came in and started to unhook the TV and remove it off the wall. They tell you that they are going to take it because in their culture stealing is alright. What do you say? Okay, since that is your culture, then I cannot judge you and you can take the TV. No way, you call the police or take the matter into your own hands, because you know that stealing is wrong. I bet many of you even reading the part of the sentence, “because in their culture stealing is alright,” even had a hard time computing it. It just does not read right and immediately red flags go up in your head. Why, if morals are culture based? Again, you can’t say because it is ingrained in you, as I just go back to the two year old that knows intrinsically about stealing without being taught. I will even argue that a nine month old realizes this when you try to take their favorite toy. They will cry, making grunting noises and even shake, because somehow they are mad that something was taken from them that is theirs. How?

The only way any of the above makes sense is if it was engrained or designed into our programming. There is no evolution of this moral, as we see it from the beginning of recorded history, and those that purport evolution know that there is a lot of time needed for things to evolve. There has not been enough time within human history for this type of evolution. It also doesn’t answer why it evolved into everyone knowing some things are wrong, as stealing and murder. Other emotions are demonstrated in people, as what people enjoy as hobbies or the type of personality they attract to. There are differences, but we see within morality there appears to be some set principles that cross all cultures.

I leave you with this to ponder, and it made me think more on this as well. If morals are society based and not drawn from an infinite good, then why is slavery not still around? Every culture had slaves, from England to America, from Africa to South America. It was so common that there was basically no serious debate about it for many years and then we see people like Mr. Wilberforce start to raise questions about its moral implication on the slaves. Why? He would have been brought up in a society that accepts it, taught that it was okay and that it was even very economic for the country he grew up in at the time. What made him change? Wasn’t culture or the majority changing, as it took him over twenty years to finally get the amendment passed. There had to be some set standard to compare it to, and in this case it was the God of the Bible who says to love your neighbor as yourself, and that we were all created by God deserving of the same rights as everyone else.

What if one day the majority says that it is now okay for slavery again, and it doesn’t matter what race they choose? Would those that accept culture, majority or societal morals then complain? How can you if it is what they choose? What are you deriving your concept from? You have preconceived ideas of good, but you could not trust those if there is no Infinite on which to base it. You are stuck within your own rules of majority vote. Seems to be a true slippery slope belief system because in the end it allows for everything, because without a set standard there is nothing in the end that one can truly say is wrong or right, but only what man/woman decides. Now, that is a scary thought, because we have seen what man does when they attain too much power and set the standard.

“There are two sorts of hypocrites; ones that are deceived with their outward morality and external religion; and the other are those that are deceived with false discoveries and elevation; and men's own righteousness, and talk much of free grace; but at the same time make righteousness of their discoveries, and of their humiliation, and exalt themselves to heaven with them.” – Jonathan Edwards