commend: present as suitable for approval or acceptance; recommend.

So God is not just demonstrating love, He is presenting it to us and giving His approval, His acceptance.

Then why is it we demand from others what we have been forgiven of?

Why isn’t that same love given to others?

Why is it we disapprove what God approves?

Why is it we find people unacceptable?

Because you are still in charge of your life.

How we skirt around this with our work to advance the Kingdom of God, when what will really bring the advancement is the seed going into the ground and dying. That is the condition for much fruit.

Are we like the church in Revelation? Toiling for God? Only to have missed the point?

I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
Revelation 2

Sounds like this church in Ephesus knew how to work for God. Often we equate our work for God as loving Him; that’s why we do it, right? Yet, we see something here that says otherwise. We can serve in our churches, proclaim righteousness in our nation, resist all things ungodly, endure tumultuous situations and remain strong for His glory… and not love Him? What? All this that we have done for the Lord and if I don’t repent and return to Him he will remove the lampstand? How can this be?

There are many worthy causes out there for us to be involved with. Our intention is to proclaim God’s righteousness in every arena. If we are not careful, that “work” can be our main focus. It can even become an idol. And we can be so busy with it that we don’t hear the still small voice. Whatever your work is, could you step away from it? Can you be interrupted? Are you building for God and ignoring your neighbor? Do you lavishly spend on yourself because God is blessing you, knowing the needs around you of people going without?

Seems like the Priest and the Levite were very busy getting to their appointments and ignored the wounded man on the side of the road. And Jesus uses this example as what displays the second greatest commandment: love your neighbor as yourself.

Interesting. God knows what’s in us. And He knows that we love ourselves and take very good care of ourselves. That is why he said love others … take care of others … the way you take care of yourself.

When we practice this God rewards us with joy. And the more you give to others, the more joy you have. We do things backwards. From the beginning of time man has done things his own way, being wise in his own eyes. If we would only, personally and corporately, see the 2 greatest commandments for what they are, and give up our needs, desires, opinions… ourselves… for the sake of others, we will be truly advancing the Kingdom.

When you love someone who is “yet a sinner”, you are commending God’s love to them because you are commending your love for them. This is what will bring them to Christ. That undeserving love. Christ in you, the hope of glory. And what is that hope? While you were yet sinners, Christ died for you. You are showing them what God is like.

I think we have some repenting to do.

From all this, one might gather that I would have resonated with the ‘anti-Church’ / ‘anti-organized religion’ spiel that Anne Rice unleashed recently.  To a degree, and in a way, yes.  However, if you read my reply to her you will see that there is a serious point of departure between our positions.  Namely, Ms. Rice is unable to distinguish between the ‘organizational Church’ and the ‘Organic Church.’

Put simply, there is no good deed done by any Christian anywhere or at any time that is not done by the Church, for the straight forward reason that the Church is composed of people who are, quite literally and in reality, the Body of Christ.  This is an organic relationship.  The Christian Scriptures are abundantly clear that in a very real sense, Jesus is still incarnate on the earth through the people, who are his members.  When a Christian helps a poor person- it is Christ doing it, hence, it is the Church doing it.  If a Christian comforts a grieving person, it is Christ doing it- therefore it is the Church doing it.

This is a heretical way of thinking for people who do not take the Scriptures at their word.  I outlined this reality in the previous posts, but I did not give in them this vivid piece of Scripture from 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 which relies on all this really being the case:

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?  Shall I then unite them with a prostitute?  Never!  Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body?  For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”  But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

For now I shall leave aside the teaching on sexuality provided by this text, but Ms. Rice and those who think like her should ponder whether or not this text allows people to participate in ‘creative’ sexual expressions and think that this has no bearing on membership in Christ, whom she still adheres to.

It is the Church Organic that is described in the Scriptures, and it is the Church Organic which will see the New Earth.

The same cannot be said of the Church Organizational, however.

According to the book of Hebrews, when Christ took his place as priest in heaven, the functions of the priesthood here on earth was abolished.  (See for eg, Heb 10:11-18).  It is difficult to imagine there still being a need on the other side of the veil for denominational presidents, pastors, human care committees, and the like.  The Church Organizational is not an eternal entity.  The people who compose the Church- the Church organic- are the ones that will live forever.

Unfortunately, it is a habit of the human creature to endlessly create bureaucracies, committees, and hierarchies.  “Give us a King to rule over us like all the other nations!” we constantly cry out.  “We can do so much more if we combine our resources nationally,” we argue.  And someone has got to administer those resources, no?  And someone has to monitor the one administering those resources.  And someone has got to appoint both of those guys.  And then one must be concerned that the resources are distributed fairly- but when you add layer upon layer of decision makers it becomes pragmatically impossible to know all that is needed to make good and proper decisions in all circumstances.  Policies need to be drawn up- and someone has to draw them up.  A father might tell one son that he can go across the street but forbids the other son.  The latter protests- but the father knows that this one never looks both ways.  In a bureaucracy, you could never get away with this sort of case by case analysis.  The people must be homogenized.

And homogenization requires some measure of grinding, processing, boiling, and trampling upon the people.

The Church Organizational has a bad rap not because ‘organized religion’ is bad but because organized anything tends to grind people up and spit them out.   (It is one of those tragic and sad ironies that many of the same people who decry the Church Organizational are happy enough to turn people over to government bureaucracies.  *sigh* )

It can be argued, and will be argued, that there is no way to avoid some kind of organization.  Let it be granted.  But let us not be fooled into thinking that this pragmatic reality comes with some sort of holy warrant.  Let us never forget that however we choose to organize ourselves as Christians, it is only we Christians that will occupy paradise.  The organization itself will be utterly forgotten.   Only the organs will remain, and the Body in whom they reside.

Christians must be constantly aware of the fact that the form of a thing isn’t neutral.   The form itself will have consequences.  The form may not be unbiblical- but the consequences might be.  Until Christ returns and puts things to rights, thinking carefully about the forms and monitoring carefully the consequences will be… or should be, at any rate… part of the Christian experience.

We should be careful not to go beyond what is written (1 Cor 4:6) when contemplating how, when, and why we should ‘organize.’  Not every conceivable structure has the same Scriptural weight.  When we see ‘organization’ in the Scriptures we should ask ourselves:  “Is this here because it reflects some kind of divine order of things or were the early Christians merely behaving pragmatically?”

As a case in point, consider Acts 6.  In this account, we see the apostles already struggling with the problems of bureacracies- the Hebraic Jews were apparently being favored over the Grecian Jews.  They solved this problem on the fly by appointing a committee of men to deal with the issue.  What does this teach?  Does it teach that every local congregation should have a committee of men to make sure that Jewish widows get their fair share?  What if a congregation doesn’t have Jewish widows?  “Oh, it’s the principle, you fool!” you say.  Indeed it is, but not that we should argue that Scripture orders us to have a committee to distribute food, but that rather we can change up our organization on the fly as the situation warrants it.

On the same basis, we may determine that our organizational structure itself is causing problems.

It is my contention that it is.  It’s causing big problems.  Not many of the sort that many ‘anti-organized religion’ think, but big problems nonetheless.  Any objective evaluation shows that the transmission of the Christian faith is in shambles in America and elsewhere.

A pastor in Nevada chastises me, “The little old ladies in our congregation are extraordinary in their faithfulness.  They do everything in the church.  They run the committees, their generosity pays the bills, they tend to the facilities.  My congregation is 95% filled with these little old ladies who are lions in the faith.”

No doubt, they are the lions in the faith.  Yet in under 10 years they will all be dead from simple old age.  10 years from now, when they have all passed to be with Jesus in his glory, and there are just 10 people left in the congregation, might we stop to wonder if the reason for this is not because the church is being faithful to its principles, but because it is not?

How can we call it faithful if the youngest person in the congregation is 40 years old?  Does that really sound consistent with the Scriptural vision for believers? Seriously?

It may seem like I have slipped into a digression, but it is not the case.  The Church Organizational is like any Entity Organizational.  If it gets too large, it is too slow to adapt to new threats and challenges and identify new opportunities.  True, with a large size comes more resources to deploy in regards to the threats and opportunities they do recognize, but let us remember that in the Church Organic we aren’t looking to pad the bottom line.  We want as many people who were on the gentle road to destruction to be rescued, redeemed, and saved.

If the Church Organizational is actually harming the Church Organic, it is clear that something must be changed.  Sacred Cows are for Hindus, not Christians.  Organizations cannot love.  Only people can.  But people not only delegate their ‘love’ to the organizations, the organizations ask them to!  And since organizations cannot love, and the people have delegated their love to this committee or that one, isn’t it obvious that the result will be that we will be perceived as unloving?  And who wants to be involved in that?

You can read my article online here.

You can forward it along in pdf, here.

You can read my article where it is found in the whole magazine,  in pdf, here. (start at page 15)

Interestingly, our online apologetics conference presenter Robert Velarde also appears in this edition.  Check his article out.  It’s worth it.

Excerpt:

“He has set eternity in the hearts of men…” So begins chapter three, verse eleven, of the book of Ecclesiastes. I bet everyone sometimes falls into the habit of thinking that the only real things are those things we grasp with our five senses, but I would also wager that we have all experienced the angst and restlessness that shows that our rat race lives cannot provide us all the satisfactions we need. Christianity would offer another interpretation for that unsettled feeling: it is homesickness.

Humans uniformly experience moments of dissatisfaction, even when they have their every material need met. Christians know that this is because we have been made in the image of God and he has made us in such a way that, unlike the beasts, we can never have rest apart from being in His full presence. Unfortunately, though we were made for that relationship, it has become fractured and broken. Nonetheless, we feel in our very bones the desire for that relationship restored. Christianity offers the good news that God has put in place a plan that will achieve just that.

Why does an apologetics ministry such as Athanatos Christian Ministries, which I am the executive director of, think in these terms?

To answer, I think back to one of my years teaching a religion class for seniors. The topic was ‘love,’ and we began by taking a survey on what these young Christian men and women believed on the subject. After they returned their answers, I did two things. First, I showed them how nearly all of them could be traced back to a Disney movie, sometimes verbatim. Secondly, I challenged them to show that the Bible supported any of their beliefs on the subject of love and romance. You can guess how that turned out.

Finish reading  (start at page 15)

I phrased it this way, though, to help clarify my position.

I find among Christians two basic mindsets regarding the Sunday morning ‘service.’  One mindset sees tremendous value to liturgical forms in our gatherings and the other sees value in ‘contemporary’ ones.   Typically, one mindset frowns down upon the other.  It is rare, though it does happen, to find someone who finds value in both.  You probably have never met someone like me, though, who finds value in neither.

Thus, no one reading this post, or the previous post, should think that I have a secret agenda pushing one side or the other in the ‘worship wars.’  My argument is that that particular war is being fought on entirely the wrong front.

The Scriptures seem clear to me in saying that our times of gathering are meant to be in service to each other, building each other up.  In actual practice it usually reduces to the individual making the effort to try to ‘get’ something from the event.  This is pretty subjective.  I find proponents in both sides of the event describe the value of their positions in terms of what it gives them.   Ironically, they think they are giving glory to God and they feel like they can just feel the community.  But God asks us to take the praise we owe him, who we can’t see, and direct it to the people around us, whom we can see.  (1 John 4:20).  (See previous post for more explanation)

Now, 1 John 4:20 reads:  “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar.  For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”

We could add to this 1 Cor 13:1-3, which reads:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding  gong or a clanging symbol.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Here is one of those passages that can really annoy you.   When we think of the things that are raised up in the Church as precious they are listed in this passage:  fine, proper preaching… Spirit led discernment… unwavering faith… and even service?… are all rendered worthless apart from love.

What makes any one of these, and even giving to the poor, loving, if they are not intrinsically loving?  I would submit that the critical difference is this:  in genuine love, the concern is for the object of the love, rather than the subject doing the ‘loving.’  Paul’s phrasing about the person giving all to the poor but then surrendering his body to the flames suggests to me that this person had no real concern for the poor, but was on a spiritual trip.  In short, the generosity was done because it made the giver feel good about his own righteousness, not because he was seeking the poor’s best interest.

I think the same distinction exists in the other clauses of the passage, as well.  Don’t you see the pattern?  I…. I…. I….  I….  I…. I…. I…. Everything Paul counters has ‘I’ right in the middle of it.

So I said that I did not value any ‘worship’ form.  However, in reality, when I say that, I mean it in the spirit that Paul means 1 Cor 13.  “If I sway my arms and swing with the thumping praise band, but have not love… it’s nothing.”  “If I relish reciting the same creeds recited for thousands of years and in thousands of places, but have not love…”  If the ‘love’ is there, then I can see my way to find all sorts of value in the way we do things.  If not, then not.

If our gatherings are not marked by love- that is, attending to the genuine needs, desires, and wants of those around us, rather than seeking our own fulfillments- they are ‘nothing.’  As far as I am concerned, I would be happy to endure just about any kind of ‘worship’ form  if I saw a community that was geared to look out for each other, even to the point of laying down their lives for each other (1 John 3:16).

Now, of course there is some attending to needs in the way gatherings are structured.  It isn’t an entirely loveless endeavor, and of course the whole work of the Church does not occur one hour on one day a week.  You wouldn’t know this from listening to those engaged in the ‘Worship’ Wars, though.  I honestly can’t remember the last time I read something by either side where ‘love’ was mentioned at all, let alone as the defining characteristic of the event.  (Except of course as some comment about God loving us and us loving God… not usually us loving each other… see previous post)

The day the Church examines itself on the issue of ‘Love’ I am convinced that much will still happen as before… liturgies will still be read, praise bands will still be in play, but the Worship War will be over, because it will be recognized that there is a much more important War to be fought, and we will be devoted to fighting it.

Having laid down a stinging charge, I must now defend it.  Unfortunately, it would take a book to do so adequately.  I have only 1,500 words- if I’m lucky. So, instead my goal will be to try to raise doubt in your mind that maybe, just maybe, I’m right.

The nature of the abuse of these three words have two basic things in common.   First of all, even though these are terms closely associated with the Christian faith, they generally escape close scrutiny and very little grounding in what the Scriptures might actually have to say about them.  They escape this scrutiny because we think we already know what they mean. 

This is most vividly seen with the word ‘love.’  Everyone takes it for granted that we know what ‘love’ is, so we (Christians) don’t bother to see what the Scriptures tells us love is.   Then, we take the meaning which we have according to our unexamined instincts and read that meaning back into the text.   For my own part, I was shaken out of this habit for the word ‘love’ back in college.  Like many, many, many other Christians, I had been raised on the view that there were ‘three kinds of love’ described in the New Testament.  These are ‘agape,’ ‘eros,’ and ‘phileo.’

Agape is supposed to be the love that God has for us.  Eros is sexual love (eros… erotic… see the connection?) and phileo is brotherly love.  This is about the extent of the systematic treatment that ‘love’ gets, and it all came tumbling down when I tried out my developing Greek skills and discovered that ‘eros’ isn’t in the NT at all!   Oops.

Further inquiry turned up the word ‘agape,’ which was supposed to be a love entirely describing a one way approach from God to man, used in all of the situations that up to that point had been ascribed as being a different kind of love.  For example, it was agape that marked the love between a husband and his wife (Eph 5).  It was agape that marked the love between friends (John 15).  Heck, we’re even supposed to ‘agape’ our enemies!  (Matt 5)

You may have missed the methodological error bundled into the assertion that there are ‘three kinds of love.’  Framing it that way at all reveals that the whole approach is backwards.   It assumes that we have already mastered the content of the term ‘love’ in English and we assume further that the Scriptures will mean the same thing.  So, instead of taking the more or less common sense approach that different words probably have different meanings… you know, or else they wouldn’t be different… any word in the Greek that closely matched what we already ‘knew’ by our natural lights got lumped in as ‘love.’  (Interesting side note:  on this approach, there aren’t actually 3 words in the Greek for ‘love.’  There are 7.)

What difference does it make?  It’s a huge deal.  I mean specifically the part about letting the Scriptures inform us about what ‘agape’ means rather than assume that what we believe about ‘love’ matches it.

Since as Christians we acknowledge that one of the central tenets of our faith centers around ‘love,’ we should be at least mildly interested in making sure that we are doing so in the manner that the Scriptures would have it.  The alternative would be that we think we are loving people and loving God but in fact, are not. The implications lead to the second thing that the abuse of these words have in common, which I will come to shortly.

The same kind of methodological error in regards to ‘three loves’ is true again with the word ‘worship.’  I have a book on my shelf that is like a text book on ‘worship’ and I think it is pretty representative of the general use of the word ‘worship’ among Christians.  He begins, appropriately, by saying that we must define the word.  He then proceeds to use zero scripture in defining the word.   When finally he gets to the Scriptures, it is so phrased:  ‘The NT uses a variety of words for worship…”

You see it is the same thing as with the ‘three loves’ bit.   It is taken for granted that we really know what ‘worship’ is so we’ll just assume that all these different words really signify what we (think we) already know.  And admit it- when you think of ‘worship’ your mind springs instantly to some notion of praising and offering adulation to God, usually in the context of a ‘church’ service.  In fact, this trend is so pervasive, that we often hear people treat the ‘church service’ and ‘worship’ as one in the same.  They’ll say something like, “So where do you worship?”

This assumption is built right into the translations of our Bibles.  For example, in any discussion about just what the Bible says ‘worship’ is will lead to the invocation of 1 Corinthians 14:26-40.  Nearly every translation out there will begin this section off with the headline:  “Orderly Worship.”  One of my Bibles titles it, “Maintain order in your worship services.”

Obviously, then, what is described in this section must be ‘worship’, right?  Bizarrely, none of the Greek words which my Christian Worship text book indicates could mean ‘worship’ are used in this passage!  Ooops!

On what basis, then, do we presume that Paul would call this worship?

It can only be that we already think we know what worship is, and our conception is such that we think Paul is describing it in this passage.  What would happen, though, if we took this novel approach:  we let Paul speak for himself.

For example, if we take one of the more definitive statements by Paul on the nature of ‘worship’ which is commonly cited, Romans 12:1, we read:  “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God- this is your spiritual act of worship.” (NIV)

If the one hour on Sunday is supposed to be ‘worship’ and Paul thinks that ‘worship’ is offering one’s body as a living sacrifice, I am left wondering just precisely how I will be offering my body as a living sacrifice in that time.  Moreover, Paul’s statement here in Romans would seem to viciously war against the notion that ‘worship’ could ever be distilled into just one hour a week.  He clearly is implying a total, daily, hourly sacrificing of one’s life.

Put this way, are you not curious about just what Paul believes ‘worship’ is?  And what about Jesus?

Using yet another word my introductory text book raises as illustrative of the ‘word’ ‘worship,’ we might look at the famous account in John 4 where Jesus is talking with the Samaritan woman.  She raises the question, “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

Jesus doesn’t contradict her.  He argues that “a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

I would direct your attention here to the assumption that the Jews up to this point were ‘worshiping’ in Jerusalem.  But what did this entail?  What was it that a Jew could only do in Jerusalem, and not anywhere else, say, like in a synagogue?  Now, this is interesting, because it is basically the case that the Christian ‘worship’ service closely models the Jewish way of doing things in the synagogues, which, since all the first Christians were Jews, makes oodles of sense.  However, apparently the Jew would not have thought of their synagogue experience as ‘worship.’  What made Jerusalem special?

Hint:  it has something to do with splashing the blood of animals around in a temple.  Puts a new thought in our mind as to what Paul, a Jew, may have meant by ‘worship’ consisting of being a ‘living sacrifice,’ no?  Shouldn’t we be wondering what first century Jews believed ‘worship’ was in order to properly understand what is meant when the word and concept is invoked?

And why should it matter?  What difference does all this make?  Well, it is commonly agreed by Christians throughout all the denominations that ‘worship’ is a central component of the Christian experience.  What if it were the case that we weren’t worshiping at all?  What if we were doing something else entirely?  Something valuable and biblical, surely… but not ‘worship’ as the Bible describes it?  It might mean that we are neglecting how the Bible actually calls us to worship.  This might be something we might want to address.

I am now at 1,566 words, give or take.  Still with me?  Gonna hang with me further?

Again, the implications of our acting as though we already know what ‘worship’ is touches on the second thing that the abuse of these three words have in common.  But first a word about ‘church.’ 

Here at least we can be thankful that the systematic theologians have invested some time.  The problem here seems to me to be less about presumption regarding the term ‘church’ and more about a disconnect between our theology and our practice.  In our theology, when we talk about the ‘church’ we generally present the fact that the ‘church’ is the Church, that is, the bride of Christ, that is, the very body of Christ, who, taking the ‘one flesh’ relationship of marriage as representing the same kind of mystical union shared by Jesus and all believers.  (Eph 5, for example).

The New Testament is more or less consistent with this description of the ‘church.’  Remember, there were no ‘church’ buildings yet.  Constantine had yet to make Christianity the state religion and make it safe for massive cathedrals to be erected.  In the New Testament, they did not ‘go to church.’   Rather, Paul addressed himself “to the church that meets at their house.”  (1 Cor 16:19).

Of course, when pressed, we always point out that the Church is the people, and not a place or building.  We acknowledge that where the NT would appear to talk about ‘churches’ as some sort of discrete unit representing an organizational entity, we still aren’t referring to a building, but a group of people (1 Cor 16:19 being relevant yet again).

And yet for all that, you can still have someone like Anne Rice come out and declare that she is abandoning Christianity and forsaking ‘church’!  And thousands and thousands of people will know exactly what she means and cheer her on.  (See my open letter to her which has the background you’ll need)

It may be argued that the practical fact that we talk about ‘going to church’ on Sunday (to ‘worship’!) has little to no consequences, but in point of fact the use of the term in this fashion is the dominant one, and has the effect of obliterating what we would otherwise say and believe about Church when we were waxing theologically.

The nature of our relationship to each other as Christians is obviously something we should be concerned about.  The practical effect of thinking of ‘churches’ only as organizational structures cannot be underestimated.  “Oh, I’m a member of the Methodist church!”  What the Bible means by ‘member’ and ‘church’ is barely reflected in such a statement.  What is at stake in this sloppy use of the term is our very understanding of our relationship to Christ and with each other.  The practical implications will be far reaching.

2,000 words in.  I think I can finish it up in just 500 more.  Let’s try.

I said at the start that these three words had two basic things in common.  The first was that the suffer from the fact that we behave as though we already know what they mean and assume that when we come across the terms in the Bible, the Bible means the same thing.

The second thing grieves me to say and many will greatly resent as hubris.  If I preempt that by admitting right from the start that I am as guilty of my own charges, can I deflect that criticism?

The other basic thing that these abuses manifest is basically a gnostic selfishness and works righteousness.  You know the gnostics.  They were the people who believed they had received a special knowledge.  They were all about thinking that the physical universe- matter- was evil and yucky.  They were only interested in the ‘spiritual.’  Their religious experience was such that they were trying to constantly reach a ‘spiritual high.’  In a word, it was all about them.

When the Scriptures are allowed to speak for themselves about these three terms- which represent core aspects of the Christian faith- it is rarely, if ever, individualistic.

The basic principle underneath all three terms in the Scriptures can be seen in a place like 1 John 4:20  “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar.  For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”

We understand, at least in principle, that there is literally nothing that we can offer God that he needs.  He does not need our love any more than Bill Gates needs his kid to lend him twenty bucks.  At the same time, we reflect on what God has done for us (“In view of God’s mercy” Romans 12:1!) and wish to respond.  God knows that we want to respond and he knows that we can offer him nothing.  His solution is to ask us to turn our loving thanks over to the ones we can see.  God then credits this as love for him.

This is a far cry from how many of us practically behave.  We still think that we are showing God that we love him when we go to ‘church’ and ‘worship.’  We show up, we hear an inspiring message, some song touches our heart, and then we sing praises and thanks to God- you know, ‘worshiping’ him.  Having reached some semblance of a spiritual high, we feel truly, earnestly, and sincerely, that we truly love God.  Then we go home.  In this series of events, there will have been precious few opportunities to lay down our lives for our brothers (1 John 3:16).  In short, we came to hear again how God loved us, then we tell God thank you very much, we love you too, and honestly believe we have loved God.  Yet God is very clear that if we truly loved him, we’d show that by loving each other.  Bill Gates says to his son, “I’ve got all I need.  If you really love me, take your twenty and find someone who can really use it.”

In short, our time together as Christians is not meant to be defined by our utterances of love and devotion to God, but rather by our acts of service as living sacrifices to those who also are in the literal body of Christ.

We think that we are testifying to the world about our love for Christ by regularly attending ‘church.’  That’s not what Jesus said (if we care about what Jesus said).  “A new command I give you:  Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”  (John 13:34)

But of course we tend to think of ‘loving one another’ as some sort of warm and fuzzy affection for someone (what some would call ‘phileo’ love), so we are perfectly content to think that having a warm regard for people means that we’ve loved them- as if we could call parents loving if they willfully tolerated destructive behaviors in their children.  There is no ‘warm and fuzzy’ feelings involved when you have to tell your kids to get off of drugs.  Yet, parents know that their love is not ‘about them’ but rather about the object of their love- their child.

Romans 12, which I pointed out describes ‘worship’ as a living sacrifice goes on just 8 verses later to discuss what it means to love- and it is wholly directed at how we interact with others, not warm and fuzzy feelings and spiritual highs.  You see, they are connected.  Our genuine worship of God means loving each other.  You thought it was about praising him!  In retort, Hebrews 13:15 is often given:

“Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise- the fruit of lips that confess his name.”

And any word commonly translated as ‘worship’ is present here, how?  But I do not deny that the passage is in fact expressing the 1st century Jewish Christian concept of ‘worship.’  Did you notice the word ‘sacrifice’?  That’s what Jews customarily did when they went to Jerusalem to ‘worship.’  But now there is no need for a sacrifice… what would happen if we would go on and read the very next passage?  Maybe we could glean something important from it?

“And do not forget to do good and share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.”

The very next passage tells us precisely what kind of ‘sacrifices of praise’ the author had in mind as pleasing God.  We see again that it isn’t ‘about you.’  “In view of God’s mercy,” we offer ourselves as living sacrifices, and this means ‘doing good and sharing with others,’ or, put another way, dying for your brother.

I just wonder what would happen if the next time I went to ‘church’ I was given the opportunity to die for my brother, and he for me.  This would be ‘love.’  This would be ‘worship.’  This would be interacting with the people around me in full knowledge and appreciation that we together are literally, actually, one in Christ.

What would happen if we went to ‘church’ without the practical expectation that we are engaged in a spiritual transaction between God and the individual (“Tell me how great I am, earthling!”  “God, you are great!  You are so awesome I just feel, I mean, WOW! I feel the love! My spiritual tank is full, now!) and we instead had ample opportunity to minister tangibly to each other in such a way that it could honestly be described as laying down one’s life?

I do believe a lot that ails us in the Church would be rectified almost immediately.  The world would still think we’re nuts, but at least we might escape the hypocrisy charge.  On the way, perhaps Eph. 4:1-16 would be fulfilled, right before our waking eyes.

3,200 words.  Sorry, I knew when I started that it would be this long.  I tricked you, I know.  But you no doubt have many questions and objections and though I wanted to reply to them all, you see that it could not be done and still get the point across.  Allow me to offer clarifications upon request, or in the future as I return to the topic.

Peace.  (Which is, according to the Bible,  Jesus. Eph 2:14)

Probably the most entertaining thing about reading the article about the 7 year old girl who found her lemonade stand shut down by the Portland health department was reading the comments that followed. Those comments quickly devolved into a contest between ‘conservatives’ and ‘liberals.’ That discussion was probably warranted, and while I would sympathize with the conservative comments I tend to think a valuable facet was generally overlooked: the overarching belief in our society that it really is possible to eradicate all unpleasant experiences and even if it is not possible, it is moral and proper to make the attempt.

By ‘unpleasant experiences’ I mean literally any unpleasant experience, from being murdered to being offended to being made sick by a little girl’s lemonade not properly handled.

What we have here is an attitude, and I have to say that it is not confined only to liberals or moderates but can be seen often enough among conservatives, as well. If that is the case, what label can be appropriately made? The problem is that once one goes down the road to taking action in the cause of the ‘public good,’ or as the US Constitution puts it, the ‘general welfare,’ there seems to be no objective place to stop and desist taking action. Moreover, the actions taken tend to accrue over time so that today government at every level- local, state, and federal- has reached into every area of American life. I say ‘every’ on purpose and deliberately, for I am hard pressed to think of any part of my life that isn’t regulated somehow by some government somewhere in some measure.

However, even if we should stop and discover one or two that have been overlooked at present, my general point is that if history is any guide, even these will fall to the regulators at some point. Since it never happens that these impositions- for our own good- are rarely, if ever revoked, we can say with nearly perfect certainty that a day is coming when every little endeavor we engage in, no matter how trifling or miniscule, falls under the legislating eye of the Omni-Benevolent Government.

Thus, a little girl’s lemonade stand necessarily falls under the purview of inspectors. Hence, locale after locale bans smoking- even in private. Consequently, we must, by law, ‘buckle up,’ and children up to a certain age and weight must have booster seats. Naturally, trans fat must be banned. Quite so, guns should be strictly regulated. Indeed, even our speech must be free of anything smacking of ‘hate.’

It is all a great big mess and it isn’t going to get any better short of scrapping the Constitution and starting over.

Read the whole column.

Apparently, God greatly values people. Even people who do not believe in Him. Because while we were yet sinners, He died for us. That love is what draws us.

How do we rate?

Many churches have become so large that we have lost the social connections. We try to suffice through replacing breaking bread from house to house with cell groups tailor-made for specific needs. We have programs to teach people to be hospitable. We read books that help us to be better Christians. It’s an attempt, howbeit earnest and sincere, but something is lost in the translation.

It always gets back to this; the haunting, penetrating words that are so precise that the sound of its quickness can be heard as its sharpness separates joint and marrow, discerning the heart: love thy neighbor as thyself. Ahh. There it is. As Thyself. That means that God knows full well how much we love ourselves. Even if you have a poor self-image, you do take care of yourself, therefore, you love yourself.

Loving your neighbor is a simple message but not always simple in its execution. It takes some doing to go an extra mile. Anyone can go one. But two? You really want me to go two? How far we are willing to go tells us how much we truly value others.

When we follow God’s instructions we will find that the endless labor of struggle and self-preservation will end. Because if we do what He says, how He says it, then the life line of self centeredness is severed. We are taking up our cross daily through saying no to ourselves in the way we want to do something and taking His yoke upon us and doing it the way He says to do it. Easier. And light.

Even Jesus entreated the Father, asking if there was another way! Please.. another way. Not like this.

Nevertheless, not My will, but Thine.

And He endured the cross for the joy set before Him.

Joy? What joy? How can there possibly be any joy in the suffering that may come when I deny myself for others? Don’t you know that death brings life in God’s world? And the joy you seek is only found when you place the well-being of others over yourself.

His love was so magnificent.. so pure.. so true, that He was glad to endure what was necessary for humanity.

Are we glad to endure for the benefit of another? Or do we find that our hands grasp tightly to what is ours?

God sees our every angle. And the life that is ours in Christ is found only one way. Do you want all that God has to give or just some of it? To the degree that you decrease, He will increase. While we are trading our sorrows for the joy of the Lord, we should trade our wills, too. Hiding our light under a bushel doesn’t always mean that we are ashamed of proclaiming our faith. It can mean that we do not allow the pureness of His light to be directed in such a way to bring guidance to the world because the Light is hindered by the desire to save our life.That makes for a dim lantern.

See, the world has lines that will not be crossed. Christians shouldn’t. If we are true expressions of God’s love, we will be willing. There are no conditions with this and the world will sit up and take notice. Perhaps it begins within our churches; when we are earnest in valuing our relationships; valuing each other, esteeming, honoring. If we do nothing else, this must be of utmost importance. It might mean saying things like, “I’m sorry. I was wrong”, or “Here is 100 bucks and take my cloak, too.”

Our best strategic efforts implemented apart from keeping the main thing the main thing may result in some rejected burnt offerings. I don’t think God is impressed.

Seriously.

Anyone who was surprised by her announcement that she was ‘quitting’ Christianity clearly had not read her spiritual autobiography.  In my review of it, I went on to say something that seems a bit prescient now:

I do not want one of conservative Christians to read what I just wrote and say “Well, I can write Anne Rice off, now!” What Anne says in this final chapter contains much of value. The fact is that people do have trouble disassociating God from the Church and the Church should take this into account when it acts, knowing that in driving people away from the Church, they can drive them away from God.

I also said in that review:  “I cannot cover all of the ground that a good long conversation could more appropriately handle regarding such matters.”  This is unfortunate, but true, and it remains true now.  It is also true that if anyone is going to have that conversation it won’t be me.   We have exchanged cordial emails, but that is the extent of our relationship.  I do not presume that she will respond to this, or even read it.  It is my hope that someone closer to her will step in to talk to her- not because she needs to be talked down from her position but because, as it seems to me (I am inferring- as dangerous as that is), she has found herself to be wounded by certain Christians, and only these Christians, or those with the viewpoints she rejects but whom she respects, can pave the way to that healing.

Judging from her other remarks, it would appear that Anne has been driven away from the ‘Church’ but not from God.  For many, on their way out of the Church they kick God in Christ to the curb, as well, which is one reason why I launched a website not too long ago called The Death of Christianity.   This again is no time and place to re-hash all of that.  Suffice it to say that I believe the central problem is that Christians don’t know how to love as the Scriptures lay it out.   I really can’t get into it now, but you can search this blog for more about what I believe on the matter.

In fashioning this response, I am in the difficult position of trying to respond to Anne’s position with only facebook status updates and past history to rely on.  Readers (especially if that reader is Anne herself) will forgive any wrong inferences.  With that important caveat out of the way…

The difficulty in dispensing with the Church and keeping Christ is that it is impossible and can’t be done.  I’m not going to go Cyprian on you (“He who does not have the Church as his mother…”) because I think he was making a different point.  Christians are not united by creed but by Christ, a person.   You can step away from denominations and congregations but if you really stepped outside of the Church, you’d step out of Christ, because the Church is his body.  (Eph. 5, 1 Cor 12:12-27, esp. 27).

The 1 Cor passage mentioned above is relevant in its own way because Paul points out that just because the foot says to the hand, “I am not the body because I am not a hand” the foot does not, in fact, cease to be part of the family.  So long as Anne is in Christ, her declarations about not being part of the Church are no more than that- declarations.  And what of those she would disassociate herself from?  Is it her conviction that they are not in Christ?  I doubt she would go that far.  But if she thinks some Christians have been, well, asses, not even in this case can the hand say to the ass, “You are not part of the body,” for every body still has an ass!

That puts Anne in a bind, since by appearances she cares about the Christ of the Scriptures.  These same Scriptures say, “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church?  Are you not to judge those inside?”  (1 Cor 5:12-13)  This point seems to have been missed on a great many Christians who insist on judging those outside the Church, but in this case Anne is trying to set herself apart from the Church in order to judge it- but it must be judged from the inside.  Let us remember the order laid out in Scriptures:  “For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God.”  (1 Pet. 4:17)

In short, if Anne is to follow Christ and not his followers then Anne must, according to conscience, be prepared to stand within the Church and help it “grow into him who is the Head, that is Christ.” (Eph 4:15)  It is even put more explicitly:  “Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.” (vs. 25)

This is a duty and an obligation to our fellow believer, which no person who is in Christ has the ability to eject.

The last two passages help us transition into the areas where Anne seems to have taken the most offense.  What does it mean to put off falsehood?  Is there real consequence for those ‘who do not obey the Gospel of God’?  The logic of the passage is that there will be consequence indeed, since there will also be consequence to the ‘family of God.’

Is this where I begin making arguments against homosexuality, ‘science,’ and Democrats?  This seems to me to be besides the point.  The real point is whether or not there is anything about our relationship with Christ that calls us to have a different perspective than those who aren’t in that relationship.  The point is whether or not Christ transforms us or we transform Christ.  Are we to be made in the likeness of Christ or do we make Christ into our own likeness?   Do we regard fellow Christians and nonChristians “from a worldly point of view”?  (2 Cor. 5:10-6:2)  (Anne, if you’re reading this, you should look at that passage)

It is enough, for now, to argue that as ambassadors of Christ we have an obligation to the world- “as though God were making his appeal through us.”  God is not “counting men’s sins against them” but that is not because they are not sins and of no consequence, rather because they are of the highest consequence, prompting the mission of Christ:  “he who had no sin to be made sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

When we look at the life of Christ, the God-Man who has so mesmerized Anne and millions of the rest of us, we see this utterly serious approach to our predicament.  In John 8, though Jesus says he does not condemn the adulterous woman, he still tells her:  “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

When asked about divorce, Jesus reasons, “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses [allowed divorce].  … Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”  (Mark 10).

Jesus did not dispense with the order of creation in his quest to redeem it.  Nor did he render men righteous by refusing to label behaviors and attitudes as sinful.  On the sermon on the mount, he said that even looking at a woman lustfully was adultery and the sort of thing that justifies eternal punishment.  He did not say:  “Look at women lustfully all you want, because I have forgiven it.”

He came to fulfill the law, not abolish it.  Christians, then, do not have carte blanche in saying that all behaviors and attitudes are acceptable before God simply because he has paid the price for all of them.  If that were the case, he could have just as well abolished the law.

Where does this leave us as Christians when engaging each other and the world?  It means that our salvation is not in meeting the demands of the law but it also means that we cannot dispense with God’s commands, either.  It isn’t always easy to determine how we should play this out within society, but let us remember that when Jesus went into the houses of sinners, like Zacchaeus, he did not dispute with the abusive tax collector that it had been wrong for him to cheat people.

Anne has made it clear that she plans on following Christ, just not his followers.  If it is the case (as surely it is) that some of his followers have crossed over a line, it doesn’t follow that there isn’t a line.   What we need is discussion about where that line is and how we walk it.  If Anne is able to show a better way in her life from the Scriptures then she has a duty and an obligation to reveal it to her brothers and sisters- adopted, just as she is.

At the same time, as a follower of Christ (and not a follower of the followers of Christ) she has an obligation not to perform unkindnesses in the name of kindness to those who are outside of Christ.  Christ came to be sin in order to rescue us from the consequences of sin.   How terrible our sins must then be and what a price was paid!  It might be important to inform people of this reality.

Can we regard people in the same way knowing this?  It is not my desire to dissect any one of the things that Anne listed that she refused to be (ie, ‘anti-gay’ ‘anti-secular humanist’) etc.  Rather, the larger issue, as it appeared to me, was that her statements suggested that we could make our way as Christ-Followers on this earth while still regarding ourselves and each other as the world, would.

But this is not possible, at least, not for long.  Eventually we come to a point where we are indistinguishable from the world, and our ‘faith’ becomes just an excuse to operate in such a way as our heart has already determined.  Then we are salt that has lost its saltiness.

Or, to put it another way, Jesus, whom Anne insists on following, declared:  “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.”  If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.”  (John 15:18-27)

As I skimmed through the thousands of comments on Anne’s facebook statuses related to this, the general feeling was that the world very much was happy with Anne for her announcement.  I am not suggesting that any of us should be arrogant and belligerent asses, but I do think that when the world thinks highly of us that is reason for concern- provided we intend to really follow the God of the Universe.

When the world loves us, watch out.

I wish Anne all the best and I am confident that, based on what I’ve read to this point, I will some day walk arm and arm with her in the full presence of Christ.   However, I would not be fulfilling my duty and obligation as one believer to another if I did not voice a word of caution:  watch out, Anne, watch out.

You can, and should, oppose Christians to their face if they are acting out of line (Galatians 2:11, illustrating).  But if the world takes you as its sister, it is only with great difficulty that Christ can have you as his daughter, since you can only be part of one family at a time.

I’ll update this with the archived file when I have it.

I imagine one of my kids walking along a path and me placing sure footing in front of each step they take. Even if they hated me I would still do it. Even if they committed the worst sin I would still do it.

I think there is too much Pharisaical thinking in a lot of us today. When one of us goes down, or at the very least, does not look like what we think they should, we are ready to form an opinion.

I think God is very different. I know God is very different.

When anyone “went down” in the Bible, God’s response is not how I often see responses today. We take David’s adultery and murder as our reference point; forgetting about guys like Saul of Tarsus and Peter.

And concerning anyone who was not status quo, Jesus didn’t seem to get as ruffled as we do today. We’re ready to label some people as rebellious or fill-in-the-blank, without getting all the details (and do we need to know all the details?)

Much of this we base on Old Testament examples. Not that I am dismissing the OT. Just saying.

Imagine that God is thinking differently about humanity than we do with our interpretations and opinions; our revelations and enlightenments. I think that God is continually going out of His way to rearrange the messes we get ourselves in to make it right or at least make it better for our souls.

I think that God is placing sure footing in front of each step we take. All of us. Everyone.

That may make us glad. Or, we may find ourselves sitting outside the city waiting for its destruction and have to find out that the heart of the King is to provide a quick growing plant to shade us from the heat.

We quickly and silently form opinions as to why someone is in the predicament they are in. I wonder if most of the time God really doesn’t care as to the why as much as He does as to how He will bring brighter days our way. It may be as simple as the close of a horrible day filled with everything going wrong, and seeing a ball of orangey red setting behind the trees, displaying cotton candy clouds that lift your child-like heart, promising a better tomorrow. Or a billion stars in the summer sky as if to reflect the thousands of fireflys dancing in the air. All a reminder of a God that is watching us and even cheering for us. Because He has the bird’s eye view; the end from the beginning. And it was love that prompted His dying for sinful man and it is love that continues to cover sinful man.

I imagine Chrisitans everywhere displaying that same kind of love. ‘Cuz most of the time we don’t have it. Love that covers, not exposes. Thoughts and intents, words and actions that are not critical, filled with snobby opinions, but sincerely placing the interests of another front and center.

If we’re going to use the OT as a resource, then perhaps we should consider Job’s three, so-called friends that analyzed his situation and came to some conclusions that ended up being dead wrong.

Interesting- they shall know Me by your love for one another. Do we do much better than the world? Really? There’s a whole lot of kindness going on out there. How do we rate in comparison?

I think we could do much better. Can’t we always do better? The letters to the churches in Revelation seem to suggest we can. And it’s not doing, doing, doing in prove a point. It’s having a heart like the King.

In this essay, I’d like discuss what I really believe the relationship between capitalism and Christianity is, and if anyone likes what I have to say, you can make up for my loss of friends on Facebook by becoming my new friends. 

In truth, I am not interested at all in ‘capitalism.’ I am interested in freedom. I know that economists and dictionaries describe capitalism as an ‘economic system’ that can be set against socialism, communism, fascism, etc, but I don’t think of it in that way at all. In these latter examples, the common thread of the ‘isms’ is that the government itself is DOING something whereas in capitalism the basic notion is that the government is NOT DOING anything. In its purest, laissez-faire form, capitalism is just business without restrictions or interference of any kind from the government. (I doubt we’ve ever seen anything of the sort ever actually implemented, by the way).

To me, as a Christian, my first thought is simply this: on what basis do I have to restrict my fellow man in any way?

Now, I am quite certain that the Christian Scriptures do not hold up any economic or political ‘system’ as ideal. I’m equally certain that Christians are given no expectation that we could ever reach that ideal- or even that it is worth our time and effort to even try. Christians are called to serve each other and do good as they have opportunity no matter what situation that they find themselves in. There is no warrant in the Scriptures for Christians to try to erect or tinker with ‘systems.’  We are not on a quest for Utopia.

Read the rest of the column.

Ok, now, this will sound like a weird place to start, but stick with me a moment.  I consider myself a conservative (although more precisely, a libertarian-constitutionalist-voluntaryist) but I wasn’t always one.  I grew up on default… that is, more or less as a liberal, especially on political and economic issues.  What changed?  Well, when I came to the place where I decided that Truth mattered, I realized that my belief system should, to the best of my ability, resemble reality.

This notion that I should adjust my mind to the world as it really was was really critical in shaping how I’ve come now.  You see, there are lots of things that I wished were the case.  Unfortunately, they aren’t.  For example, I might wish that the members of the government can be trusted to look after the interests of the citizens, but it just isn’t the case.  (Formative for me on this point was Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky).  History and today’s newspaper reveal otherwise.

I have learned that in life, actions have consequences.  I can try to shut my eyes to them and hope that by magic this time the action will have a different consequence (the one that I wished would happen) or I can accept reality.  Accepting reality made me into a conservative.

Now, I say all of this in prelude because in this post I’m going to tackle something that I think even conservatives don’t get right a lot of times.  I have heard liberals and pacifists and progressives all say something very similar to… “Violence is never the answer.”   But I have heard conservatives say it, too.  A quick google search reveals people across the spectrum making this statement.

But every sane person knows that, in fact, there are times when violence is the answer.  Even most insane people know that sometimes violence is the answer.

So what we have here is a sentiment that is casually flung around that nearly all of us know isn’t true.  In short, in saying such a thing, we are out of touch with reality.  And one of the things I’ve learned about holding sentiments that don’t actually mesh with the real world is that inevitably bad things result.  For example, if you think that you can step in front of a bus going 70 mph without getting hurt, a bad thing will result.  Some times, the ‘bad things’ aren’t immediate or clear, but never fear, God cannot be mocked:  we reap what we sow.

I have had the unfortunate experience in my life to interact with two who really really really really believed that ‘violence is never the answer.’  These were both Christians.

The conversations went a bit like this…

“Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“So let’s say that someone comes into your house and starts to rape your wife.”
“That would be horrible.”
“Yea, I should say so.  Would you do anything about it?”
“Well, I wouldn’t use violence, if that’s what you mean.  But I would try to stop him.”
“How?”
“Well, of course I would call 9-11.  And then I would try to pull him off her.”
“You don’t think ‘pulling’ is violent?”
“Not like shooting him in the head would be.  That would be wrong.  Jesus would never do something like that.”
“Do you think he’s just going to stop because you pull on him gently?”
“Well, I might have to pull hard.”
“And that wouldn’t be violent?”
“It isn’t the same.”
“And if he still doesn’t stop even though you’ve pulled really hard?”
“Well, like I said, I would have called 9-11.”
“Ok, so the cops finally arrive.  You’ve been Christ-like in your insistence that ‘violence is never the answer.’  What do you think the cops are going to do to the guy?”
“Well, I suppose they’ll make him stop.”
“By asking nicely?”
“Well, they would probably pull him off, too.”
“And if that didn’t work, do you think the cops are just going to leave him to it?”
“Of course not.”
“You think they might pull their guns and shoot the guy if he doesn’t stop?”
“Yes, well, they very well might shoot him.”
“So, ‘violence is never the answer’ for you, because that would be murder, but you don’t have objections to calling in other people to do your dirty work for you?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“If the cop kills the rapist, is he justified?”
“No, because that is murder, and is always wrong.”
“Then why even bother calling 9-11?  You think that just because you can out-source your sin that you’ve handled the situation correctly?  Can you explain to me precisely how a husband goes about ‘laying down his life’ for his wife to protect her if you’ll just stand there while she’s being raped.  How does your wife feel about this knowing you’d ‘pull gently’ at a rapist raping her?”
“Uh…”

Now, you may believe this or not, but I have had 2 conversations that went almost completely like this.  (GIO, if you’re out there, thanks for the unpleasant conversation!).  I think all of us, when pondering a scenario like this, understand that really, truly, violence is sometimes the answer.

The thing to do, then, is to think through the when and the how and the why one would use violence, not deny reality.

Compare and contrast this with the recent story of the young boy whose hat was deemed ‘inappropriate’ by his teacher because it displayed toy army men on it.

From the article:

Kenneth DiPietro, superintendent of Coventry Public Schools, insisted that the issue was not with patriotism or honoring the military but the promotion of weapons in school.

Just out of curiosity, if the Columbine shooters came back from the dead and began shooting up a school somewhere, would any superintendent anywhere not want the police to come in and put them back in the grave?  No.  But wouldn’t the police display of guns (and actual use of them) represent a ‘promotion of weapons in school’?

Well, yes it would.

The rejoinder here is that of course we can conceive of a an appropriate time for a gun to be used in a school- when a bad man is shooting in a school HE MUST BE STOPPED!

But that’s precisely my point.  As it turns out, violence is sometimes the answer.  Sometimes, we want weapons in schools.  Sometimes, we want people to use lethal force.  So why on earth do we hand down to our children platitudes about non-violence that we know don’t comport with reality?

I think the answer, in part, is that of course we wished that we could say ‘violence is never the answer.’  Oh, to live in such a world!  Some parents might say that they don’t mean to communicate an absolutism, and are just delivering a moral lesson in a way that their child will find easiest to understand.  I can sympathize with that.  It isn’t an easy thing to teach an eight year old when it might be appropriate to use force, even lethal force.  As an adult, I’m not sure that I’ve even got it all figured out.  I can see the temptation to default to the platitude.

But the platitude is dangerous.  On the one hand, when we transmit it, we transmit something we know is not actually true.  That’s bad policy right there.  On the other hand, it shuts down an important area of human experience that requires extensive critical thinking.  In a world filled with evil and malignant men, every good person must be prepared in their mind for what they should do given certain eventualities… because we know from the newspaper and history book that these things do happen.  Another danger to the platitude is that it sets people up for guilt after they perform a violent- but righteous- act.  Finally, if someone has never actually thought about the matter before and all they’ve been fed is the platitude, they might freeze up and do nothing, or flee when they should fight.

I can think of no better example then the story that emerged out of the Virginia Tech massacre of Liviu Librescu.  Here is a survivor of the holocaust, gunned down through the door that he refused to open for the gunman.   If Liviu was a Christian like the one I encountered above, I suppose he would have been concerned about maybe hurting the gunman’s finger or some such thing by violently keeping the door shut.  Liviu’s heroics were not in vain:  about 20 students had their lives saved as they fled through the windows.

But what about the 15 or 16 people who died after Liviu died?  Could they have been saved?  What if the students in Liviu’s classroom had bum rushed the dude as he came in the door?  As it is, the dude killed two people in that room.  Would he have been able to kill more than that if the class had attacked him from close range?  I don’t think so, and I think that all those who died afterward would have been saved by this measure.  That’s about fifteen people, about half of the total that were killed that day.

Now, you might be protesting right now (especially if you’re one of the 20 students that fled out the windows!) that such action is highly unwise by unarmed students, and it assumes knowledge that might not have been in hand (ie, the number of shooters).

And I think that there is some weight to that protest.  So why not learn from the scenario and in the future let college kids carry guns with them and instead of issuing them the platitude that ‘violence is never the answer’ instruct them on the moral and practical dimensions of violence?

Right, I know.  We can’t do that, because violence is never the answer.  That’s why we call the police, and have them use violence.  Because it’s never the answer.  Except when it is.  Oh, I just can’t get it straight!

Ok, so you can’t consider this post exhaustive.  I turned over a lot of ground and left a lot of issues unanswered.   I took for granted, for example, that every reader, including 99.99% of Christians, believe that in fact violence is an appropriate response to raping and school slaughter.  And certainly there are many times and places where non-violence really is the answer.  There are even times when (as Christians) not resisting a violent man is called for.  Yes, I know.  I didn’t deal with these issues.  Perhaps in a later post, I will.

In the meantime, I’ll bet you a hundred bucks that if someone breaks into your house to do your harm or bursts into your kid’s school and starts shooting, you’ll be among the first to dial 9-11.

And that’s enough to prove the point:  violence is sometimes the answer.

Let’s lose the platitude and start using our brains.

I believe I’m in the first half of the segment.

Topic:  “Can you prove there is a God?”

We could tackle this topic another 3 times before we’ve covered a fraction of what could be said.

As the dead do not know the living, or even that they themselves are dead, so too irrationality does not know rationality.

Augustine argued that evil was not a ‘thing-in-itself’ but always some good thing that has been corrupted.  Evil is a direction away from good.  I think he is right about that and I know now that there are many examples of the same principle.  Rationality and Irrationality are one example.  The Living and the Dead, another.  Morality and Immorality yet one more.  I’m sure there are others, and now that I am more alert to the principle I’ll keep my eye out for them.

But it does raise interesting questions:  if the dead do not know they are dead how are you to proceed if you are a live person in the business of raising the dead?