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)

Lutherans are big on being saved by grace through faith, and not by works.  They make a big deal about how a person’s efforts- their own reason and strength (read: or personal decision) aids in one’s salvation.  Of course, this is proper to a point.   But what then would we make of a comment such as this one from the Apostle Paul?  Paul says,

I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some.  (1 Cor 9:22)

Whoa.  Hold the horses.  Paul is saving people?  Holy cats.  I thought that was the work of God!  The sole, and exclusive domain of the Holy Spirit!  And yet here you have Paul issuing forth blasphemy!

The Lutherans that I know who ‘hyper-defend’ God seem oblivious to this passage, and numerous ones like it.   There is irony in this, because Lutherans are theologically equipped to incorporate Paul’s statement in a cogent manner, talking about things like the ‘means of grace,’ the emphasis on vocation, and things of that sort.  In this case we might point out that while it is God who saves, surely, he has decided to do this through certain means- and these means include the body of Christ, the Church.  (They would add:  ‘through the pure preaching of the Gospel and the right administration of the sacraments.)

But sometimes they just get all in a fit all the same if you include people as agents carrying out God’s mission.  That is when you see the ‘hyper-defense’ on display, as if by acknowledging the fact that God uses people to carry out his will, that takes away from the credit that God rightly deserves.

The simple fact is that the Biblical witness is pretty clear:  God does tend to use people to carry out his plans on earth.   He could have delivered the Israelites from Egypt without involving Moses at all.  Sure enough, it was by God’s power that the people were delivered, but he still brought Moses in.  Then of course Jesus appointed disciples to go out after his death and resurrection to spread the word.  God certainly could have just personally appeared to each and every person on the planet and delivered his message directly.  For that matter, he could speak into our minds and be done with it.  But he doesn’t do that.  Not only does he work through ‘means,’ but he works through people- that is, people themselves are means.

I won’t speculate as to why he has chosen to operate that way.  I can venture one thing- I think it is because he wishes to give us the dignity and honor to be ambassadors in that way.  I have other thoughts, but it is enough here simply to realize he uses people.  This is the clear biblical witness, and it doesn’t take away from God’s sovereignty one bit.  If anything (in my book) it makes it all the more impressive.

On top of all of this, when we say that God uses people to carry out his mission on earth, we’re thinking primarily of the Church.  And that brings us right back around to the fact that God is doing all of it, because on account of the Mysterious power and plan of God, Jesus walks the earth still, incarnate in the Church- for the bride and bridegroom are ‘one flesh.’  (Eph. 5).  The Church is the physical hands and feet of Christ.  I believe this as a literal reality.  Not a metaphor.

So, it really bugs me when I hear nice and sincere Christians encountering a good that needs to be done and they chuck it off to God to do.   Sure, if that ‘good’ is outside your capacity, commit it to prayer and do whatever else you can.  But if it is in your power to step in, and you don’t, figuring that God will be the one, just exactly how did you expect God to help that person?  Manna from heaven?  Ravens?  Can God do that?  Absolutely.  Is that the customary way he operates?  No.  Christ did show up, physically, to help that person.

There is an old story about a man who is adrift in the ocean and prays to God for help.  Three times a ship comes by and they offer to help him and each time he says, “No, I prayed to God to save me, and I’m going to wait!”  So the guy gets eaten by sharks and now he’s standing before God and he says, “Why didn’t you save me?”  And God looks at him with a blank look and says, “What do you think the ships were for, dude?”

Well, the converse of this story is that the sailors are the hands and feet of God.  I hear some Christians talk and I can see them on their ship, seeing the guy adrift and saying to him, “Don’t worry, we prayed for God to help you.  He’ll be along shortly to save you!”  Uh, yea…

This is reflected in the Scriptures, but I get the feeling that many Christians think that Jesus, John, James, Paul, and Peter were joking.  You see, there are a lot of Christians who think that loving God consists of singing praise hymns and getting all warm and fuzzy when they hear an inspiring message from the pulpit.  Communion with God stuff.  There is probably something to that, don’t get me wrong, but that is not how the New Testament lays out love.  Jesus and the apostles are all in agreement on this:  if you love God, you will love your brother.  If you don’t love your brother, whom you can see, you may think you love God- whom you can’t- but guess what?  You don’t.  (The book of 1 John sums this up well- see for example 4:19-21)

When we think about what God has done, we naturally want to respond in gratitude and we are rightly enthralled by the Grace of God.  But we shouldn’t confuse this enthrallment as exhaustive of what it means to love God.  God has told us what what he wants from those who love him, and it isn’t heapings of praise songs or even hymns.  It’s really straight forward.  Jesus lays it out pretty well in the latter chapters of John:  “If anyone loves me, he will obey my command.”  “My command is this:  Love each other as I have loved you.”

What is the command?  Was it unclear?  Was he joking?  He says what you’re supposed to do if you love God- its to love one another.  And in light of the foregoing, you should see why:  when we love one another, God is loving the other person through us.  That’s why we can’t kick it up the chain of command when some opportunity to help someone is in front of us, and it is in our power to do something.  There is no ‘up the chain.’  There is just us.   Granted, we will often lack the exact thing needful.  Yes, we can pray.  But we can also come along side- and we ought to, for the comfort we may bring is the very Comfort of God.

And that isn’t a metaphor.

(2 Cor. 1:3-7)

CAVEAT CAVEAT CAVEAT  DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER Yes, I know that I fail on all of these points myself and yes I know that there are a great many saints that do not need to hear such exhortations and yes I know that it remains true that all this is not our own efforts but in the final analysis is the power of God through the Holy Spirit etc… which is pretty much my point…  CAVEAT CAVEAT CAVEAT  DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER

I know my child.  This child is mine.  Mine to protect and mine to cherish.

You are quite convinced that Immunization X will not harm my child.

But then you send my child home.  We live with the consequences.  You don’t.

You say that only this few out of this many will have a reaction.  This few is acceptable to you.  You don’t take them home and live with them.

I may decide this few is too many because I know that if my child is part of the ‘few’ I am the one responsible.

It is my call.   Back off.  Show some respect.

I am my child’s advocate.

If I don’t advocate, who will?

If I won’t represent his and her best interests, who will?

My child is not a statistic.  Behind ‘public health data’ are real people.

You take care of the numbers.  I’ll take care of my people.

I am my child’s advocate.

He cannot speak for himself.  She cannot understand the issues.  Yet the choices we make today will impact them forever.  I know my children.  I know the issues.  You are not my child’s advocate.  I am.

You are quite certain my child should be socialized according to your dictates.

For thousands of years civilization got along just great without your professional opinion.

If I choose to make use of your services, it is as my instrument exerting my authority as my child’s advocate.  My family is not the arbitrary tool of the state to achieve the state’s ends.  My family uses the state- or doesn’t- as its tool.  I dispense with it as I determine.

Turn your own family into a machination of the state.  Leave mine alone.

I am my child’s advocate.

I am the parent.  The child is not just a child but my child.

I am also the father.  I am the spiritual head of this household.

Not the pastor.  Not the Sunday School teacher.  Not the youth director.  Not the DCE.  It is my duty to raise my child in the Lord, not yours.

I avail myself of the congregation’s services in instructing my children as an extension of my authority.  I delegate to the congregation.  The congregation does not delegate to me, for these duties are properly mine.

Raising our children in the Lord is the task set before my wife and I.  Raising our children is not a task set before you.  Help us;  don’t usurp us.

I am my child’s advocate.

You are quite sure that it is damaging to children to indoctrinate them so.

You would have us believe that we could steep them in the secular humanistic worldview for 18 years and only then be able to make an ‘informed decision’ about religion.

Riiiiiiiiiiight.

I am my child’s advocate.  Not you.  I know my history.  Do you?  If you did, you would butt out.

One man’s indoctrination is another man’s education.  I am my child’s advocate, so it is my task to decide for our family which is which.

I am my child’s advocate and whatever you think about the education I give him I think the same of the education you would give.

Where does it end?  Who decides?  You wish that I would keep my religious beliefs out of the ‘state.’  I wasn’t the one who vested in the state such power.  That was your idea.

You may come this far but no further:  my family is mine to protect, and I deem it necessary to protect them from you.  Frankly, I don’t think ya’ll have that great of a track record.

Attempt to insert your worldview into the ‘education’ of my family and yea, I’m going to insert my ‘religious beliefs’ into the discussion about what that ‘education’ should consist of.  Deal with it.

I am my child’s advocate.

I know there are children without advocates.  I know there are advocates who do not defend their children’s interests with the same informed conviction.  The solution is not to marginalize the advocates who do advocate, but raise up the ones who don’t.

I know you are the professional.  But my family is not a social petri dish.  It is not the place for you to test out your social re-engineering schemes.  I know too that you care for many families, and even mine.

But you don’t go home with them.  You don’t take them home with you.  If you screw up, odds are you never know it.

If I screw up, I live with the consequences.

The buck stops here.

I am my child’s advocate.

This job is filled.  We are not taking applications.  I too am a professional- I am an expert on my children.  There are only two professionals who are experts in this particular specialty:  my wife and I.   We aren’t hiring a third or three hundred.  There are only two professionals:  and you aren’t either of them.

Do your work- much if not most if not all of it commendable- but remember your place.

And remember mine:  my child’s advocate.

Someone slid this article across my desk that inquires as to why evangelical Christians are against universal health care.   Now, strictly speaking, I’m not an evangelical.  Also, I don’t think that all Christians oppose universal health care, and I will not presume that Christians who do will share all my reasons.  I hope this caveat spares me the litany of comments accusing me of ‘generalizing.’

I will take the article as my foil as it is one of the finest expressions of liberal hubris and arrogance that I’ve seen in a while.  The author begins by indicating he seriously wanted to know why Christians who are supposed to be all about love would oppose health care.  The end includes a long screed:

(p.s. this opinion is reserved for those Christians who have not actually thought about the consequences, and decided that more people are harmed than helped by the new law. They are being consistent with their beliefs. That being said, if you think you are in that camp of people excluded, you probably aren’t. You probably are just being geedy [sic], selfish and jerkish, but convincing yourself that this is why you oppose it, while the truth remains you just dont want taxed, or adhere to some abstract notion of how this bill is UnGodly).

Now, I haven’t been accused of being geedy in a long time, but I suppose it was overdue.  What you see embodied in this paragraph is the supreme conviction that, in fact, the author already knows what our real reasons even better than we know our real reasons and the reasons we state are not likely to be the real reasons.  Now, I find communication to be difficult in general.  Truly sincere communication requires earnest listening.  The paragraph above reveals that he isn’t sincere or earnest in his request for clarification.  We shall keep this in mind.

I should note that this will be long, so if you cannot endure a sustained argument let me direct you to another medium such as Twitter, or if that is too much as well, TheDailyKos.  Granted, this article is long even by my standards… maybe I’ll make it available as a pdf for downloading and printing.

Let us begin by exploring the premise of the man’s argument:

“Isn’t the greatest of virtues love? Isnt that right in the Bible? What is getting lost in the translation from what Christianity should be and is, and what it has become?”

Here we see the hubris on display in vivid colors.  Now, we’ve already agreed at this point that ‘born-again, evangelical Christians’ are the most opposed to universal health care.  Does it strike anyone else as a little odd that this fellah, who is not a Christian, thinks he’s in a better position than Christians themselves to understand what Christianity should be and contrast it with what it has become?

Let me submit to Mr. Heflick that it is an unwarranted assumption to believe that he will have the same understanding of the word ‘love’ as how it is portrayed in the Bible.  I find this to be a common difficulty regarding ‘love.’  No one bothers to define it and systematically understand it because everyone thinks they know everything about it instinctively.  I include fellow Christians in that.

The net result of this approach when we turn to the Bible is that we insert our ‘instinctive’ meaning of the word ‘love’ wherever we see it, never considering that perhaps the Bible embodies a different meaning.

This comes to play when we consider another statement by the gent:

The more clear Christian response, from my understanding, should be to whole heartedly endorse anything that helps their fellow man lead a life of less suffering

So, apparently ‘love’ is about doing anything to help their fellow man suffer less.    Based on this premise, Mr. Heflick makes the interesting and logically fallacious inference that if we reject universal health care we must simultaneously not want to help our fellow man.  In short, in order to meet Mr. Heflick’s standard of ‘love’ we’ve got to ‘love’ in the particular manner that Mr. Heflick prescribes, and this apparently is only by implementing universal health care.

The idea that there may be other ways to ease suffering does not appear to cross his mind.  I will not here counter the unfounded reduction of ‘love’ to simply easing people’s suffering.  I think it can be said that it is at least that but it is certainly more.  For a simple example, at its heart we can say that orthodox Christianity certainly does aim to spare people from suffering- especially the eternal and everlasting sort.

But this leads to a very important point that helps us to finally segue into the myriad of reasons for why I reject universal health care and health insurance.  Mr. Heflick says, “There are about a zillion verses in the Bible saying we should help the poor, show compassion, be loving…”

But there are other verses, too.  For example, Jesus said, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  (Matt 10:39).  Suffering- even to the point of death- seems to be anticipated in this passage.  He also said, “It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”  (Matt 5:29).

These passages and others like them do not justify ambivalence to the human condition but they help illustrate that easing temporal sufferings is not the whole sum of what Christian love will be all about.

Mr. Heflick is not to be faulted for highlighting the passages that he likes from the Bible and ignoring (or remaining ignorant) of all the other ones.  Liberal Christianity already does that, visible in particular in pursuit of ‘social justice.’  These folks have dispensed with the notion of ‘hell’ that Jesus spoke of before so it naturally follows that once you’ve cut out that and other aspects of the Bible that seem ‘out of date’ that you’re basically left with ‘easing the suffering’ of people as the only lasting value.

The problem is that these same passages they accept come in the context of passages that they don’t.  In order to understand them all we must take them all together.

So, I, as a conservative, am not against ‘social justice,’ per se, just as I am not against easing the sufferings of people.  How I do this is not unimportant, though.  For example, in easing the suffering of some am I morally justified to increase the suffering of others?

The Liberal dismisses the objection that paying for health care out of taxation is improper by saying it ought to be endured for the sake of humanity and to say otherwise is simple greed.  It must be acknowledged at the minimum that taking money from someone will indeed cause them suffering at some level.  Just because we have in hand a noble cause is it right to inflict this suffering?  The Liberal says, “I’m going to extract 40% of your income in order to help the poor!  Why the long face?  Don’t you WANT to help the poor?!?!?!?”

The earnest Christian cannot go along with this reasoning.  The Bible certainly does describe Christian love as being concerned with the poor and showing compassion, and calls for Christians to provide monetarily for the material needs of other Christians abound.  But there are two important things that must be noted:  1., At no time are Christians called upon to be generous with other people’s money.  Their own money, yes.  But not the rich neighbor’s down the street.  2., Their generosity is meant to be as un-coerced as possible.

Both of these points are important.  Universal Health Care can only happen by ‘coerced compassion’ that makes primary use of ‘other people’s money.’  You see, there are other passages in the Bible, too.  Remember “Do not steal?”

It might be said that it isn’t stealing if ‘the people’ (otherwise known as the proletariat)  take it by force of the Government.  If that is your argument, I don’t see where you can non-arbitrarily suspend it.  You may as well go whole hog and call yourself a full blooded communist.  If you concede at any point that it is possible for the Government to go too far in extracting resources, that at some point, somewhere, the forced extraction of funds and resources is in fact stealing, then you allow Christians the right to decide for themselves where that threshold is.

I for one believe that it is stealing, even if the ‘forced extraction’ is for putatively ‘compassionate’ purposes.  In saying this, I set myself out of the category of  Mr. Heflick’s where I ‘just don’t want to be taxed.’  In fact, most of the evangelical Christians he refers to cannot belong in this class, because in fact it is I and we who will largely benefit from this forced extraction.  As it currently stands, my family is among those that has the most to gain from the health care bill that was recently passed.  My family will be ‘passed over’ and all the benefits we receive will be derived, somehow, from some rich family in some other place who was forced to be ‘compassionate.’

And I think that’s wrong.  If some rich Christian family wanted to reach into our lives and help tend to our health care needs and that sort of thing I would probably be deeply appreciative.  If rich Christian families did all they could to help the poor out of their own initiative, I don’t have an objection.  But to force them at Government-Gun-Point… that I object to.

In another article on the same Psychologytoday.com website a woman, in a very hilarious argument ‘proving’ that liberals are more intelligent than conservatives based on the novel (and faulty) evolutionary logic that ‘whatever is evolutionarily newer is evolutionarily superior’ she defines liberalism in this way:

liberalism (as opposed to conservatism) in the contemporary United States as the genuine concern for the welfare of genetically unrelated others and the willingness to contribute larger proportions of private resources for the welfare of such others.

From the foregoing, however, we understand that this is not entirely accurate.  We must add a modifier if we are to honestly define ‘liberalism’:  “the willingness to contribute larger proportions of OTHER PEOPLE’s private resources for the welfare of such others.”

Conservatives that I know are all about helping others, just not on someone else’s dime.  This is true on principle, and pragmatics:  “The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money” (Margaret Thatcher).

You see, the Bible presents love as the highest virtue but not as the only virtue.  Not all that is done in the name of love is justifiable.  Not all that is done in the name of ‘social justice’ is just.  The Christian must seek to balance all of the virtues together.   Because the orthodox Christian understand that temporal matters matter but they pale in comparison to ultimate matters where injustice perpetrated in the name of love will be called to account, they cannot dispense with these other elements, no matter how nobly they are presented.

If one really cares about what the Bible says, you will see that there is little to no justification found within it for the forced extraction of resources to give to others.   Generosity is encouraged, true, but it is only generous if it is your own money and it is only credited as generous if it comes freely.  If anyone cares about what the Bible says, they may wish to take a look at 2 Corinthians chapter 8.

Or, they might want to consider a reading of that famous passage about Christian charity/communism in Acts 2:44-45:

All the believers were together and had everything in common.  Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.

I note that they sold their own possessions and goods.  They didn’t go across the street with a bludgeon and say, “Give me some money so we can help the poor or we’re really going to clock you!  Oh, don’t whine!  Aren’t you loving?  Don’t you care about the poor?  You should be happy to give us your money.  Give it up, now!”

We can also make the observation from this passage that the generosity on display in this Acts passage and described in 2 Cor 8 do not come with any justification or imperative to extend Christian notions of ‘charity’ to non-Christians.  In other words, there is no warrant in the Bible for taking the principles of compassion and imposing them on others.

We now arrive at a discussion of the wisdom embodied in the opening quote of this article.  The ‘right’ tends to legislate morality.  The ‘left’ wants to legislate compassion.  The left, filled to the brim with secular humanists and liberal Christians, are often up in arms about the efforts of the ‘right’ to impose their moral view of the world on everyone else.  We must see the deep irony, here:  the left intends to do the exact same thing!  Only it is far worse!

The left reasons that everyone will share their notion of care and compassion for the poor and suffering and insists that we all should go along with them if we are compassionate people (like they are).  They are, in fact, violating ‘the separation of church and state’ that they hold dear in order to enshrine their values on everyone else.  They believe this is a ‘secular’ value.  The fact that Christians don’t go along with them is understood as being selfish and greedy.  In fact, Christians do not share those values in that sense as already described in brief above.

But another difficulty arises when we view it in these terms and we see it in display in the health care bill that has just been passed.  Namely, the left believes that ‘easing suffering’ ‘compassion’ and ‘caring for the poor’ means allowing women to get abortions.  Now, don’t misunderstand me.  It is not my point here to argue the case against abortion.  My point is that if we all sat down to decide precisely what ‘health care’ consists of, there will be many, many differences of opinion.   They cannot be resolved simply by declaring, “Ah, but the majority has spoken!” because they would not cease for that reason to be a matter of conscience and personal conviction.

If ever there was a time for a ‘separation of church and state’ as the Liberals understand that phrase it is in questions of ‘charity’ and the ‘public good’!

If you believe that all of these things are of importance however you define them, then fund them from your own money.   Don’t make us financially support your pet causes and we won’t make you do the same.  In fact, historically, we haven’t.   Christians are the ones that founded all institutions of higher learning.  They are the ones that founded schools, and when these were co-opted by Liberals, they started their own schools out of their own funds while still paying for the public schools, set up their own health clinics and hospitals and any number of charities.   If you ‘compassionate liberals’ did the same with your own funds, I doubt we’d be having this discussion.

But of course you don’t want to do that, do you?   Is it because you are selfish and greedy and prefer to subsidize these programs using the resources of others and merely cite the ‘public good’ as your excuse?

I should here clarify that I refer to myself as a ‘Libertarian-Constitutionalist.’  In other words, I am not the sort who is interested in ‘legislating morality,’ but if we are going to legislate such things (any thing) then we should at least do so in a uniform manner according to a firm respect for the rule of law.   Don’t try to foist the knee-jerk response, “Oh yea, well you’re legislating YOUR morality…” because if you say that, you don’t know what you’re talking about.  If you read my blog even a little you will see that that is not my position at all.  Research before you speak.

We are 2,500 words into this and you are probably thinking we are done.  Sorry.  We aren’t.  Here we go.

In the original article, Mr. Heflick says,

It seems I live in a parellel universe where somehow this equates to “but people who are poor are lazy and shouldn’t get our help.” Do you really think Jesus would oppose universal healthcare because his taxes would get raised? Really?

Given my previous discussion, I think Jesus would oppose universal health care because it embodies the silly and naive notion that Man can really spare himself from all of the hardships that come from being alive.   I think if Jesus were asked this question he wouldn’t even bother to state a position.  He’d say something like, “My kingdom is not of this world.  This world will be consumed in fire.  Unless you believe in me, you too will perish.”

This isn’t to say that this ought to be the full sum of the Christian attitude.  I’m only saying that if one actually bothers to read the Bible in full, it is evident in numerous places that Jesus came to carry out a rescue mission and not to issue moral platitudes or lay out the blueprints for a utopia.

Simply appealing to wussy notions about a ‘compassionate’ Jesus without remembering times when he was hard, insulting, and abrasive won’t cut it.  Nor can we limit our discourse to only what Jesus said and did because, well, like I said, he had a specific mission in mind and that mission pertains to the mission of the Church but is NOT the mission of the Church.  I cannot die for the sins of the world.

So, has Mr. Heflick ever read this passage?

In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you have received from us.  For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example.  We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it…. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule:  ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat.’ 2 Thessalonians 3:6-10

What about this passage from 1 Thess. 4:11-12

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

Now, we should be clear here that these passages- like nearly all passages about ‘social justice’ type issues- are speaking only to the Christian within the Christian community.  So, it would not be right to mindlessly extend these prohibitions to the non-Christian community.  We might chastise a lazy fellow believer, but we are not called upon to chastise our lazy neighbor, because we do not have the same basis to make our appeal, which is Jesus Christ (Philippians 4:2).

That said, we can from these and other passages draw some important principles.  Let us begin with one big one:  in the name of love it is never right to enslave anyone.

In New Testament terms, slavery is anything that masters us or controls us other than God.  See Galatians 3:26-29, Gal. 5:1, 1 Corinthians. 6:12 and 1 Cor. 10:23-24.  The last passage reads:

“Everything is permissible” but not everything is beneficial.  “Everything is permissible- but not everything is constructive.  Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.”

And the Galatians 5:1 passage reads:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

In the first place, it should be understood that when we talk about seeking the good of others, we cannot pick our concept of ‘goodness’ out of the air or allow our own natural inclinations to be the sole determinant of what is ‘good,’ especially if we are Christians.  What is ‘good for others’ can be a matter for discussion and it doesn’t follow that just because a liberal secular humanist says, “Let’s do good” that he has in mind the same sort of things that a Christian would.

The liberal secular humanist ought to realize that.

I say this because for the Christian, enslaving people for their own good is not a morally sustainable path.  Christianity is about freedom and being free.  Wherever Christianity has gone, freedom followed in its wake.  Certainly I believe it has followed in the way that really matters- spiritually and eternally (which is surely what the Galatians passage is primarily referencing) but it has demonstrably brought temporal freedom, too.

Orthodox Christians, and conservatives in general, understand that the pursuit of love must come hand in hand with freedom.  (I must here give credit to Ayn Rand and the Objectivists for getting this basically right… these are the rare atheists who tend to be conservatives.)

Some examples will do.  For example, the Christian Church has historically maintained that marriages should be pursued in such a way that both the man and the woman consent to the marriage.  A more striking example can be made by contrast:  unlike the Muslims who spread their faith by the sword, the Christians understood that saving faith cannot and could not come from coercion.

There will be instant reaction to this citing a number of notable exceptions which I do not deny.  However, exceptions are exceptions.  They do not obliterate the general truth.

I do not suggest that this path of freedom- temporal and spiritual- has been straight and without incident but it is a historical fact that the freest nation on this planet was founded by men and women fleeing religious persecution in their native lands who, when finally given the opportunity to enshrine their values, created a Constitution that would prevent such things from happening again.  It wasn’t religion they were against, but religion as a tool for abuse by the Government- and it wasn’t the only tool they were afraid of.

For whatever its faults, it cannot be denied that America has been the freest most tolerant nation on this planet and this has come in large part because the nation’s founders enshrined the biblical value of freedom into its founding documents.

From this you may infer that I see universal health care as an enslavement.  You infer correctly.

I do not see how socialized health care is not in effect even if not in name, essentially making us all wards of the state.  I do not believe that it is good to be a ward of the state.  I do not believe it is good to make anyone wards of the state.  It therefore follows that I oppose universal health care which makes people wards of the state.  I am seeking the good of others when I say:  let us not enslave them.  And yes, I don’t want to be enslaved myself.

The liberal will say that this is a ‘good enslavement’ but I vehemently disagree.  I am not here speaking of the forceful extraction of funds from people, but rather the effect that such ‘social justice’ programs actually have on the people they say they want to ‘help.’  I already mentioned how liberals see abortion as ‘helping people.’  I can’t go along with that.  However, creating a universal health care system is the same as creating a universal welfare state.

I do not see why if the ‘let us love in the name of the public good’ argument is extended it should not be extended all the way.  Why not have a ‘universal food distribution,’ too?  How can it be fair and right and socially just for one man to have a $40 steak but another man can only afford $3/lb hamburger?  And what about the people who are going hungry?

Mr.  Heflick said,

“By not backing healthcare reform, it is as if every Christian who opposes it is indirectly inflicting harm and suffering onto others.”

If not going in for universal health care is actually backing the harm and suffering of others then it should follow that not having a ‘universal food distribution’ is doing the same thing.

Surely it follows that if there are 5 people out of 100 who do not have access to quality health care then we should take the whole lot of them and redistribute the wealth equally among them!  Or, what about just helping the 5 people and allowing the other 95 to retain their freedom?

If there are 5 people out of 100 who are going hungry we do not put forward the solution that we must put everyone under a universalized food program.  At least, not here in America.  Rationing cards and the like are the things of communist countries.  So, some people have obviously followed Mr. Heflick’s reasoning to its logical conclusion.  Why doesn’t Mr. Heflick?

We can be thankful that he is inconsistent but inconsistency isn’t the kind of thing we really commend people for.

Everywhere that ‘universal health care’ has gone lower quality and rationing has come with it.  And why not?  Where public dollars are at stake, surely it follows that no one should get special treatment.  And who can possibly deny the reality that someone- the government, of course- will have to decide who gets what treatments based on the finite available dollars?

The freedom to make one’s own health care choices is preserved by allowing them to pay for it out of their own pocket.  I leave aside dealing with the painfully naive notion that these government agents will always have our interests in mind.  This is out of touch with reality.  History gives no reason to hope in such nonsense.

Moreover, the fact that a finite pool of ‘public’ resources has to be carefully administered ‘equally’ to the public has given rise to a series of big problems.  First of all, whenever something is ‘socialized’ the quality tends to go down.  It has to.  The laws of reality require it.  Let me explain.

Remember the guy with the $40 steak and the guy with $3 a pound hamburger?  Let us suppose that the government has to balance this out ‘fairly’ and ‘equally’ since it is administering public dollars.  Well, life is life.  No matter how you cut it, there just ain’t no way you’re going to be able to distribute quality steaks to everyone in America whenever they want it.  Oh sure, you might be able to petition for one and on occasion get your wish, but you would never be able to go out and get one if you so chose because its all has to be withheld for fair administration.  So what can the government afford to give out to everyone?  At best, the $3 a pound hamburger.  In reality, it will be even worse than that because without the profit motive to spur people on to raise, slaughter, and distribute quality beef, the quality would decline.

This is exactly what happens in any place where this philosophy is fully implemented.  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

You can expect that the quality of health care, and access to health care in general, will both decrease if ever a universal health plan is imposed fully.  Not only will we become wards of the state, but the freedom to seek and pursue quality health care will be seriously curtailed.

You may disagree with me and say that somehow we’ll be able to pull it off this time, but regardless, you see that my objection is not about simply being ‘greedy’ and ‘selfish.’  I earnestly believe that more suffering would result from universal health care and so, in the name of love and decreasing temporal suffering, I feel compelled to resist it.

But of course it doesn’t matter what I say.  Liberals know what I really mean.

The above presumes at that our government agents really are working out of noble reasons according to good common sense moral dictates.  Unfortunately, as the abortion thing serves to illustrate, this presumption cannot be made.

There is a threat to freedom and liberty that accompanies the equal distribution of finite resources for the public good, and it is embodied in the very common and utterly logical conclusion that one of the most effective ways to raise or sustain the quality of living on this basis for all people is to… reduce the number of people.

Population control reasoning almost always comes right along with this way of thinking.  It makes perfect sense, right?  If there are only 100 $40 steaks available but 1,000 people to share them between, and you hate having to pick cow hooves out of your hamburger, surely the simplest thing to do is just get rid of 900 of those people!

Abortion is horrible in my estimation but just as repulsive is the reason why so many people support it- not because it is ostensibly about a woman’s choice but because it decreases the number of people the state will have to tend to.

The (in)famous Bart Stupak reported that this very reasoning was in play in discussions about abortion and the Senate health bill that was passed:

What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue–come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”

The article I use to document this is interesting in its own right and I submit it for your consideration.

The aptly named Jacob Appel, a ‘bioethicist’ has made a similar argument  in regards to eugenics:

The most obvious advantage of mandatory screening [of embryos] is that it will reduce the long-term suffering of the children who are spared disease. At the same time, preventing future cancers will certainly save tax dollars. These savings could be redirected toward researching new therapies and providing quality care for current patients.

Here you see a clear case of finding a way to give out the quality $40 steaks.  You do it simply by eliminating all those people who might otherwise have been competing for those dollars.

This latter quote also calls attention to one of the other despicable aspects of this reasoning- and which I want no part of as a Christian- is the notion that you will ‘reduce the long-term suffering’ of these children, sparing them from having the disease by…. watch this… preventing them from coming into existence in the first place.

Oh ho, Mr. Appel!  What a stellar solution!  We shall eliminate suffering by eliminating the sufferers!  Is this what you wanted, Mr. Heflick?  This is exactly the sort of reasoning that statists quickly turn to when trying to figure out how to extend equal services in the public good.  I find it evil and repulsive and morally repugnant.

Keep in mind that Mr. Appel uses as his example for screening a disease that while 4 out of 5 women with the gene may get is one that is treatable in 9 out of 10 cases.

This is what some people mean by ‘compassion’ and ‘reducing suffering’ and how they mean to go about ‘cutting costs’ in order to ‘improve quality.’

In the face of these examples, which I wish to be clear are meant to be illustrative, not exhaustive, for I could produce many more *cough* John Holdren *cough*, I must flatly condemn any such program that inspires such thinking.  If we must wonder why ‘born again evangelicals’ so often are most opposed to universal health care we may begin to wonder why liberal secular humanists (whether atheists or ‘Christians’) so easily embrace tyrannical and totalitarian malthusian and Nazi style thinking.  But that is another post.

So you see that there are a great many reasons why I reject universal health care.  These things I have listed which are urged in the name of ‘love’ do mischief with other virtues expressed in the Bible:   It deprives people of their work ethic, lowers the quality of care, reduces the access to care period, reduces humanity to temporal beings (I mean, if you really wanted to reduce suffering why not hook everyone up to morphine for their entire lives a la the Matrix?  What?  Don’t you care for people?), takes money away from people who worked hard for it whether they consent or not and uses the money and resources to do things that they may not find morally acceptable.

On top of all these things, already bad, I find that the people who are really committed to bringing about ‘universal health care’ in the name of ‘love’ and ‘compassion’ and using the government to ‘help people’ are very often (I do not say they all are this way!) pursing a program that I consider to be vile, disgusting, abhorrent, and… evil.  Pure, out and out evil.

I have no confidence that we could ever implement any socialistic program in this country without having these despicable people pushing for it and carrying it out.  The people most likely to implement it with moral sanity are the very people that the left wishes would just stay out government altogether.  People don’t want Christians to ‘impose’ their morality on others, but it is precisely this ‘morality’ which gives rise to Jesus’ statement that the whole moral law can be summed up in “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind; and the second is like it- Love your neighbor as yourself.”

You can’t have one without the other, friend.  Not from a Christian viewpoint, at least.

And I should say, in conclusion, lest I be misunderstood, the notion that if we care and love people so much that we’ll just deny them existence and enjoy the consequence of having them not around to dilute the available ‘public funds’ is so despotic that there is no way, ever, that I can be reconciled to it or any program that exhibits even a hint of it.  I should rather die.  And I shall stand against this tyranny to my dying breath.  Those who espouse this point of view I count as my enemy.  I shall not even dine with them.

Because I do love people- enough so that I should like them to exist, and I have every hope that we can ease their suffering, but not at the same time by enslaving them and making them the chattel of the state.

If this means that I reject this bill because it is ‘ungodly’ and that makes me unloving, well, you can eat my shorts.

I have a solid dozen other posts on this blog that talk about these topics.  The search tool in the right column is your friend.

Something I’ve been pondering for awhile is this:  Is the culture war over?  And did we lose it?

I part company with those who seek to Christianize the culture as though this in itself is a noble goal.  It seems to me that this would in effect merely make our culture a ‘white washed tomb.’  More important than the culture are the people within it and their state of mind and eternal fates.  Nonetheless, people are strongly influenced by the culture at large whether they know it or not or admit it or not.  An unfriendly culture will make it harder for people to receive the Gospel.

I believe that.   To an extent.  I note, however, that the Christian Church itself exploded into existence within a culture that was not yet, by virtue of the fact that there wasn’t a pervasive Christianity to Christianize, Christian.

I honestly don’t think we’ve lost the culture war (yet) or else I wouldn’t be promoting things like the apologetics conference.   That said, barring any dramatic shifts (which can happen), I think the writing is on the wall.  Perhaps it is time to mount an orderly retreat?

We wouldn’t want to end up like the boys stranded at Dunkirk, scrambling to save as many as possible with the sea at our backs and the enemy advancing.

What could we gain by no longer committing resources to defending a fortification we know we cannot hold?  There are distinct advantages to fighting a ‘guerrilla war’ and history shows that they can be very effective.   (One word:  Vietnam.)

If the Church was not fighting to preserve its buildings, institutions, and legal hold on the United States, by fighting instead for the ‘hearts and minds’ of American citizens could it regain those very same buildings, institutions, and legal influence?  I think so.  I call it the ‘aim high’ principle.  You’ll recognize it from Matthew:  “Seek first the kingdom of God and all these will be given to you.”  If you aim for the highest, the lowest gets thrown in.  If you aim for the lowest, you’re lucky to get that.

So what might this look like?  How about selling all of our church buildings?  Use the money to help the poor in the local community.  Pay the counseling bills for couples struggling with divorce.  If you must have a facility, make it something that is useful for more than 1 hour 1 day a week, and use it.  These types of things you can do now, but you won’t be able to do if the secularists get their way and it becomes illegal to do anything in public that is religiously motivated.

I know that this is far out there, but I for one do not assume that just because its been good for the Church in America this long that it will continue to be so.

At any rate, I asked what could be gained by a smart retreat and one idea that came to my mind is that it would present itself as a hard break, both for believers and unbelievers.  If we said together, “Very well, America.  You want us out of your hair?  Enjoy!” then America would be able to see vividly exactly what they would get.

We live in a society that is like a dog returning to its vomit.  All of the evil and pernicious arguments from the late 1800s thru the 1930s about eugenics, socialism, communism, etc, etc, are all coming back to us today, albeit under different names.   A great many people believe that they can have another crack at these ideas without it ending in the horror witnessed the first times.  This is madness.  But people are easily fooled by easy transitions.  If it appears that the Christian Church is tacitly going along with whatever is implemented in secular society, people won’t be able to connect the dots between ideas and their consequences.  Leave the secularists to run the show and there is no one else to blame.  Sadly, it is a fact of human nature that we do not learn well the mistakes of history.  Successive generations need to endure the ramifications before they’ll accept that the warnings were valid to begin with.

A withdrawal of the Christian Church from ‘popular culture’ will allow for a stark contrast allowing simple analysis:  We did X and we didn’t like it.  It happened after Y left.  There was probably a connection.  Maybe Y needs a second thought.

I said that the Church could use this ‘hard break’ as well.  Yesterday I read a post that was pretty good but reflected some sentiments I don’t agree with that were implied about the Church being ‘different.’  I don’t want to pick on the guy, and since I’m not an Evangelical my experiences are a little different, but there seems to be a prevailing notion within the Church that the style of our worship ought to be of a certain sort:  some people think we should try to make it attractive to people- seekers, etc- and others think we shouldn’t care what people think.

Well, I think the Church needs to wake up to the fact that we haven’t a right to publicly worship at all in any style.  We have no right to fine facilities, whether they be decked out in traditional decor making use of ancient liturgies or are massive stadiums vibrating with peppy pop songs.  No right.  And no promise by God that we should keep them, or that we should ever have had them in the first place.

The Church burst onto the scene without sanctuary, narthex, or gym.  There weren’t seminaries.  There wasn’t protection under the law.  It was a pagan culture that was off and on hostile to Christianity.  Given the staggering growth and health of the early church, some have suggested that the worst thing to have ever happened for the Church was to have ‘won the culture war’ and become the state religion under Constantine.

If the Church decided that the culture war was lost and turned to guerrilla warfare what would that look like?  Would our evangelism perhaps be more effective to the ‘pagans’ around us and that would sprout up all over than with the jaded former Christians who fill the ranks of atheists and secular humanists today?  Would the Christian message be more compelling when it came in the context of Christians bending over backwards to serve one another personally, since no one could delegate to the Institutional Church anymore?

Jesus said, “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 13:34-35

One gets the distinct impression today that Christians think that men will know we are his disciples by going to a service once a week, swaying with inspirational music or reciting ancient liturgies.  I wonder what would happen if Christians no longer had recourse to such safe and cozy gatherings in order to create that sentiment.  I wonder what the world would think when we didn’t act as though our witness to the world consisted in throwing up buildings with steeples and church bells or megaplexes.

I do not know the answer to these questions and don’t even know if they are good questions.  It’s just what I’ve been thinking about lately and I thought I would share it with ya’ll.

On the other hand, the nature of ‘culture’ is that it perpetuates itself, feeds itself, fuels itself.   The culture is the air we breathe and the water in which we swim.  It has the ability to mold us into its image, and once so molded, we mold others in that same image.  Resistance isn’t exactly futile, but it is difficult.  Conformity to the culture is the path of least resistance.  It would behoove us, therefore, to ensure that the culture is not toxic.  If the culture is healthy, the path of least resistance will more likely result in healthy beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.

You all will have experienced this.  I remember when I worked construction for awhile.  After just a month or so, I found myself talking like those guys.  When I was a truck driver, in time, I spoke their language.   It is a simple truth about humans that they become like those they spend their time with… bad company corrupts good character.  So, we are wise if we surround ourselves with people we- after thoughtful and careful deliberation- would like to be like.

As Christians interested in evangelism and trying to bring as many people as possible to Christ, these realities cannot be dismissed, but nor can they be mistaken for the end rather than the means.  We see this often enough in legislative pursuits.  If, for example, we outlawed gay marriage, homosexuality would still be around.   Hearts and minds would still have to be persuaded.  To me, this thinking on culture does not negate legislative efforts but it puts them into perspective and keeps them from becoming all consuming- for, after all, we cannot ignore the power of culture to shape and transmit attitudes and behaviors.

This is the reasoning embodied in the online apologetics conference that my ministry is hosting this May.

The goal is to light a fire in the Church to try to intentionally defend Christianity in the wider culture.   As an author myself, something about that nags at me:  shouldn’t art be promoted just for its own sake?  Or, isn’t there a difference between ‘Christian art’ and ‘an artist who happens to be Christian’?  I think the answer here to both questions is “yes.”  But I think this misses the important point, which perhaps can be highlighted by pointing to a book I recently finished, Shusaku Endo’s Silence.

In this book of historical fiction, priests try to promote Christianity in Japan and are confronted with a culture that is not only hostile to Christianity but, according to apostates and Christian persecutors, is a swamp that sucks in Christians and shapes their very notion of what is ‘Christianity,’ molding it in a Japanese shape.  Christianity truly has trouble taking root in this ‘swamp.’

I think America is becoming a swamp- if it hasn’t already.  People are getting sucked in and drowned left and right.  We could save them one at a time and with great effort… or we can drain the swamp.

A ‘Christian novel’ need not be explicitly Christian in order to reclaim swamp land.  A Christian artist will exhale better air for others to breathe and if enough Christians are breathing out this better air, a true climate change can take place.  Then, when someone comes along with a more explicit Christian message, they will be speaking to someone who is no longer gasping for breath in a toxic atmosphere.  They may reject the message, true, but at least they were alive to hear it.  They’ll be alive to hear it again when the next messenger comes.

I think the Church should incorporate the arts into what it does in a more deliberate and intentional way.  The Church churns out pastors, teachers, and youth directors.  There was a day when the Church also supported (indeed, was the chief patron for!) writers, musicians, artists, and the like.  It is time to churn out people in these vocations who are as solid theologically as our trained ministers.

We shouldn’t act as though it were enough to create good artwork while tolerating theological ignorance or even outright heresy among those we task to help transform the culture for the simple reason that these artists would of course breathe out that kind of air.

It’s time to take these things seriously and put our money where our mouths are.

The two ideas I mentioned are… using ‘spare’ land to grow food to give to the needy and other purposes and build low income housing right on the congregation’s premises.  I discuss and to an extent defend these ideas there, and don’t worry, I’ve got more ideas coming down the pike.  You may comment on those ideas here or there.

What I did dwell on there but would like to spend just a moment speaking to here is this premise:  “Congregational facilities should reflect the mission of the church.  Where you put your money says something about what you value.  You can tell a lot about a church and the Church by looking at its buildings and where it puts its money.”

Now, I don’t think this is a controversial premise.  Moreover, I don’t think it applies only to the Church.  I think this is just a general truism about money and people.  But I ask:  if true, what message is being communicated about what the Church values in view of the property usage by many, if not most, churches in America?

I think clearly the emphasis is in three places:  1.  Church services.  2.  Fellowship.  3.  Classroom instruction.

The standard configuration of most congregations in America is Sanctuary+Fellowship Hall+Classroom Instruction+Office space for pastor and program administers.

Of note, this configuration reflects the reality that, by and large, the property is only utilized for a few hours a week (except for the offices, of course).  Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights see the most action, with sporadic activity in the class rooms the rest of the time.   The whole configuration, with all of its massive capital investment, is designed to facilitate fewer than 10 hours of activity.

Now, let us remember, humans are (as C.S. Lewis said) amphibians.  We are not merely sacks of flesh, nor are we purely spiritual entities.  Not even in the afterlife will we be purely spiritual entities- our resurrection means also new bodies.   And we are not gnostics:  we Christians do not believe that matter is inherently evil;  indeed, God created it and called it good.

Our physical surroundings have a spiritual impact.  Our physical habits are intertwined with our spiritual habits.  This can be proved in any number of ways, if demonstration be necessary.  But the key thing here is that we do not merely structure our physical surroundings to reflect our values, but that structure in turn reinforces and perpetuates these same values- to the exclusion and/or un-emphasis of others.

So, the configuration of the properties of our nation’s congregations reflect, reinforce, and perpetuate the values of their members.  What is being said when the congregation’s primary- or even only- activities occur within a small fraction of time?  Just as importantly, if not more importantly, what ‘habits’ are being reinforced and perpetuated when a person’s interaction with the congregation consists solely of 1-3 hours a week.

[Side point:  and then consider the youth, especially those in public schools, who are molded by 40-50 hours of secular education.  Seriously, why would we even be surprised that 1-3 hours of interaction with explicit Christian surroundings could compete with that? So what are you going to do about it?]

Given the above, we should not be surprised at all when our members seem to be apathetic and seemingly unable or unwilling to live as Christians in larger society.  In fact, we may condemn it with our words and urge it to be otherwise, but all the while, they are hearing the real message loud and clear.  It is communicated by the configuration of the property, which in turn was established to reflect the values of the congregation.  Each member of the congregation- amphibians all- get the implicit message imprinted on them every week.

For you see, as powerful as words are, what we do, or see done, is powerful too.

We should not be surprised when Christians get the idea that the Church is irrelevant to the practical issues people face on a daily basis and that the only thing it really cares about is ‘salvation.’   Besides the fact that there are some Christians who actually say just that, how we have structured our time together and how we have configured our property and how we have invested our money say it loud and clear.

But most Christians admit that the Church should love our neighbors, that it should care for the sick, that it should defend the oppressed, etc., etc.  The world does not believe it because it sees how it spends its money and organizes its spaces.  In fact, many Christians don’t believe it either, for the same reasons.

Rethinking the impact of our buildings and property usage as Christians in our local congregations and deliberately considering ways to exhibit- and thus reinforce- other aspects of the Church’s mission may be a critical step towards reversing current negative trends in Christianity in America.

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‘Individualism’ has a bad rap, even among Christians.  To be fair, there are things in ‘individualism’ that I think are unhealthy or even immoral, too, but the key thing to remember is that any opposite of ‘individualism’ is not necessarily preferable.  If we’re going to raise up ‘inter-connectedness’ (a neutral term, I hope) it must be done thoughtfully, and it cannot obliterate that which is moral or good in ‘individualism.’

The only folks that I’ve ever heard defend ‘individualism’ are the Objectivists- the offspring of Ayn Rand, that spunky atheist who escaped the clutches of communism.  Rand’s views on the individual seem to be expressed most succinctly, and passionately, in her little book Anthem, which is a favorite of mine.   There is a flaw in her book however:  the intrinsic value of the individual is assumed;  no basis for it is provided.

And no wonder.  In atheism, no basis for the value of the individual human can be provided.  At best, the individual human values himself, and then out of concern for his own interests forges a social compact with other individual humans not hurt him.  That is secular humanism at its core.  But this can only go so far.  Once ‘social compacts’ are on the table, the ‘good of society’ becomes an obvious next step.  “The most good for the most people.”

I won’t explore the inevitable progression from there (“Someone must decide what that good is”) and discuss the history of abuse that consistently emerged within these systems.  These are not the point of this post, but you can find comments on it on this blog and the issue is discussed in my fictional book series, Birth Pangs.

The point, here, is that within secular humanism and atheistic systems, the only thing that lasts from one generation to the next is the State.  Society and the State become the ‘highest’ level organism, and the individual a mere cell within it.   From the point of view of the State, the individual has as much value as a skin cell which can be scraped off and safely discarded.  Naturally, more valuable cells you want to keep around- while they have utility- but the ‘brain cells’ never lose sight of the fact that the cell’s value is strictly in what it can contribute to the ‘body.’

You don’t keep old, dying, disfigured, disabled, and dead cells around just for sentimental value.  If a ‘cell’ is to stick around and be embraced by the State, it must explain how it adds somehow to the health of the ‘body.’   For an illustration,  I have heard secular humanists recoil in horror at the prospect of eliminating expensive-to-society disabled children… but not because the disabled have some sort of intrinsic value.  Instead, you might hear something more aesthetic, something about how diversity within society (read:  within the State) is something valuable in itself.

This is lucky.  If instead the only thing the disabled could put on the table is the fact that they require massive investments of capital that could otherwise go to those with more ‘Quality-Adjusted Life Years‘ or that their genes are potentially a menace to the species, they’d probably be toast.

The value of the individual, when the State is the highest level ‘organism’ is judged exclusively against the interests of the State itself.

In Christianity, by contrast, concepts such as ‘individual’ and ‘community’ are evaluated differently.  There are occasionally overlaps, such as with Rand’s view of the individual and the genuine interest of many secular humanists for the down trodden within our society.  However, it is critical to understand how the different perspectives work when things get dicey.  For the secular humanist, there may come a point where one has to dispense with some individuals for the sake of the State.

True, the unborn are the best place to start, because they can in no way resist or speak out on behalf for their own existence, but as my link to Sanger’s document above illustrates, we should not deceive ourselves into thinking it is limited to them.

For the Christian, such an approach is impossible and unacceptable.  Each individual has intrinsic value and no other individual can deny it, or by declaration obliterate it.

When individuals must be sacrificed (say, in what is hopefully a just war), it is a tragedy of infinite proportions for any single person to die or to take a life.  A Christian ‘general’ who sends his men into certain death grieves for each one of them for what is lost was of momentous value, not because of what it contributed to society, but for its own sake.

Unlike the atheist who perceives that there is nothing apart from the world, the Christian understands that this is emphatically not the case.  Indeed, while the secular humanist behaves as though the only lasting institution is the transgenerational State, the raw fact is that even on their own view, the State is doomed.  This will be either by an asteroid strike, the death of the Sun, or universal heat death.

But the Christian knows that that the Individual will outlast it all.  Only the individual will survive the ultimate fate of the universe.

In the afterlife, there will be no Venezuela, Cuba, or Soviet Union.  There will not even be a United States of America.   These will all fail and fade,  as indeed many already have.  But not the individual.

Besides the fact that the Individual survives it all, unlike the Objectivists, the Christian can offer a robust basis for why the individual has the value it does.  First (in chronology) of all, humans are not the result of mindless processes bound up with the universe but rather are created by the Eternal Artisan.  Secondly, this Artisan has doubled down on the human race by redeeming it at great and painful cost and bestowing everlasting life on a New Earth.

We interact every day with immortals, not fodder for the machinations of the State.

Ironically, secular humanists try to portray themselves as the ones who are genuinely interested in mankind.   They believe with contempt that it is the Christian who cares little for the weak, the poor, the sick, the aging, and so on.  It is not so.  Given the high view of humanity that the Christian possesses which I have described, the real distinction is this:  The Christian understands that you cannot in good conscience work on the behalf of one individual at the expense of another individual.  Christians cannot engage in Malthusian trade offs.

In pursuit of the good for one individual or class of individuals you are not permitted to oppress another individual or class of individuals.  Not for the State.  Not even for ‘The Most Good for the Most People.’

The Christian must honor every human life, even the unborn human life, and in no ways can the Christian blissfully accept the proposition that it is ok to dispense with some in order to rescue others, and it is no use soothing your conscience by declaring that the ‘some’ simply aren’t persons.  When such decisions must be made, as is sometimes necessary, it is heart wrenching and tragic;  the people who most grapple with the problem of pain and suffering are not the atheists, but Christians.

If it is within the Christian’s power, he must advocate for the rights and value of all humans, even those it is easy to target (ie, in America, ‘the rich.’)  And he must oppose those other humans who would reduce them to utilitarian cogs in the machine.  Not those who believe that, per se, but those who actively attempt to implement that world view.

It should be clear from this that it does not follow that any given individual has the right to impose himself at the expense of other individuals, and certainly Christians cannot take that view.  One supposes, for example, that Rand, as an atheist who adopted the evolutionary framework, would have endorsed such a tactic if it was believed the individual could get away with it.  Survival of the fittest, and all.  The Christian Individualist is always conscience of the impact of his actions on others, and hopes very much that he can achieve his desires, but not at the expense of others.  The Way of the Survival of the Fittest is not open to him.

Moreover, the same source for our information about the Eternal Artisan’s creative and redemptive efforts tells us some important things about the nature and kinds of community that individuals should value.  The first and and most important institution is telling on many levels:  the family.

For the secular humanist (and even Plato) the family is really just an arbitrary social construct.  But for the Christian, it is recognized that the family is divinely constructed (Gen. 2:21-25, Malachi 2:13-16).

See how individualism is manifested within the family:  in this small society, there are different roles to be played and questions of sustainability are certainly considered.  And yet, a father- a good father, that is- would not dream of subjecting one child to a life of hard labor in order that another (or himself) could have a life of leisure.  True, especially in agrarian societies, a family has many children in order to survive on the land, but even here there is no avoiding the fact that the ‘investment’ in years while the child is helpless and a ‘liability’ is filled with its own pleasures; for indeed, the child himself is the result of a loving and pleasurable embrace.

In the Christian view, new life is begotten within a network of loving individuals that cherishes it for its own sake and not merely for what it can add to the family’s bottom line.  On the Christian view, the new life is added as much for the joy it adds to the community as anything else.  In the secularist view, it may as well be hatched.

Today, here in America, we live in a society where all roads currently lead to Society.  It is a society that has families in it;  it ought to be a society of families.

The family is constructed in just such a way, from beginning to end, that individualism is respected within proper boundaries.  It is no surprise that the attack on the family as an institution is so fierce and that the secularists so heartily embrace Family Planning and defend abortion so adamantly.   In the secularist mindset, to the extent that individuals are valued and welcomed, it is done so in consideration relative to the highest level organism as they perceive it, the Society.   Individuals should be spared the burden of unexpected pregnancies, and the expense that these may put on ‘society’ is to be avoided.

But in the family, the individual is not the sole measure of things.  The Christian, in fact, recognizes that most of us know- intuitively (after all, this is how we were made) that we simply are not complete and at peace in the world without little kids biting at our heels.  An ‘unexpected pregnancy’ is just one more unexpected event in a life that we know is already filled with unexpected events.  The people in our family enhance the satisfaction within the family, bringing new joys even as they bring new difficulties.

In this defense of the individual it should be evident, then, that the individualism is not an absolute.  More than that, it is recognized that the individual himself is not complete apart the community.  The community of family is threatened in many levels in our society, and it should not be believed that I think they are all intentional or deliberate.  The rise of the Automobile and the Interstate, for example, has delivered harsh blows against the institution of the Family, with parents and grand parents and aunts and uncles and cousins etc spread around to kingdom come.

The point, though, is that within the community of the family, the individual’s welfare is never pursued at the expense of some other individual’s welfare.  Indeed, when sacrifices are made (eg, by a parent working 2 shifts in order that all may eat), it is done willfully and deliberately by the parent, out of his or her own love for his family.  It is not done because the State has said, “Pay these taxes in order that these may eat.”  (and under its breath, “And so that we can fund this other program you know nothing about…”)

One further thing needs to be mentioned, and applies most specifically to other Christians:  the individual will outlive even the institution of family.  We already have clues:  in the afterlife, we will be like the angels, who do not marry.  But this is not without community:  only, the critical thing is that our communion is with Christ, in whom we are literally joined (Romans 6).  There isn’t even the promise in Scriptures that we will commune with others- this is sentimental myth.  We have no promise of seeing our loved ones in ‘heaven.’  We are assured only that we will be with Christ.

I say that not because I believe that we will be separated from our loved ones in the afterlife though joined with Christ, but because it is clear that when we relate to these, it will be in and through our relation in Christ.

So besides the Individual, there is in fact one other institution that will last forever:  the community of the Church.

It is a shame and a devastating tragedy that our churches are among the most fragmented and impersonal institutions that we interact with as Christians.  It could be so much more.  Attempts to focus on the importance of the community, in some quarters, is dismissed, and then with hostility.  The idea that you can present the Gospel and be indifferent to the need for genuine community is simply wrong.

Of course, it is critical to hasten to add that this is not saying you can have ‘community’ apart from the Gospel, as though the Gospel’s purpose is merely to bring about community, and you can bend the Gospel as necessary to facilitate that community.  It is the community in Christ that will last.  Obviously, then, it would be stupid to have community for the simple sake of having community, indifferent to the Gospel of Christ.    Let the secularists pursue that;  it is not for us.

In short, dear Christian, I contend that we already have in front of us all the ‘higher level organisms’ we need:  the community of the family and the community of the faithful.  Here and only here are individuals respected, welcomed, and free.  Here only are individuals understood to be forever, and here only do we see the context in which they will be forever- in community through Christ.

It is therefore with great caution that we must approach the efforts of the Statists.  True, very often they propose programs that we can in good conscience get behind.  However, even then they do not share our views about the individual, and so, they can, quite unexpectedly, change things.  They would only be acting on their own values, and so we should not be shocked.  Thus it should be evident that the more power we give them to help us the more power we give to them to hurt us.

As such, it is worth positing that we should give them no power at all, and the power that we do give them come with very robust checks and balances.  Our trust in their sincere intentions seems, increasingly, to be poised to do us all great harm- or at least, the weakest among us, and those who are the heaviest burden on society.  In the name of the “Most good for the most people” great evil is being inflicted, and history tells us a great deal more is possible.

Now, Christians talk about being part of a ‘corporation’ as well.  We are the body of believers.  We are the body of Christ.  There is something interesting about the modern day expression of this (I speak mainly of the Church in America) in that the ideas of the Church as corporate and businesses are corporate have melded in many ways, with, I’m afraid, the Church taking on the mindset of the business world.

This is evident in a number of ways.  Of course there is the structural aspect.  Most churches are organized with some sort of ‘board’ at the top with a number of committees beneath it to carry out the work of the congregation.  There are presidents, vice presidents, treasurers, secretaries.  These words carry ‘baggage’ that is unavoidable in implementation.  This structure more or less models the secular business model of what it means to be ‘corporate.’  It isn’t hard to understand how this has come about, for better or for worse:  in the US, if a congregation wants to receive tax benefits it must organize precisely the way the state tells it to, and this is the manner that the state dictates.

There is another way that the business mindset permeates the Christian churches.  The idea that the health of the ‘corporation’ can be measured by the bottom line is rampant.  For example, let’s say that a church is struggling financially.  Something must change.  The solution is to eliminate staff positions.  The staff members are turned out into the wind, their livilhood stripped away.  The bottom line improves.  Conclusion:  this is a healthy body.

But it is nonsense.  It is nonsense because in the body of Christ, unlike in corporate America, you cannot have ‘health’ at the expense of the brothers and sisters.   The bottom line is not the only measure.  Indeed, in that it is a measure at all, what it measures is entirely different.

Now, financial realities are financial realities.  The point here is not that you can’t have situations where you have to cut staff (or programs, whatever) the point is that you can’t just cut people loose and think that now you’ve improved the body or that you’ve ‘come through a rough patch.’  If the people who have been cut loose are forgotten by the congregation or body of believers and are abandoned by them, I assure you, you haven’t improved the health of the body.  Done in this way, you will likely have created very bitter former staffers and in some cases drive them out of the church.  But it is important to see that doing it this way is far from intentional.  It is the natural consequence of thinking of the congregation’s ‘corporate’ nature as essentially like an American corporation’s nature.

I know a man who was fired on a Friday from a Christian institution with no reason given with not even a single day’s notice.  I know a man who was invited to apply for a new position being created that would replace his own while in fact they never at any time meant to retain him.  This is proved by the fact that another is ready to take his place, effective the immediately Monday. How lucky!

Some kind of ‘sweetener’ was provided to entice this man to not raise a ruckus or press the matter, but it is doubtful that the deal is fair… it is offered as a take it and get something or don’t take it and get nothing.  the ‘deal’ is probably a cover-up of some other backstabbing behind the scenes finagling.  (Nepotism, perhaps?) Is this legal?  Yes, it seems so.  If you can get another guy to come in and do twice the work for the same amount of pay (after all, he doesn’t know better) isn’t that good business sense?  And if you wound the man you ‘let go’ is that any matter to you?  I mean, you have the corporation to think of…

This is the attitude at work in this situation- which is a true story, by the way- and I’m afraid seems to be fairly common.  In corporate America you can do stuff like this within the law and it’s ok.  Among Christians, what is legal is not always right, and mere ‘business’ concerns can never justify endangering a man’s immortal soul.  Never.

You ask me, “Ok, you think there is something wrong with the Church.  But what should we do?”

Here is an idea:  disentangle churches from the imposition from the state on how to be structured and behave.  If this means losing tax exempt status, so be it.  Don’t use ‘corporate’ labels and adopt ‘corporate’ models.  In a word, don’t take your cues from secular society as to what an ‘organic’ community is like.

These are just some ideas.  As always, my contention is that others might have other ideas, but first we must recognize there is a problem that demands a solution.  So agree with me at least on that and then get cracking.  In the meantime, don’t delude yourself into thinking that, in the church, you can dispense with people however you please and in doing so you have improved the ‘health’ of the body…

I am hosting the video on my ministry’s new Christian file sharing service, emphasizing apologetics videos.  The site is www.apologeticsvideos.net.  At this time, I am allowing anyone to post apologetics related videos so if you have got them feel free to upload them.  (The chief advantage is that there is no time limit on a video.  There is, however, a 100mb file size limit)

With no further ado, here is the video of the presentation:

[having spotted me reading a book titled Introduction to Biblical Interpretation]

Him:  So, are you a religious nut?
Me:  A nut?
Him:  Yea, do you like really believe in God?
Me:  (to myself:  does mere belief in God make you a nut?)
Him:  Do you believe in Jesus?  The holy Mary…
Me:  Well, I’m not a Catholic.  I’m protestant, so I don’t go in for that Mary business…
Him:  I used to be a Catholic.
Me:  And now?
Him:  I’m an agnostic.
Me:  What happened?
Him:  Like I said, I was raised Catholic.
Me:  You can believe in God and not be Catholic.
Him:  I really don’t care.  If there is a God or not, I don’t care.
Me:  Not at all?
Him:  What has God ever done for me?
Me:  [fishes for business card]:  Well, if you ever decide you do care, shoot me an email.
Him:  Have a good night.

—————-

All in all it was an interesting exchange.   I thought his explanation for his disbelief confirmed what I’ve been saying for some time about the church actually creating atheists.  In fact, let me take a minute to single out a correspondent from a church in Indiana- is that specific enough?- who recently complained about my ‘law’ posts attacking the state of the church and how we are transmitting the faith and just ask him:  do you ever even talk to people who are not Christian?  It must be nice to operate in a little bubble where you figured you did your job after you confirmed all the kids in your youth group but then 48 out of 50 of them fall away in college- and you hardly are aware and are happily willing to go on doing everything the same way you’ve always done it.    Meanwhile, we apologists strive to clean up the mess.  It is a mess made worse, often, I think, then if they had never been raised in the faith at all.  (Matthew 12:43-45) Yes, if it’s law, it is a law message that you need to hear.

But I digress.

The conversation I had last night raised a number of lines of thoughts for me (see previous paragraph for some) but on the off chance that this gentlemen decides to visit my webpage, despite not caring, let me take a minute and answer the question:  Why should you care about God’s existence?

First of all, the common complaint that there are too many options out there to care about one or two of them is overblown.  In other words, I can see one of my hard core atheist friends saying, “I don’t care about your God, just as you don’t care about Zeus.”  This presumes, of course, that I haven’t investigated Zeus, or that educated Christians don’t have a reasonable basis for their dismissal of other religions.  I would reply more generally, though, saying that there are nonetheless a finite number of categories, and no one is asking anyone to pursue every varying subcategories until the category itself warrants further scrutiny.  (and in some cases, such as Christianity, the diversity of the subcategories is vastly overblown)

For example, the religions can be summed up under labels such as pantheism, theism, atheism, polytheism… you get the idea.   These categories do not multiply endlessly, even if the subcategories do.  The point:  if you can eliminate a whole category you need not proceed further.

But why care at all?  Well, the main categories contain most of the human race at all times.  Out of a world’s population of 6 billion, probably a full 5 billion and a half believe in something.  I think the inquisitive person will want to look into what all the fuss is about.  Here we find that you can employ a Darwinist idea to sort out the ones to pay attention to- survival of the fittest.  Islam, Christianity, and Judaism probably amount for half the world’s population.  Do all of these people have no basis for their belief in God?  If we ‘can’t know’ how in fact do people come to say they know?  On the off chance that 3,000,000,000 people might be right, I think that justifies caring.

At the very least, it must be argued that there is something in the religious ‘instinct’ that must fulfill a human need, or else it wouldn’t be so pervasive.  Even hard core atheists like Dawkins admit to this instinct (he calls it ‘Einstein’s God’).  Few people have found Dawkins’s ways of fulfilling this instinct to be very satisfying.  My point is, by not caring, one might deprive themselves of the satisfaction of an important human need.

An atheist might here provide another reason to care:  you need to care enough so that you understand why religion is so dangerous.    But that’s not my thing.

But I sense from the statement “What has God ever done for me?” that there is something else going on that has nothing to do with such intellectual exercises.  I sense that you believe that God has had opportunity to act in your life, but did not.  As such, if he exists, he isn’t operative in your life (in the ways you would have cared about) and hence not worthy of your continued attention.  But if Christianity is correct, we can answer this question directly.  What has God ever done for you?  He saw you in your misery and pain and saw your final end if he didn’t directly interact, and so he came to our planet in person, suffered and died, and rose victorious over death, and hopes that you will share over that victory, forever and ever.

In my book, that’s doing something! You might say that this is all fine and dandy, but where was he when such and such happened?  First of all, I’m not sure Christianity has any promise that bad things will stop happening to believers.  If anything, its the opposite (John 17:14-15 ).  That might not be what you wanted to hear.  But look, for all you know, God did act, and things weren’t as bad as they could have been.  Had you looked at it from that perspective to see if there were ways things could have been even worse, but weren’t?

That is still just sideshow, I think.  I think the more important thing here is that you understand that this is not new territory.  We call it the ‘problem of pain’ and the ‘problem of suffering.’  Christians have been struggling with it for centuries.  It is older even then Judaism (see the book of Job).  Set aside for a moment what you’ve seen- or what you’ve done- or what you’ve endured- and realize for a moment that, despite the ‘problem’ having been around for so long, people still believe.  Why?  How do they come to peace?  How do they reconcile a loving God with a hateful world?  Perhaps there is a way… and perhaps you would find it, if only you cared…

I will at some point obtain a simple mp3 of the presentation but in the meantime if you want to listen and observe the chat conversation you may listen via the archive link.

This morning I woke up to a follow up question.  I thought I would answer it on my blog.  Here was the question:

I often see two groups of people.

One is are involved in a tradition rich church with head knowledge of rules and dogma. In reality for them, God is not often real in their lives and their rules without empathy or transparency drives people away.

The second could be explained as people involved in a newly created, often emotion driven church, with little foundation or knowledge of how firm the foundation of the bible and the church is. When real questions come up, they topple.

Both are in danger of propagating a fragile view of Christianity to people they know and more importantly, their children.

How can the churches out there tackle these problems effectively.

I think both of these perceptions are valid.  I have met Christian-turned-unbelievers from both categories in abundance.

How can the Church counteract these two extremes?  Lord if I know!  The problem for each is that they are utterly convinced in their own minds that their perspective is correct.   Worse, proponents have another harmful attitude where they would prefer utter isolation to change and adaptation.  I have met proponents in both camps- in this case, especially the traditionalist camp- who would go so far as to say that if their congregation shrinks, even to nothing, that is better then ‘compromise.’  In fact, it is not uncommon to hear them say that if their congregation atrophies, this is a sign that they are doing something right.  And the surest sign that a church is compromising with the truth:  if it is growing.  This is not hypothetical.  I can think of numerous instances.

(The meteoric rise of the Christian church in the book of Acts is apparently exempted from this reasoning)

So, I see your question touching on my first recommendation which was “Recognize there is a problem.”  Proponents in both camps recognize there is a problem, all right:  It’s with everyone else.

It should be evident what I think of these attitudes. This is one reason why I included as a recommendation that “Recognize we have no right to the status quo.”  There is nothing in the NT giving us any assurance that we are entitled to having church buildings the size of three football fields or facilities decked out with stain glass window and an expensive organ.   If all this was stripped away, we would still be obligated to evangelize to this generation.  Unfortunately, we are often creating the very people that need to be evangelized to, raising up weak Christians who promptly fall away in the face of a blistering secularist onslaught.  (See this article documenting my view that the Church is creating atheists).

If the megachurch facility or the historic liturgy has any eternal value at all, it is in their capacity to promote the Gospel of Christ, strengthen current believers, and bear clear witness to nonbelievers.   None of these elements should be done at the expense of the others.  Proponents of the perspective you mention believe they fulfill all of these categories.  I think the statistics prove otherwise, but beyond that, the witness to nonbelievers is anything but clear in most instances.

Consider the liturgy pre-Vatican 2 which was done in Latin no matter where the services were held.  No clearer example exists of holding on to something that was useless in evangelizing the nonChristian.  Its use in edifying the Christian was limited mainly to a small few.  In a word, the whole approach required nonChristians to learn about God in Christ on the traditionalist’s terms.   This is the problem in the two perspectives you mentioned writ large.  They each offer to minister to the world on their own terms whereas the NT never indicates that we would ever even have that option, let alone come to feel like we are entitlted to it.

This isn’t to say that the nonChristian gets to have it all their own way, setting the terms of the engagement all on their own, to which we must unquestioningly submit to.  That would be another extreme.

The upshot of it is that I personally have little hope that churches in these two groups are going to change their outlook.   If you find yourself in such a congregation or talking to a proponent of such a view the best you can do is try to tackle their arguments head on.   Depending on the congregation, they’re as likely as not to simply excommunicate you, but at least you’ve done your part.

In my view, things are going to have to get much worse before the evidence is so utterly self-evident that even these folks are persuaded.  One almost finds themselves pining for the days when Christians roamed the countryside, fleeing from house to house- and managing to convert thousands in the process.

One tempers that against the constant tortures and mutilations that accompanied it… so I guess in the final analysis it would be better if the Church at large today recognized the current situation and their Biblical obligation to own up to its responsibility in creating it and its responsibility to address it head on, making the necessary adjustments.

In conclusion, apart from making a stink wherever you can in hopes of forming a critical mass of individuals keen on taking the bull by the horns, there isn’t much you can do.  Even if we succeed in creating such a critical mass, the proponents of the views you mentioned won’t be joining us.  It is a simple thing in America to move down the street and build a new church building.  Regardless, we need that critical mass if we want to transform the Church.

In the meantime, you may want to try to fend off the damages within your own sphere of influence.  If the statistics are accurate, there are people in your midst in their late teens and early twenties who are on their way out of the church.  They’ll never say a word.  They won’t tell you.  They won’t give you their reasons.  If you heard their reasons, they might not even be very good reasons.  Nonetheless, off they go.  Find them, befriend them, and in time, by prayer, persuasion, and relationship, you might bring them back.

Remember the story of the starfish.

Thanks for your question!  Sorry for the cynical answer!

Otherwise the ‘abortion’ category to the left will keep you reading for awhile.

I had just a few other thoughts to add.

The Obama victory offers us a grand opportunity.  Let’s face it, Obama can make the matter only slightly worse, at least in the near term.  We are all already acclimated to a world in which a million unborn children die each year in America alone.  For so long we pursued legislative means to change this and as legitimate and as important as these efforts were, and are, legislative efforts are successful by persuading more individuals to support your views then there are against them.  This individual persuasion is the area where the ultimate solution lies and the area that has chiefly been lacking.

In what way?  I suggest that it has been lacking because the Christian community who cares about life has found themselves defaulting to an attitude that acts as though merely passing the legislation changes the underlying issue.  For example, look at something like gay marriage- which I’m against, don’t get me wrong- even if we managed to shut down gay marriage left and right with 100% success the root fact is that there are a lot of people engaged in a behavior Christians believe is dangerous and harmful.   It is not enough to make their behavior illegal:  we want them to willingly see it as we believe it is, and change their behavior.  Success on that front will boil up into legislative success.  So too with abortion.

So how?  How do we proceed at this ‘root’ level?  I think it comes down to the Christian church and its stunning emphasis on being right rather than being loving.

Note the ‘rather.’  If the Christian church was both ‘being right’ and ‘being loving’ then there would be no problem.  So what does ‘being loving’ mean?

It doesn’t mean being a panzy or a pacifist, if that’s what you’re afraid of.  It isn’t about being sentimental.  It is about being principled and acting out those principles within certain parameters… that are clearly outlined in the Scriptures.

The Obama presidency gives us the opportunity to have a conversation about this which I don’t think we would have had if McCain had won.  So let’s have it.

CS Lewis has a fabulous essay entitled ‘The Seeing Eye.’  In this essay he recounts a news article asserting that Russian astronauts had ventured into space… and didn’t find God.  Lewis counters the immature understanding of ‘God’ that leads one to expect to ‘find’ God in space in the first place but then makes an interesting set of points.  He says that anyone can ‘see God’ in any place, but it depends on one’s frame of mind and general attitude.  A Christian will see God everywhere:  a sunset, a strand of DNA, a child’s smile.  An atheist will see God nowhere.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was able to see God in a concentration camp.  Elie Wiesel could not and did not and henceforth never did again.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer died in that concentration camp, executed on a direct order from Hitler shortly before the concentration camp was liberated.  Elie Wiesel survived the concentration camp, but never forgave himself for doing so.

What is the difference between the two men?

Or, one might consider an example like Richard Wurmbrand, who wrote the little book “Tortured for Christ.”  He was imprisoned in the Romanian Russian prisons under the Communists.  Communism perceived Christianity to be a threat and attempted to torture people out of their faith.  Eventually Wurmbrand escaped- his faith intact- and eventually testified before US Congress, stripping to the waist to show what had been done to him.  (Mind you, at that time a lot of people in America didn’t think the Communists actually did such things)

Wurmbrand and Bonhoeffer could see, and did see, God in all places at all times.

This, really, is the essence of hope.

People put their hope into all sorts of things, these days.  Political candidates, governments, schools, churches, powerful institutions…  History shows us that everything human eventually lets us down.  Science offers hope to heal and yet it also brought us the atom bomb and weaponized anthrax.  Even churches, thought by many to be bastions of hope, have shown their weaknesses.  The common examples will do- the Inquisition and the Crusades.

People put their hope into things in proportion to the things they fear.  If you’re afraid of being sick you put your hope in your doctor.  If you fear ignorance in the masses you put your hope in schools.  There is one thing we fear that poses a problem.  That thing is DEATH.  It poses a problem because it is the common problem facing all mankind but mankind appears to have absolutely nothing to balance against it.  For sickness and ignorance we can create doctors and teachers.  What can we do about DEATH?  Nothing.  Because of this we sometimes try to paper over our fears about death and focus on lesser problems.

Nudisnudum Christ sequi.  Naked, follow the naked Christ.

There is only one solution to the problem of death that simultaneously recognizes its grotesqueness and offers to defeat it.  It is not, however, a solution offered by Mankind.  Christianity takes death seriously.  In the face of the death of Lazarus, a man he knew he was about to raise from the dead, Jesus wept.   To the ultimate problem that man faces God offers the ultimate hope.    Anything less than this hope is a hope that fails, finally, at some point, with a gritty gasp or a silent sigh.  If the hope that God offers fails as well- or isn’t real at all-  then there really is no hope at all:  “Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”

All this made me wonder if there is a sense in which the old saying “You can’t take it with you” might not be true.  What if we bring with us all the things that we put our hope in and then upon death find that it has all fallen upon us, suffocating us, trapping us?  We surround ourselves with attempted solutions to lesser problems and then when faced with the Ultimate Problem find out we are unequiped.

It would be like a man who thought he only had to scale a rock wall and brought a rope finds out the real danger is a raging tiger.   This is what putting our hope in the things of man is like:  assembling various contrivances to deal with life’s problems only to discover that none of them can overcome Death.  If it is like this then perhaps the prudent course is to dispose of all the things we place our hope in, strip ourselves bare, and follow the One who trampled upon death.

But this requires sight.  One has to See that all the human things we put our hope in fail us. We fail each other, we fail ourselves.  Technology fails us.  Governments fail us.  Medicine fails us.  Knowledge fails us.  This is just in the ordinary course of living!  What about when stacked up against that brutal foe, Death?  Abject failure.  But this requires sight.

My counsel, if it be taken, would be to throw off all that might hinder and firmly acknowledge the only problem worth being anxious about and cling to the only solution offered that has promise, since the one who offers it is able to fulfill it:  Jesus Christ.  Then we will not grieve like the rest of men.  Then we will have hope whilst hanging from the gallows.  Then we will emerge from the dark night of the soul.  Then, naked, we will follow the naked Christ.  Then we shall say:  “This is the end – for me, the beginning of life.”

This is the sort of ‘fighting fire with fire’ approach that we need today.  The ACLU and the FFRF have been going bonkers trying to create court cases that further their cause.  It is high time Christians and religious people did the same.

One of the reasons why I have not made my own ministry tax exempt is precisely for the reasons described in this article.  I did not want to be muzzled on political affairs.  Moreover, one of the underlying themes of my apologetics ministry is that beliefs and actions are intertwined.  One’s politics are not in a separate box that never touch the ‘religion’ box.  A person who says he has no such box certainly does.  He might just call it something a little different, like an ‘inferred metaphysical statement.’  So, we all have this box, whatever we call it.

Despite the close connection between beliefs and actions in reality, we like to pretend that connection isn’t so clear.  It must be confessed, too, that in today’s day and age it is much easier to believe one thing and act another way.   With the all out assault on the idea that there is an objective truth and reality out there, many people have their beliefs but are timid about expressing them in action.   But this isn’t really a case where beliefs don’t lead to actions, it is really the exact opposite.  The timidity itself arise from a belief,  expressed in a question like this:  “Who am I to say what is true?”

Throughout history there have been instances that show very clearly how certain beliefs lead inexorably to certain conclusions, if only the person is willing follow through on the implications of their beliefs.

The muzzling of churches on political affairs is something that I believe has contributed greatly to this idea that one’s beliefs do not have rational outgrowths, manifested in actions, political and otherwise.  The idea that ‘religion is a private matter’ is accentuated by this muzzling.  Many secular humanists would like us to believe that we are not permitted to have non-secularized reasons and rationales for our political deeds.

For example, you might be pro-life because you think that God creates life, but since you are not allowed to insert even religious reasons into secular society, you must vote pro-choice- or come up with a secularized reason for your pro-life position.  Yes, there are people who believe this.

I don’t want every sermon on Sunday to be about politics.   Nor am I interested in having politics the overarching theme in congregations.  However, churches should be able to explain how their beliefs are rationally manifested and should be able to point to examples of individual politicians who are consistent with those beliefs or inconsistent with those beliefs.

Perhaps most importantly, the church shouldn’t be in a position where the government decides what the church is all about.  The article says,

“This is an extraordinarily reckless scheme that they are promoting,” Conn said. “The federal tax law is clear. Churches are charitable institutions that exist to do charitable things. That does not include politics. Political groups do politics.”

Now, this may be true in one sense:  how the government views churches within the tax code.  I think churches should ask themselves whether or not they should have the purpose and mission of the church defined by the government, quite apart from this question of tax exemption.

As far as I’m concerned, the tax exemption requirement is like a drug that the government legalized just for the purpose of immunizing them from attacks on principle.  The Church is high on this drug and is so used to it that it is afraid to go off of it.   If John the Baptist was willing to risk his head to challenge the moral behavior of King Herod, I think the Church can risk its tax exemption status.

The government’s purpose in creating tax exempt organizations and its inclusion of churches as ‘charities’ is its business and I’m staying out of it.   “What business of mine is it to judge the world?”  For the Church, however, I say that we should define ourselves, and if we don’t fit into the government’s purpose and tax categories:  so be it.

But then, I’m in the camp that says most Churches should sell their buildings and use the money for the poor and needy, so I guess you have to take what I say with a grain of salt.