Tag Archives: christianity

Reflection after confession

12 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by in judgments of God, Personal Observations, religion and politics

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, ,

Yesterday I posted my confession on what the horror of the 2016 election had done to me.

Now that five days have passed since my worst fears were realized, the horror has not decreased. Every new day thus far has brought a new source of fear. For example, Mr. Trump has appointed Myron Ebell as the leader of the transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency — a  person who works for Big Coal and Big Oil, and used to work for Big Tobacco. He is a man who has been recognized as one of the most dangerous enemies of efforts to protect the environment and to reduce the impact of global warming.

Early reports of hate crimes add an ominous atmosphere, which is not being dispelled by any calming remarks by the President-elect. And the sense of gathering doom is accentuated by reports that the likes of Rudolph Giuliani, Christ Christie and Newt Gingrich will be appointed to powerful cabinet positions.

I would like to be able to say unequivocally that anyone who cares about truth and justice is horrified and saddened by this turn of events. Unfortunately the problem we all face, and the reason for the “death of my naiveté”, is that the leading cause of this political earthquake is actually a valid part of the moral structure of the church and the world. (I’m well aware that there are also many racist elements, some of which are indistinguishable from the Evangelical movement) — but the largest single segment are people of legitimate high moral tone who chose to vote for Trump in spite of his obvious faults. In my essay, I stated opinions I know to be out of harmony with the Bible. I broke Jesus’ dictum of Matthew 7:1 — Judge not, that you be not judged.

I’m confident God knows and understands the righteous element in my anger — but somehow I have to move forward in a world where I cannot “refuse to call a Christian” anyone who would ignore Mr. Trump’s obvious immorality and help get him elected to the highest office in the land. I need to exercise more patience than I thought possible. I need to keep trying to “let everyone be fully persuaded in their own mind.” I need to try to stay in step with the methods I think God is using to educate destroyers of the planet, elevate the poor, and eradicate false systems while calling to his people to “come out.”

By far the biggest factor which forces me to back away from my extreme declaration is the fact that long experience with a great many of these brethren in Christ has convinced me that they are indeed authentic Christians. Jesus has touched them, listens to them, answers their prayers, comforts their affliction, guides their lives.  I can sit here and name dozens of families I know whom I love, who I’m pretty sure supported Trump, if reluctantly. These are good people — I love being with them, admire their character, love their children, laugh at their jokes, respect their judgment in other matters, and fully expect to serve and celebrate with them in the heavenlies when our toil and trouble is completed. And Jesus has shown me my own unworthiness as an arbiter of character. I knew I was wrong to express a judgment, to disfellowship fellow believers, when I wrote yesterday’s post, but I needed to put it down in writing anyway, to be truthful about how I feel.

That being said, if my friends and brethren indeed are thinking and acting wrongly, I do not need to exonerate them in order to move forward. I need to rebuke them, and I intend to do so.

I also need to make that rebuke effective, persuasive and factual. It needs to be encouraging, calm, kind and gracious.

The challenge before me, if I wish to call to account such a large swath of the Christian world, is to up my own game and pay the full price it will take to be the kind of representative of the good that I aspire to be.

Since I am obviously not equal to such a task, I must apologize for bringing the anger of man to bear against many people whom I know have good intentions, and acted in harmony with their long-held principles.

That they could accept Trump, and be willing to work with such a man, remains incomprehensible to me. But what I intend to do now is approach my long-standing friends and brethren with compassion, with open ears, with vigorous research, and with a deep commitment to get to the bottom of this perplexing set of issues.

Forgiveness vs reconciliation

22 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by in a happy God, forgiveness, reconciliation, Rob Bell

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Let’s think for a moment about what we all believe about forgiveness and reconciliation… and then compare our practical wisdom to our vision of God’s purpose.

Forgiveness is unilateral, correct? Jesus forgave the folks that crucified him, for example, stating that they didn’t know what they were doing. What does that mean? Doesn’t it simply mean that he did not want punitive action taken against them?

Forgiveness is an attitude we have toward someone who has hurt us. We all know this.

Forgiveness is not forgetting, not denying or downplaying the significance of an offense. To be really effective, the forgiver must own all the pain and acknowledge all the damage that has been done by the offender… whether we choose to confront them or not.

Forgiveness gives us the freedom to be joyful and patient, and choose the time we wish to confront the one who hurt us… if indeed that is an option.

Often there is no way to discuss the matter with the one who hurt us… they are dead, incapacitated, or we know they would hurt us even more if we approached them.

And yet we can still forgive as a unilateral action … a method of working out an understanding with God, or the Universe, that any consequences will be born by us unless and until we can find a way of healing and dealing with the matter — bringing reconciliation.

Reconciliation is the full healing of the relationship between injured parties.

To get to reconciliation it actually doesn’t require forgiveness. It requires rebuke, repentance, restitution to the extent possible as evidence of repentance, and then a process of rebuilding trust through small steps that weave a new fabric of relationship, thread by thread.

Reconciliation is 1000 times tougher than forgiveness.

Now, what do we expect from God in terms of his behavior toward human sin?

Do we expect him to forgive our sins? The world’s sins?

In reality, it seems to me he’s been doing that right along. I don’t think he’s sitting there, fuming, venting his frustration at the human race with Jesus and anyone else who will listen.

I think his forgiveness was shown, for example, when he didn’t push the lightning button and vaporize the soldiers and priests that put an innocent man to death. And Jesus talked about his Father’s example of sending the blessings of life … rain, sunshine, food … to the just and the unjust. And smiling while he does it. That’s forgiveness.

But reconciliation? That’s a much more difficult challenge. If Paul was correct, he stated that God’s intent is nothing less than the reconciliation of all people with himself and with each other.

Getting to that kind of relational wholeness is almost beyond our capacity to imagine. It would take superhuman power, to resurrect all the parties and assemble them in the same world. To arrange the logistics of a very long relational rebuilding process. To provide incredible educational guidance, coaching, tough love, tender shoulders to cry on.

Do you see this vision in the Bible? I do, and I’m excited to see that Rob Bell does. Let’s have a dialog.

Is the Universe rigged?

21 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by in a happy God, Rob Bell, universalism

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

In a sneak peak of his show that makes its debut tonight, Rob Bell says that the Cross is a sign that the Universe is rigged in our favor:

RobBell
Rob Bell Show video link

I can hear my good Christian friends questioning this notion, and I respect them for relying upon the Bible for their guidance:

  • “God is righteous” Therefore, he is unalterably opposed to sin and self-will. Rob Bell is pandering to self-will in this view.
  • “Broad is the way that leads to destruction”, said Jesus, but “narrow is the way that leads to life”. Therefore anything that smacks of universal salvation is a direct contradiction of the plain words of the Savior of the world.
  • “God so loved the world that he sent his only-begotten Son, that WHOEVER BELIEVES in him might not perish…” In other words, my friends are saying fervently (and with lots of apparent Biblical support) Jesus doesn’t do much good for you unless you believe and obey his message.
  • “God is no respecter of persons.” “Our God is a consuming fire”. “I will not clear the guilty”. A hundred clear verses that I could think of in 5 minutes make Rob Bell’s claim feel like the worst kind of syncretism … religious pandering to the world system.

I can also hear the challenges to Rob’s optimism with the very real findings of science, that as far as we can go back in time — 13.7 billion years — the rules have been the same, and just as even-handed as we can possibly imagine. There seems to be no sentimentality in the way the laws of nature operate. And if we allow ourselves to look in moral terms at what humankind has meant to planet earth, a balance would likely go hard against us, because of what we are doing to the planet and the other species we share it with.

And yet I agree with Rob Bell’s claim that the Cross is all about reconciliation of ALL PEOPLE with God. How can I say that in good conscience?

  1. There are 2 steps in the reconciliation process. The entire Christian era is focused on the first step. That step is the Cross… the personal character development of Jesus, and then the personal character development of his followers. We “fill up that which remains” of the afflictions of Christ. We are part of a high calling of God in Christ Jesus, Paul states in Philippians 3. We are servants of reconciliation. We cannot do anything significant against sin until our obedience is completed. Meanwhile, the whole creation groans, waiting for the sons of God to be manifested.
  2. After the church of Christ is complete, the Apostles tell us they will work with Christ to reconcile the entire world. We “will judge the world”. We “will judge angels”. We will shepherd the nations with a staff of iron. We will not simply be rewarded in heaven, but we will bring heaven to earth. It is true, faithful, humble, obedient Christians who will be the “pearly gates” … the way of access to God.
  3. The universe has been rigged against people for all of human history. We are told in the Bible that God has allowed an Enemy to deceive and mislead people. He has allowed heredity to bias people toward sin. He has even, Isaiah says, “hidden himself”. His eyes behold, but his eyelids (his apparent sleeping, ignoring what people do) test the children of men.
  4. For the next thousand years … just around the corner … the universe will be rigged in favor of all people. All the sins of the past were atoned for by the cross. All the people who have ever lived will be resurrected. Both the just and the unjust. Whether they “deserve it” or not. At the end, the playing field will be leveled for the first time. And then whoever chooses life and righteousness will live. And those who don’t will die.

The best part of what Rob seems to be saying now, in my opinion, is the encouragement it gives to anyone, anywhere, no matter what their spiritual background or level of belief. I agree with his thesis, that all the trouble people face has value. And it is frightful, shameful and tragic what the average person around the world must cope with — all of that pain has value and will help them in the future age of restoration to move toward reconciliation with God and with each other. Jews who died in the Holocaust and didn’t survive to tell us about it will awaken to discover value in that bitter experience. Nazis who persecuted them will awaken to discover hard lessons that they must learn if there is to be value for them in the experience. But both will learn lessons of forgiveness and righteousness that will last forever.

What is the role of the church? To bring the personal value of their struggles against sin when it was tough to be righteous. The value of the church will be knowledge of how to overcome, how to be humble, how to be patient, how to forgive their persecutors. And the joy and character they will bring as the “bride” of Christ will empower them to do the “greater works” that Jesus promised his followers in John 5. The whole creation will find its one head in Christ.

So a plea for mini-reconciliation: Christian friends, please listen to what Rob is saying (and what I’m chirping too). Don’t slam the door of communication on us. Test what we are saying with what the Bible says. Please respond with your questions and comments here. I’m listening to you.

And pray for Rob that this opportunity will become a new, wider ministry for him, not a stumbling block as fame and influence so often does. So far, I’ve been impressed with the joy and positive vision he has brought to every stage of his ministry.

Resurrected intent

21 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by in a happy God, gnosticism, John Piper, Rob Bell

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Here’s what I wrote about my goal in this blog when I first changed its name to HappyGod in 2002… the aftermath of 9/11, the time when I was taking care of my dad in his waning months, and working alone at home. I guess getting and staying happy was important to me:

So here’s what this blog is about. Why is God described by the Apostle Paul with the Greek adjective, makarios — best translated, “happy”?

Well, Paul was countering, and teaching Timothy how to counter, the heavy influence of Gnosticism. The foundational attitude behind Gnosticism is the view that the Creator of Earth is not a happy guy at all, but a sort of male chauvinist who grumbles whenever anyone else is not in pain. Twice in his descriptions of God in the epistles to Timothy, Paul calls him, not “the Blessed” which means we praise him, but “the Happy” which means he’s cool whether we bless him or not.

So this blog explores that view of God and that attitude. How to be happy though not blessed. How to be aware of what makes God happy. How to understand that God is not happy with current events but he’s happy because of where they’re leading… to the place where all people are humble, alive, thankful, and in love with God and each other. Hard to see that just now, but that’s where we’re headed, as I read the Bible.

So I’ll be arguing with the Hell viewpoint among my Christian brothers. I’ll be arguing against Calvinism, and against Arminianism, too. I’ll be having a conversation with anyone who’s willing to question a Christian orthodoxy which views the human race as a failure, a nice creative exercise that got screwed by the Devil and human self-will.

Let me just quote Solomon: “God has made everything beautiful in his time.” Hard to believe but I hope to convince you!

That was the goal then, and you know what? It’s still the same. Except I’m no longer trying to convince anyone….

Back then, I had just read Desiring God by John Piper… and that’s probably where I discovered this nugget of insight into the meaning of the Greek word that is twice used to describe God. And the funny thing is, his idea of the gospel is a tiny shadow of what I believe the good news really is … something called the Restitution of All Things by Peter … something really good for ALL people who have ever lived. But when, a couple of years ago, Rob Bell wrote a book called Love Wins that suggested the hope that maybe everyone would benefit from Jesus’ life, John Piper tweeted, “Goodbye, Rob Bell.” So much for Piper’s “Christian Hedonism”… happy to watch the masses burn.

The issue remains vitally important to me, and though it doesn’t seem to be getting much traction, I want to keep talking about it. I am focused on getting these ideas out of the corners of Christianity and into a broader discussion. With brevity, gravity, clarity, levity and all the depravity that comes from being associated with me!

The rank falsehood of Pat Robertson’s “history”

17 Sunday Jan 2010

Posted by in christian colonialism, judgments of God, poverty and its causes, religion, religion and politics, revolution, Theodicy

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

On Wednesday morning, Dr. Robertson stated that the nation of Haiti made a pact with the devil. “True story”, he said, and claimed that this explains why Haiti  suffered so much in the years since. Au contraire: everything about his statement is false.

Robertson’s claims:

  1. “Haiti was under the heel of the French, Napoleon III or whatever.”
  2. “They got together and made a pact with the devil: ‘We will serve you if you get us free from the French.’
  3. “The Haitians revolted and got themselves free, but ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another, desperately poor.”
  4. “The island of Hispaniola is cut  down through the middle — Haiti on one side, Dominican Republic on the other. Dominican republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island.”
  5. “They need to have (and we need to pray for them) a great turning to God, and out of this tragedy I’m optimistic that something good may come.”

1. Wrong century, Pat. Napoleon III came to power as President of France in 1848, then took over as Napoleon III in 1852. The Haitian revolution lasted from 1791 to 1803, inspired by the French Revolution 2 years before, and the American Revolution 14 years before that.

2. In my post yesterday I cited a Salon.com article, which points out that the “pact with the devil” myth is a major distortion of what occurred in a secret meeting on August 14, 1791. At this meeting in a place called Bois Caiman, slaves confided in one another how much they resented their treatment by white settlers. In harmony with their African tribal past, one of the women in the group slit the throat of a pig and “distributed the blood to all the participants of the meeting, who swore to kill all the whites on the island.” It’s quite possible that the woman who led the meeting was indeed possessed by a spirit, as Christians would say it. This was a common part of the voodoo ritual religion that these people had grown up with. But she was acting alone, as one enslaved person in a meeting on the topic of oppression by a wealthy white minority. It is utterly false that this can be called a national “pact with the devil”. Moved more by the spirit of freedom that actuated the American and French revolutions than by demon possession, these poor oppressed blacks righteously decided in the face of abuse and outrage, to throw off the shackles that had been enslaving them. About a week later, the insurrection began in the northern mountains of Haiti … the first paroxysm of justifiable rage in a long-awaited revolution. But the early first successes were quickly suppressed with overwhelming power and violence by the French settlers.

There is actually some recent disagreement among historians as to whether the Bois Caiman meeting even took place. You can read an exchange among academics on the subject here.

The Bois Caiman story is so deeply intertwined in the history of a free Haiti (much like our Boston Tea Party or the Ride of Paul Revere) that to question it in Haiti is unthinkable. Whether precisely true or not, it’s been handed down from countless sources as an oral history about the quest for freedom from tyranny by this oppressed people. One thing seems clear, though — there is very little of a religious nature in the original story. The blood-covenant was more of a cultural expression, having roots in the indigenous people’s practices, mixed with traditions that came from  the Senegambian coast where many Black Haitians had been captured by the French and Spanish. The blood ritual described in the oral traditions of Bois Caiman was not unusual. It was a cultural custom, transported by the slaves who had been uprooted from Africa, along with the tribal and Islamic influences that had shaped them for centuries before. Indeed, this story is not unlike the Biblical account of a blood-sealed pact of revenge by the people of Israel against the perpetrators of an atrocity — as recorded in Judges 20. Here, the people are galvanized into action in revenge, not by a testimony meeting and a symbolic use of pigs blood — but by messengers carrying the dismembered body of the single victim. The point is, it would be pointless to argue that the people of Haiti were any more primitive than the people of the Bible.

3. “The Haitians revolted and got themselves free.” Not really. This was a very unsatisfactory revolution. It lasted from 1791 to 1803, and was beset by both internal strife and outside invasion first by the French, then the English, then the French again. Yes, in the end it did result in Haiti becoming “only the 2nd republic in the Americas.” But the country was exhausted and in ruins, and no nation on earth at the time, including the United States, was willing to do business with a black republic… for fear it would enflame their own slaves’ desire for freedom. Remember, this is 50 years before the slaves began to be released in England, Russia, and finally the United States.

And so Haiti was free in name only. While it remained the richest colony in the history of colonial exploitation, as a free nation it was forced to endure an economic embargo not unlike the one we have enforced against Cuba for the last 50 years. The southern states, who of course had enormous clout in every American administration, viewed black Haiti very much the way cold war-era Americans viewed Communist Cuba. Haiti was the worst of all possible worlds: Black, and intertwined with the French, who were now led by an ambitious non-democratic emperor, Napoleon I.

The Haitian victory over the last of several French attempts to re-impose slavery in 1803 presented an alert Thomas Jefferson with a golden opportunity. Jefferson saw that France wanted Haiti back even more than they wanted to risk war with the United States over the ownership of the Louisiana territory. He also was not as afraid of a black nation as President Adams and all the southern statesmen had been. He is reported to have said, “”Provided that the Negroes are not permitted to possess a navy, we can allow them without danger to exist and we can moreover continue with them very lucrative commercial relations.” So Jefferson reinforced the slave leaders in Haiti prior to the French invasion, and when, as he hoped, the French suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of the Haitian rebels, Jefferson was able to swoop down and buy the Louisiana territory for a pittance. As the Haitian ambassador stated in response to Pat Robertson’s foolish prattle, Haitian victory was the direct cause of the United States gaining the land of 13 of our western states:

Yet racism and religion-based prejudice continued to create outside pressures which continued to afflict Haiti. Beginning in 1825, the victors became the vanquished when France with the help of the other great powers forced the Haitians to pay reparations to France for their victory.   “They were forced to pay again with their sweat for the freedom they had already purchased with their blood.” The details of this outrageous penalty, and its impact on Haitian society ever since, are described  here. (Thanks to Paul Tullis) This immoral demand, which impoverished Haiti while it enriched France, was not paid off by Haiti until 1947! And the results are still felt to this day. Their curse was not from God, but from the White race, the “Christian” “civilized” world, who drained Haitian money away 10 different ways.

4. The Dominican Republic is not prosperous, either. It suffers from a very similar fate — poverty in the midst of plenty, government corruption, a tiny privileged class and masses who live at the edge of poverty. While it is true that the Dominican Republic has about 6 times the per-capita income of Haiti, and much better life expectancy, many of the same problems afflict this half of the island as well. I’ve been there, and once you leave the wealthy resorts for the native towns, you see grinding poverty and desperation. Pat’s characterization of the country as “healthy and prosperous” may be true of the American real estate moguls who have built golf courses and resorts, but it is certainly not true of the local people. Santo Domingans can hardly be said to own the land they inhabit.

5. Centuries of failure in Haiti have combined with an indigenous belief in supernatural causes for natural events to create a dominant attitude of fatalism. Any truly moral framework, whether Christian, Jewish, or Moslem, could make a positive impact, working one person at a time. For example Nazarene missionaries since 1950 have made a positive impact, not by producing a “great turning to God”, but by teaching people how to improve their soil, build wells, terrace hillsides, and eat the tropical fruits which easily grow in Haiti (which tribal culture teaches are harmful to pregnant women). These are not religious changes but practical agricultural and lifestyle transitions. I applaud the earnest efforts of people like Howard Culbertson to invest in Haitian improvement, one person and family at a time. But the cause of their troubles was grossly misstated by Robertson — they were not cursed by God, but by godless people masquerading as followers of Jesus. Just as fake Christians slaughtered millions and sowed weeds of poverty in the Congo, so western “Christian” “civilization” has destroyed and denuded Haiti.

When a spiritual descendant of these kinds of religious mobsters blames the victims for their troubles, I just see red. Shut up, Pat, cash in your fortune and give the money to someone who is soberly working to undo the multiple curses of exploitative “Christianity”.  I don’t know for sure who might be effective, but I am certain the test we should go by is not related to the Christian doctrines or the church affiliation of the workers. “Christians” have been the curse of Haiti since Columbus first opened Pandora’s box there. Tomorrow I’ll begin to tell the story of how the arrogant jerk that my home town was named for launched Haiti’s woes, plundering the land for the queen of Spain.

After I finish telling the story of the exploitation of Haiti by one “Christian” nation after another, I’m going to examine what the Bible says about all of this, and see if we if there is any evidence that there is a God who sees, cares, and plans to do anything about exploitation by people who think they’ve got the “true religion”.

Q: Why OT/NT dichotomy?

27 Friday Jun 2008

Posted by in Bible Questions, christianity, eschatology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Hello Brothers and Sisters…

I am a true follower of Christ, and I accepted Christ as my only saviour.

But I have one question that bothers me…We know the Old testament and the new testament are different. Why is it that God is an ‘angry and destructive’ God in the Old testament, and written that we follow an eye for an eye, and destroyed lands and annihilated tribes, and there were strict rules then, etc. you know what I mean. BUT…in the new testament, God is a God of love, forgiveness, compassion, etc. Here, it teaches that we should turn the other cheek, etc. And that the old testament rules don’t apply to us now! Who said that? We are commanded not to eat pigs, and we still eat them. Please…tell me. What is the difference b/w the old testament and the new testament, and why did God suddenly change in the New.

Thanks

With much love in Christ,

Eyoel

Thanks for an excellent question.

I would start with the fact that Jesus lived as a Jew, born under the law, and did not condemn the Law. He obeyed it both in letter and spirit, and won the right to become the mediator of that law for the world of mankind. (1 Timothy 2:3-6)

Now, here’s where the mainstream teachings of Christian tradition will start to steer you wrong: most churches teach that Jesus abolished the law for all people, and made the new testament concepts of turning the other cheek, etc. as the new standard … as though God had changed the rulebook half way through human history. I agree with you that this is how it seems.

In reality, I think to make sense of the Bible we need to see 3 things:

1. The Law is eternal.. that is, the principles of right and wrong, how to treat people, etc.

2. Overlaid upon the Law are some ceremonial features and some dietery guidelines that have more symbolic, spiritual significance. These ceremonial features include the tabernacle, the sacrifices, and the activities of the feasts and fasts. Each of them is a picture of God’s dealings with different parts of humanity, at different times. The spiritual meaning of each of these applies to things God is planning for either the Church or the world of mankind.

For example, the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16) sacrifices picture the activities of Jesus and his followers (Aaron and his sons the under-priests) during the Christian age. They experience the symbolic burning of the flesh outside the camp (The writer of Hebrews refers to this in Hebrews 13:11-13 and applies the process to both Jesus and his followers — clearly a reference to the fact that both the bullock and the goat of sin offering experienced the burning of their bodies — an offensive and dishonored smell as viewed from the world’s perspective. And yet the result of the very same sacrifices involved the commingling of their blood with incense which ascended from the “holy” compartment to the “most holy”.

I believe that this feature of the Law — the tabernacle — defines for us the temporary dwelling place of God among members of the Church of Christ in this life. Throughout the Christian era, God has met only with  those who approach him through Jesus — who is pictured by the 3 doors of access to God the tent was fitted with. An outer gate, represents belief in Jesus as our savior. The inner building could only be entereded through the door of full commitment to Jesus, as described in Romans 12:1. And the inner door represents the pathway to the presence of God which Jesus made accessible through his death, and we only pass through upon our death as his followers.

At the same time that those carcases — hide and hoofs and entrails — were making a stench from the world’s perspective, the blood or life essence of the same animals was brought with incense and coals of fire and combined on the golden altar inside the Holy. This created a “sweet smelling savor” from the viewpoint of fellow-believers, and it actually permeated the door and wafted with the High Priest into the Most Holy when he came to sprinkle the blood at the “mercy seat”. (See Revelation 5:8, which defines incense as the prayers of holy people, and Revelation 6:9-11, which indicates that the blood of martyrs is valuable to God and he factors it into his decisions as the righteous judge.)

Hopefully from this example you can see that the Law was given to foreshadow things which the New Testament presents in greater detail. Other examples which you can easily research include:

  • the Passover lamb picturing Jesus, their escape from Egypt picturing the promised deliverance of all people, and the night of the firstborn, picturing the deliverance of the Church in advance of the rest of the world;
  • the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham picturing God and his sacrifice of his only Son;
  • the whole story of Joseph picturing Jesus and his interactions with the Jewish people;
  • the 3 40-year kingdoms of Saul, David, and Solomon picturing the 3 ages of grace — the Jewish, the Christian, and the Messianic;
  • the battle of Gideon and the Midianites, picturing the “little flock” of the Christian church defeating the enemies of God;
  • the battle of Joshua against Jericho, picturing the fall of the world system through an earthquake brought by God.

The Old Testament is literally filled with these “types” or foreshadowings of the great plans of God.

3. The most important thing you need to see is the amazing love of God for all the world of mankind. What few Christians seem to realize is that God ordained two different ways of dealing with those whom He intends to save through Christ. In New Testament times until now, God is dealing with people who in his wisdom he decided not to actually make healthy, get new bodies, etc. Instead, he gives us a “treasure in an earthen vessel”. He gives us a measure of His spirit which “transforms our mind” (Romans 12:1-2) but does not actually restore our physical bodies. We continue to sin, and learn to be somewhat punished, somewhat crippled, by those sins. We must struggle with our environment, too — temptations from bad people and even evil angels; tendencies to sin from our own fallen nature as well as our selfish human heart. In God’s wisdom, this is the condition we are left in throughout our Christian walk in the flesh.

Therefore, much of the Old Testament teaches the human followers of Jesus for the last 2000 years how to think and act in imperfect surroundings. It helps us learn how to struggle and fight against evil in our very souls. In the Old Testament, this struggle was pictured by the battles of the nation of Israel to capture the promised land. All of that happened, not because it is God’s will that we should practice “ethnic cleansing”, but because he wanted to create an illustration of what is happening in the lives of true Christians across the last 20 centuries.

But both the Old and New Testaments also state that the vast majority of the human race will be dealt with by God in a different way. He will “pour out his spirit upon ALL FLESH”. He will swallow up death in victory. He will heal all people. “All in their graves” will come forth and be resurrected onto the earth. In that era, people will actually be healed physically, while their moral development is still progressing. All the inhabitants of the world will “learn righteousness”. There will be no stumbling blocks. Satan will be bound. There will be no deceivers, and God will no longer hide himself. Instead, he will be with them, and be their God. Before they call, He will answer.

These promises are the key to understanding how to harmonize the Old and New Testaments.

When you came to the Lord you were probably taught that those who don’t accept Jesus now will burn in hell forever, either literally or in some sort of psychological separation from God. Perhaps you grew up being taught this awful idea since you were a child. Clearly the Bible has lurid language in places which can be interepreted this way. However, the only way you’ll be able to harmonize the entire Bible and really make sense of the Old and New Testaments as one united work is to realize that God has planned for the complete recovery of all who are willing. The whole world is going to be restored. The whole world is going to be taught. God so loved the world — the entire world — that he sent his son to save them. He didn’t come to bring a message that would in reality condemn them. No, he came to die for their sins, to pay the price of their inherited sins from Adam, so that they would have what some people call a “second chance”. In reality, it is a full “first real opportunity” to know and understand God for the vast majority of the human race.

If you look carefully at the words of God uttered through the mouths of the prophets of the Old Testament, there is very good news promised for the whole world. Everyone. Not just for Jews, and not just for Christians either. A “feast of fat things” has been decreed and planned for the entire world. It is the sovereign God’s righteous and irresistable will that all the world will be saved, and come to a knowledge of the truth. Because Jesus was “lifted up” (like the serpent of Numbers 21), he will draw ALL MEN to him. All the world will be delivered from death, as Isaiah describes it. All people will know the Lord, as Jeremiah expresses it. All of these Old Testament promises are echoed in the broadest possible language in the New Testament, such as Revelation 21:1-4 which describes the blessing of all the people of the world, and paints a picture in which the “wife of the lamb” works with the lamb to bring these blessings to all. Clearly the intent of the writers is to tell us that the Christian church (that is, the folks whom God hand-picks to be the spiritual wife of Jesus in heaven) will be united with Him and bring life to all the world. This is really good news.

As for the dietary laws, I would think of part of them as sanitation and health regulations for the benefit of the people back then (as well as now) and part of it is meant to have spiritual meaning as so much of the rest of the Old Testament does.

I believe that the number of “goats” (Matthew 25) who will perish in what the Bible calls the “2nd death” is, relatively speaking, very small. Even if the “Gog and Magog” rebellion at the end of the Millennium is comparable to the 200 million evil “horsemen” described at the beginning of the Millennium in Revelation 9, that’s only maybe 2 percent of world population by the time all the dead are raised.

In summary, the important thing to remember is that God does not change, and Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. For Christians now, God has a higher standard and a more difficult test in place. We aren’t just as as Christians to be good people to the best of our ability, we are asked to love our enemies and “turn the other cheek” as Jesus did. And we are being trained to be kings, priests, judges and rulers of the world of the future.

The rest of the world is not on trial at the present time. Their sins are not being imputed to them, but instead they are “storing up” the wrath or judicial judgment of God for their day of reckoning and learning, the 1000 year reign of Messiah. But they will be evaluated at that time, not as a simple condemnation for past mistakes, but as a hopeful and righteous opportunity to learn from those past mistakes and learn to walk in God’s ways. They will be helped and taught in that time by a very merciful group of mentors — the Christian Church and Jesus himself.

And so in the end, the wrath of God (which describes the entire time period of human history — 6 thousand years to us, but only 6 days to God) will have been but “for a moment”. And his mercy — his love for the human race which will effectively and massively restore it, will last forever.

Thanks for your question and please follow up with the many more questions which my answer will probably generate.

From Chicago December 12

20 Tuesday Dec 2005

Posted by in a happy God, love of God

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

It’s been a few weeks since I posted.

Right now I’m on a train, after a day at a trade show in Chicago. Riding the Metra on the 2nd level, I can watch the city drain away, out my window. The snow has turned the yard into a simple striped space.

Today I attended a session on using blogs and podcasts to enhance a university recruitment effort. The challenge, of course, is the danger associated with truth. Institutions like universities or governments or churches or corporations have complex relationships with their constituents. The truth is that every institution has strengths and weaknesses. Like people, they are also inconsistent day to day. But like people, institutions take actions which, when persisted in, become habits and lead to the formation of character.

Recognizing this, colleges are learning to allow the failings and blind spots of the institution to be honestly reported, in order to gain the greater good that flows from allowing the positives to be extolled in a convincing manner by credible (to the reader) authorities. Eyewitness accounts, unadorned and unvarnished, report the banal heroics that recommend a university, along with the sporadic foolishness which reminds folks of its humanness, and authenticates its claim to integrity.

Putting that experience into my own context of trying to understand the mind of a happy God, it seems obvious to me that the human race is growing in precisely the way that God wishes. People, whether Christian or not, are gaining in honesty and humility. They are learning to value their own experiences and knowledge and perspectives, and express themselves freely. That’s a wonderful freedom, and the Word says, “where the spirit of Christ is, there is liberty.” Lack of liberty is a sure sign of a lack of the spirit of Christ.

What makes me excited is that there is more to this blogging/vlogging trend than merely individualism. There is also a perceptible ramping up of the appreciation each person has for others. Contrary opinions, difficult questions, thorny issues. These things are gaining expression, too. Not only as a rant or a critique, but also as a reflection of growing appreciation of the perspectives of others. By listening to others, honoring all men, and testing all things instead of clinging to their previous paradigms people of every religious background are learning what it means to be a child of God and their brother’s keeper.

Atrocities from Absurdities

01 Tuesday Nov 2005

Posted by in a happy God, Hell, love of God, salvation, Theodicy, universalism

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

 

“If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.”

“Let us therefore reject all superstition in order to become more human; but in speaking against fanaticism, let us not imitate the fanatics: they are sick men in delirium who want to chastise their doctors. Let us assuage their ills, and never embitter them, and let us pour drop by drop into their souls the divine balm of toleration, which they would reject with horror if it were offered to them all at once.”

Voltaire

It’s almost like a joke, for a Christian like me to use Voltaire to correct other Christians who I consider to be believing absurdities. But this is what I am doing. Bright and godly men are telling the world that eternal hell awaits everyone who does not receive Christ as their savior before “this life” is over. If the only thing in the Bible were messages which seemed to teach this idea, I would leave it alone. But the Bible is equally strong, indeed much stronger, in saying that God is merciful and loving and has planned the redemption of all people. The bright and godly men whose works are listed on the above site are consistently willing to attack and degrade anyone who presumes to draw hope from the loving and optimistic promises of scripture.

At times like this, a Christian needs to learn from a good atheist, like Voltaire. (Or was he a deist? — see Thomas S. Vernon) We need to speak to our Christian brothers who still believe in the notion of eternal hell, with all its absurdities, with the divine balm of toleration.

This is all the more important to me as I discover from Howard Dorgan that often the Calvinists of today turn on a dime and become the Universalists of tomorrow. In his book In the hands of a Happy God: the “No-Hellers” of Central Appalachia, Dorgan points out that the Baptist leaders who adopted a “salvation for all” belief did so by clinging to the concept of predestination, and simply allowing for the idea that God chose to save all rather than some.

Now, I’m not a Universalist. But I think the golden key that unlocks the Bible is this: that Christ died in exchange for Adam. What man lost by Adam’s sin, through heredity, Christ restored. The children of Adam lost a relationship with God, and the opportunity to truly choose for themselves how they would live, before they were born. They were born dead, so to speak, “without God and without hope in the world”, as Paul puts it. What Jesus provided was a voluntary “righteous act” that offset the single act of disobedience of Adam.

This is reciprocity at its simplest. One man sins, and dies. Another man does a noble sacrificial good deed, choosing to pay the penalty of that first man’s sin, thus releasing the first man and making a second chance possible for him.

And this act of free grace also benefits the children of the first man, by giving to them something they never had: a first chance to be sinless, in a garden paradise, where they could decide whether to obey God or not.

That is what Jesus brings by his act of reciprocity.

And it frees Christian believers from the absurdity of administering Eternal Torment for folks who under God’s sovereign arrangement simply do what they are inclined to do by virtue of their heredity and environment.

I’ve been traveling but when I return I hope to write about some of the atrocities that the above absurdities have generated.

The Fairness of a Father

21 Friday Oct 2005

Posted by in a happy God, Calvinism, Hell, John MacArthur, love of God, orthodoxy, Theodicy

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

One of the toughest lessons I had to learn as a father was trying to find ways of making consequences “fit”. To feel corrected rather than abused, a child must sense proportionality.

Punishment is a loving thing for a father to concern himself with, because if a father does not correct a child early and often, the child will suffer greatly throughout his life, as his inability to say “no” to himself brings a cascade of disasters from the world around him and the rebel within him. Immediate response by their parents is especially helpful in the early years — children benefit from consistent results, arriving predictably and soon from their experiments with disobedience. Sam Stalos, of Denison University, has lectured effectively on the importance of consistent parental response to their children. Reb Bradley has a slightly too-terse but incisive view of this in “Child Training Tips.”

The trouble is, immediate response for a hothead like me is apt to be angry. It took me a number of years to learn to manage my own emotions to the point where I could teach my children lovingly without over-correcting. Of course, now I’m the master of that… right kids?!

The other potential extreme, lethargy or equanimity, is equally or even more dangerous. Children sometimes act up to get attention, and if a parent disengages out of fear of over-reacting, that hurts the child, too.

I mention these points as a backdrop to the concept of God’s wrath espoused by Calvinist evangelicals such as John Piper or John MacArthur, Jr. I consider these fellows my brothers in Christ, though I presume that attitude would not be reciprocated, in view of my multiple heresies.

I am still working on an answer to the first of 4 thesis statements Piper makes about God’s wrath — that it is eternal — that is, never ending.

Yesterday I argued that the scriptures balance the view by stating that God’s wrath is indeed momentary in the scope of cosmic time, and even in the scope of promised human experience. God stated that he did not create the earth in vain — to be burned up. Rather, he made it “to be inhabited”. As Jesus said, God is not the God of the dead, but the living. He intends to have a living creation, in fellowship with him, a family on earth as well as in heaven.

Today I will simply state that the punishment chosen by God must, by his own definition, fit the crime.

Consider murder. That’s a simple one. Genesis 9 states God’s view, that if a man sheds the blood of another, his own blood is forfeited. Exodus 22 repeats the concept: “An eye for an eye.”

Property crimes are also fairly simple: make restitution, with an added penalty attached. And if you couldn’t pay, you became the indentured servant of the person you stole from for up to 7 years. Here’s an excellent summary of Old Testament and New Testament laws against stealing.

Reciprocity, or tailoring the punishment to the crime, was thus an important part of God’s law.

Augustine said, “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.”

I agree with that, but the conventional Christian view of redemption doesn’t bring an adequate good out of the permission of evil. It doesn’t bring proportional good to most of the Jews, most of the East, most of the West.

Romans 1 and 2 are pivotal to an understanding of how God views human sin. A careful reading of these passages reveals proportionality, not the mainstream notion of infinite payback for finite sin. The ultimate penalty is cited clearly: death. Nothing about hell, nothing about torment. Just death. Those who commit sin are worthy of death.

And death would be eternal if God were not to interrupt it with a resurrection — so that’s where the “everlasting” or eternal idea comes from, Biblically.

Jesus said the same thing in his clear words about “eternal hell” — Gehenna — in Matthew 10. There he said,

Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. Rather, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. 

Check out the word for “destroy” and you will find that it does not mean “preserve alive in torment.” It means obliterate, annihilate. Both the soul, the conscious existence, and the body, the form and structure, are terminated in the condition he calls “Gehenna.” It is permanent death, not eternal torment, which the Bible sets out as the consequence of sin.

It’s very important to me to understand why God would be happy. I don’t suppose most readers are all that familiar with the Calvinist teachings on this, but Calvin (and Augustine before him) claimed that God’s people would be sitting on the edge of heaven, looking down at hell where they could hear the cries of pain and agony of sinners for all eternity, and they would praise God for this. Their, and God’s happiness, would be magnified by the realization that bad people were getting what they deserved. But I agree heartily with atheists such as Chad Docterman who say infinite payback for finite sin is unfair.

God says that the death of a sinner doesn’t make him happy. Jesus says that the repentance of a sinner makes him and everybody in heaven happy.

So if God is a happy God, a happy Father, I’m looking for Biblical perspectives that maximize the number of sinners who repent, and minimize the number of sinners who ultimately fail to “get it.”

While death would be a reciprocal penalty for sin, God is not reciprocal with man. Where sin (and therefore death) abound, God’s grace abounds even more. We just haven’t seen it all yet.

I’ll have more on reciprocity tomorrow.

Why is God happy? My first response to John Piper

17 Monday Oct 2005

Posted by in a happy God, Calvinism, eschatology, Theodicy

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

I am not the first to notice that Paul calls God the “happy God” twice in his epistles to Timothy. Many have commented on this extensively. One of the most prolific is John Piper, whose book Desiring God I am now reading.
In the link above, Pastor Piper states what he calls “the ultimate Biblical explanation for the existence of suffering.” I agree that the Bible does indeed offer the ultimate Biblical explanation for suffering, and that Christ is the center of that process, and the Church is the firstfruits of that redemptive plan. I keep hoping for Piper, and C.S. Lewis, and others to reach the logical implications of their arguments, but they keep falling short.

And the reason they keep falling short is that they ignore God’s mechanism for bringing salvation to Adam and Eve and all the others who have not believed in this life.

Here’s an excerpt from this sermon:

“As for you, Adam and Eve, you meant evil against God as you rejected him as your Father and Treasure, but Oh what an infinite good he planned through your fall! The Seed of the woman will one day bruise the head of the great Serpent, and by his suffering he will display the greatness of the glory of the grace of God. You have not undone his plan. Just as Joseph was sold sinfully into slavery, you have sold yourselves for an apple. You have fallen, and now the stage is set for the perfect display of the greatness of the glory of the grace of God.

“For not only did sin enter the world, but through sin came suffering and death. Paul tells us that God subjected the world to futility and corruption under his holy curse. He put it like this in Romans 8:20-23:

“The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

“When sin entered the world, horrible, horrible things followed. Diseases, defects, disabilities, natural catastrophes, human atrocities—from the youngest infant to the oldest codger, from the vilest scoundrel to the sweetest saint—suffering is no respecter of persons. That’s why Paul said in Romans 8:23, “We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

“Ezekiel tells us that God does not delight in this suffering. “As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezekiel 33:11). But the plan remains, and Jeremiah gives us a glimpse into the mysterious complexity of the mind of God in Lamentations 3:32-33, “Though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.” Literally: “He does not from his heart [millibbô] afflict or grieve the children of men.” He ordains that suffering come—“though he cause grief”—but his delight is not in the suffering, but in the great purpose of creation: the display of the glory of the grace of God in the suffering of Christ for the salvation of sinners.

“The stage has been set. The drama redemptive history begins to unfold. Sin is now in its full and deadly force. Suffering and death are present and ready to consume the Son of God when he comes. All things are now in place for the greatest possible display of the glory of the grace of God.”

It seems to me that the glaring omission in all of this is that God has provided a way to undo the pain and sin of all humans throughout all history. Piper correctly sees that the true followers of Christ will be a glorious redeemed group, a victory for suffering over evil, for grace over pride. True Christians, of whom I am sure brother Piper is one, will indeed enjoy each other and enjoy God throughout all eternity. But I think the Word promises they will also enjoy the masses of mankind, whom they are explicitly promised to reign over, to shepherd with a staff of iron, to “judge” (which means not condemn, but guide and correct). Christians will enjoy being priests on behalf of the world of mankind, they will enjoy being representatives of God’s extended and sovereign grace on behalf of the world. The gates of pearl, allowing access to the City of God. Indeed, the very streets of the city itself!

Pastor Piper speaks about how Joseph’s brothers are akin to Adam and Eve, who did something bad but God found a way to bless. But in Joseph’s case the brothers are blessed and restored to favor. What about Adam and Eve? The silent elephant in the middle of the living room, which I haven’t yet seen Brothers Piper or Lewis or McArthur talk about, is that in their view Adam and Eve are lost forever for their sin. Jesus is the seed of the woman, to be sure, and he brings some folks out of death and destruction through his and their pain, but there’s a whole lot more people and a whole lot more suffering that is unaccounted for. It feels like we are asked to just wash our hands of it and smile and say, “God can’t make a mistake so it must be OK.”

Or as Piper puts it early in his book, Desiring God, we have to learn to look at it with God’s wide-angle lens — I guess so we don’t see the personal pain and futility of it all.

So brother Piper quotes Romans 8:23 in the above sermon, which talks about how we groan within ourselves during the time of suffering and pain. That’s true, that’s good. But it also says in Romans 8:22 that the whole creation likewise suffers through this process. What of that? When will those who aren’t “the sons of God” yet have their suffering addressed? Paul answers that question in verse 21. The creation itself will ALSO be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

They don’t live happily ever after until they start to live happily ever after. But they will and I think THAT is why God is happy now. Because he sees it and he has planned it and he knows it will happen.