Sunday, September 26, 2004

No Lies For Good Causes (September 26, 2004)

Value the truth. Cling to it more dearly than life itself.

A friend sent me a quote from 19th century Scottish novelist George MacDonald which read, "I would not favor a fiction to keep a whole world out of hell. The hell that a lie would keep a man out of is doubtless the very best place for him to go to. It is truth, yes, The Truth, that saves the world."

I researched that quote and found it came from a story where a minister meets a reclusive parishioner whose house is filled with books. The parishioner says that he has bound some of the books himself, and has done it so well that the minister would not be able to distinguish his bookbinding from that of a professional. He says, "I'll give you a guinea for the poor-box if you pick out three of my binding consecutively."

The minister goes to the shelves and actually does pick out three of the self-bound books. But when the bookworm, embarrassed, hands him the guinea, he refuses to take it on the grounds that his last selection was a random guess. Amazed and amused, the man rebukes his pastor: "Couldn't you swallow a small scruple like that for the sake
of the poor even?...You're not fit for your profession. You won't even tell a lie for God's sake...You won't even cheat a little for the sake of the poor!" That is when the minister responds by saying that he would not advocate a lie even to keep people out of hell.

Good for him. Once you compromise truth, you undermine all the good things (like helping poor people, or keeping sinners out of hell) that spring from truth. No good thing depends on a lie for its support, and no lie upholds some goodness that wouldn't be better off without it.

About the time I read that MacDonald quote, I came across a statement by Feodor Dostoevsky, author of The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, that staked out an opposite claim. Philip Yancey writes that after 10 years in a Siberian gulag, Dostoevsky "emerged from prison with unshakable Christian convictions, as expressed in one famous passage, 'If anyone proved to me that Christ was outside the truth...then I would prefer to remain with Christ than with the truth.'"

Amazing - Dostoevsky would willingly build his faith on that which he knew to be a lie! I cannot agree with Yancey that this expresses "unshakable Christian conviction." All that it expresses is mind rot.

When you say that you would follow Christ even if he weren't true, you are saying that your faith is built on sand. Perhaps it is the sand of feeling, or expediency, or inner warmth, or social reform or who knows what else. Those things are all shifty, wind-blown mineral chaff. The only worthy anchor for conviction is truth. If you explicitly deny that your foundation needs to be true, then why should we believe anything you say?

A few years ago my niece went looking for a place to live and came across an older couple with an upstairs room to rent. While talking to them, she made a connection and realized that the man would know her grandfather (my father), who died in 1980. He said to her, "You're Lowell Lundquist's granddaughter?" He sat down in a chair and his eyes filled with tears. He said, "Lowell Lundquist was the most honest man I ever knew."

I cannot tell you how much it means to me, how privileged I feel, to have been raised by a man no less honest than the minister in George MacDonald's story. Be like that. For God's sake, never lie. Never cling to a known falsehood, no matter how much good you think might come from it.

Sunday, September 19, 2004

The Misunderstood Hero (September 19, 2004)

One of the more compelling themes in literature is that of the misunderstood hero. In Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, for example, the slandered Darcy is despised by the woman he loves, yet his integrity and good will force him to conceal from her his integrity and good will. You can find another long-suffering hero in the film The Terminal, where Tom Hanks' character is loudly and publicly berated by a janitor friend - yet he cannot tell the janitor how, at terrible cost to himself, he has just saved him from prison.

When the "misunderstood hero" theme is told well in a good story, it creates in the reader or viewer a desire for the rest of the characters to know the truth. You want to jump in and tell them, "No! He's a good man! You don't know what really happened!" You hope that the author will treat you (and the characters) kindly by making everything plain in due time. The hero must be vindicated before things get tragic. It is not enough for him to be good - he must be known to be good. The saddest thing is to come to the end of the story and the truth remains unknown: the good man is still hated and the people are still deceived. That is how the film Arlington Road ends, with worthy victim Jeff Bridges branded falsely, and forever, as a
mass-murdering terrorist.

I have always loved C. S. Lewis' idea in Myth Become Fact that story themes planted deep within our cultures are preludes to great truths. I believe that the "misunderstood hero" theme is one such myth-become-fact. In our story - reality - God is the misunderstood hero. People think miserably wrong things about him - that he does not exist, or that he is capricious, uncaring, impossible to please, indulgent of evil, or some other such falsehood. And given our world's fallenness, and our own, it is not surprising that these slanders against God are propagated and believed. But we who know the truth want to shout to a deceived world, "No! You don't understand! He is good! He is filled to overflowing with more goodness than you can possibly imagine. You must learn to know him as the God who is good, and you must love him as such."

Though we must believe the truth about God for truth's own sake, and love him simply because it is wrong not to, it cannot be denied that in so doing we will also reap a benefit of joy. It is not only just and right that Elizabeth should come to understand Darcy's true character - there is also delight for her when she does so, and joy unspeakable when she accepts a marriage proposal from this, the worthiest man in England. When the misunderstood hero is at last comprehended - his goodness valued and his grace received - pleasures multiply for the one who is blessed to know the truth about him.

Sunday, September 12, 2004

Maybe Your Influence Will Take A While (September 12, 2004)

Last night I received a pleasant surprise.

I checked back with a friend who had called me a week ago about a conflict he was stuck arbitrating. Two women at his church (I'll call them "Euodia" and "Synteche" - Philippians 4:2) were in a disagreement that threatened to engulf the congregation. I talked to Euodia, who I felt was mostly in the right but who nevertheless needed to let the matter go and not seek confrontation. I told her my reasons for that, and she listened politely and told me thank you but she would still proceed with the disciplinary protocol of Matthew 18. I felt that was a big mistake, but what could I do? I had made the best case I could. She just didn't want to follow my advice.

But when I called my friend last night to find out how badly things had blown up, he said that Euodia had decided not to press the matter, and that she and Synteche had apologized to one another and were even praying for each other! Glory to God. I cannot say that I influenced Euodia (it sure did not seem like it when I talked to her), but at least I will allow myself to be glad that what I counseled and what she did happened to coincide.

For those of you who try to teach or persuade or counsel - and yet meet with discouraging resistance - be aware that sometimes your words just need to stew for a while (and mix with other influences) before they yield a result. A young couple with Wycliffe Bible Translators once told me about their discouragement when they presented the work of Wycliffe at Christian campuses and got no response from the students. I told them, "But I was one of those who never responded!" A visiting missionary would present his work, and I wouldn't stay or ask questions or sign interest cards. I'd file out quietly - but go back to my room and wonder whether the Lord was calling me to be a missionary. My "yes" to mission service was preceded by a thousand blank-faced "no's." Nobody knew they were influencing me.

Years ago my mother tried to influence my interpretation of a set of Bible passages. She was not successful - we just disagreed. I wonder if that discouraged her. Her son was going to be a pastor and he had the wrong view about something! But in later years I came to see that she was absolutely, 100 percent right. It still amazes me that I now echo a line of hers that I once so hotly debated.

In Matthew 21:28-31, Jesus told the parable of a father who tells his two sons to go work in the vineyard. One says no and the other says yes. But the one who said yes didn't go, and the one who said no changed his mind and went. Jesus asked, "Which of the two did what his father wanted?" Clearly the one who initially said no.

Don't get too discouraged over a “no.” Sometimes there is a quiet “yes” lurking beneath the surface that persistent good influence will some day push to the top.

Sunday, September 5, 2004

Be Fruitful And Multiply (September 5, 2004)

Christians should have more children.

A couple days ago I was pleased to meet the Cassidys, who have 14 children, 90 grandchildren and 75 great-grandchildren. I told them they were blessed by God, quoting from Psalm 127:3-5: "Children are a heritage from the Lord...and blessed is the man who has his quiver full of them." Not surprisingly, they both knew the passage well.

Many years ago, inspired by that verse, my father made a plaque with the word "QUIVER" and attached it to the tent-trailer that we used to haul on our summer vacations. It still amazes me that that we could jam our large family into those tiny sleeping quarters. But we managed. With ingenuity a small quiver can hold many arrows.

There can be good reasons for limiting family size, but the older I get the more I think that selfishness and materialism are the real reasons that we don’t want to admit. I don't accept the excuse many couples give that they "can't afford" children. What they can't afford is a lifestyle more opulent than they need. When Linda was pregnant with our firstborn, a couple told us that they were delaying starting a family until they were financially ready - though their income was at least triple ours. To them, "ready' was a house with a yard and who knows what else. Well, Linda and I went ahead recklessly and had Ben and he did not starve. Neither did Peter, though I never grossed more than $20,000 a year until he was well into grade school. Are my kids malnourished? Have they had to scrounge for scraps in a homeless shelter? Nah. They're fine.

I never felt deprived growing up, though I shared a 10- by 12-foot bedroom with two brothers and slept in a triple bunk bed with coffin-like head clearance. And even if I had felt deprived and crowded - so what? That is no price to pay for the joy of having two brothers whom I love like, well, brothers.

Children aren't a burden. They're a blessing. As God grants you the opportunity, be fruitful and multiply.