September 30, 2008: Let Your Yes Be Yes
"I gave my word."
I found myself having to say that a lot recently as I kept getting the same advice from friends who recommended that I try to renegotiate a financial obligation I incurred a couple years ago. (Here "renegotiate" pretty much means "not pay as much as I said I would"). It is true that unforeseeable circumstances had turned a fair deal into a disastrous one for me. Everyone could see that. I was left scrambling between options that all looked bad. But the one option that kept getting placed under my nose and that I had to keep swatting away because of its stench was the one that would have made a promise-breaker of me. That is not acceptable. I would rather be poor - I would rather be unhappy! - than go back on my word.
I have righteous contempt for those who break their word. That is why I root against Bret Favre now. Favre held a tearful press conference on March 6 to announce, "I am officially retiring from the NFL and the Green Bay Packers," and then revoked his word a few months later just because he decided he felt differently. His broken promise threw the whole Packer organization into chaos (how do you plan anything when your star says one thing one day and the opposite thing the next?) and left his replacement, Aaron Rodgers, dangling on a string. Then Favre angrily blamed the Packers for not treating him with respect. He does not understand that he is not worthy of respect. Sure, he can throw a football - but as for his words, write them on water. Go Jets' opponents.
And were it not for Barak Obama's position on abortion and some other things I would certainly be saying "Go McCain's opponent." You may have heard that last week John McCain canceled a David Letterman appearance an hour before the show was to be taped, claiming he had to get back to Washington to deal with the nation's financial crisis. Actually McCain was in no hurry to get to Washington - he had simply decided to go down the street to be interviewed by Katie Couric. Letterman rightly went nuts, and has been ripping McCain ever since with the fury of a jilted bride. Speaking of brides, McCain did not keep his word to his first one, but ditched her years ago for someone younger, prettier and richer. (Between Obama's baby-killing policies and McCain's lack of integrity, I'm glad that our Electoral-College manner of electing a president will insure that my vote this year in the state of Illinois will not matter!)
When you give your word, keep it. This is your duty as a godly man or woman. When King David asked in Psalm 15: "Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary?" part of his answer was "one who keeps his oath even if it hurts." (Better in the King James: "He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not."). Of course your situation will change and make your promises hard to keep. That is to be expected. There is no virtue in keeping your word when it is easy to do so, when it costs you nothing, when it is your happiest course of action anyway. Virtue demands that you keep the promises that hurt. Especially the promises that hurt.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
September 23, 2008: One Way To Test Your Goodness
"I thought I was a good person until I had Indians living in my house."
A missionary told me that around 1990. She and her husband were working with a South American indigenous group whose small villages were off limits to foreigners due to guerrilla activity. In order to have regular contact with the indigenous people and learn their language, they invited three Indians to live in their home, which was about 50 miles from the tribal area.
The indigenous guests behaved well, but the simple fact that they were around proved burdensome to the missionary. She confessed to me that her desire to be rid of them revealed a shameful fact about herself, a selfishness never previously suspected. "If you had asked me a couple years ago if I were kind and hospitable, I would have said 'Sure.' Now I know that I'm not."
That's the price, or part of the price, of trying to do a good work. You realize to your horror that you're not up to it. Your conscience had been giving you a pass only because your virtue hadn't been tested. Think you're a good person? Take three Indians into your home and get back to me in a year. Then, rather than professing "I'm a redeemed child of the King who loves me just the way I am" you might be saying, "I am a worm. God have mercy on my selfish little putrid soul."
Some time ago I ran across an essay that my son Peter wrote where he expressed how much in awe he was of his Aunt Grace, who with her husband took in dozens of difficult foster kids over the years and adopted several of them. And Peter has no idea how hard that really is! He can only guess from afar. Perhaps some day he will attempt such hospitality himself, and the effort will reveal faults that will humble him and move him to be more dependent on God.
But of course it is possible, upon being awakened to one's selfishness, to decide to love it rather than repent of it. That is what happened with the missionary eventually. Overcoming the shock of painful self-discovery, she learned to embrace her narcissism. She abandoned Christian service, renounced Christ, left her husband and neglected her children. Welcoming Indians into her home to show them the love of God is now a distant and suppressed memory.
I never tire of repeating my answer to a question asked of me in March of 2003 when I assumed the pastorate of Faith Bible Church: "What do you want from us?" - and I responded with one word: "Hospitality." Open the doors of your homes to guests.
Certainly there is risk in that. A guest may track dog dirt onto your floors (I've had worse on my floors!). You may discover that you really don't like people that much, and, if you are reprobate, may eventually conclude that you don't want Jesus in your heart any more than you want a stranger in your house. But that is the worst case scenario. I choose to think better of you. Climb the high Himalayan peaks of hospitality, and some day not only will God smile on you, but, maybe, even some smart-aleck niece or nephew will hold you in awe.
"I thought I was a good person until I had Indians living in my house."
A missionary told me that around 1990. She and her husband were working with a South American indigenous group whose small villages were off limits to foreigners due to guerrilla activity. In order to have regular contact with the indigenous people and learn their language, they invited three Indians to live in their home, which was about 50 miles from the tribal area.
The indigenous guests behaved well, but the simple fact that they were around proved burdensome to the missionary. She confessed to me that her desire to be rid of them revealed a shameful fact about herself, a selfishness never previously suspected. "If you had asked me a couple years ago if I were kind and hospitable, I would have said 'Sure.' Now I know that I'm not."
That's the price, or part of the price, of trying to do a good work. You realize to your horror that you're not up to it. Your conscience had been giving you a pass only because your virtue hadn't been tested. Think you're a good person? Take three Indians into your home and get back to me in a year. Then, rather than professing "I'm a redeemed child of the King who loves me just the way I am" you might be saying, "I am a worm. God have mercy on my selfish little putrid soul."
Some time ago I ran across an essay that my son Peter wrote where he expressed how much in awe he was of his Aunt Grace, who with her husband took in dozens of difficult foster kids over the years and adopted several of them. And Peter has no idea how hard that really is! He can only guess from afar. Perhaps some day he will attempt such hospitality himself, and the effort will reveal faults that will humble him and move him to be more dependent on God.
But of course it is possible, upon being awakened to one's selfishness, to decide to love it rather than repent of it. That is what happened with the missionary eventually. Overcoming the shock of painful self-discovery, she learned to embrace her narcissism. She abandoned Christian service, renounced Christ, left her husband and neglected her children. Welcoming Indians into her home to show them the love of God is now a distant and suppressed memory.
I never tire of repeating my answer to a question asked of me in March of 2003 when I assumed the pastorate of Faith Bible Church: "What do you want from us?" - and I responded with one word: "Hospitality." Open the doors of your homes to guests.
Certainly there is risk in that. A guest may track dog dirt onto your floors (I've had worse on my floors!). You may discover that you really don't like people that much, and, if you are reprobate, may eventually conclude that you don't want Jesus in your heart any more than you want a stranger in your house. But that is the worst case scenario. I choose to think better of you. Climb the high Himalayan peaks of hospitality, and some day not only will God smile on you, but, maybe, even some smart-aleck niece or nephew will hold you in awe.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
September 16, 2008: Epitaph
While visiting Gordon's church last week I received a shock when the Sunday School paper was handed out. It included an essay on Proverbs that my mother wrote years ago! Gordon had me read it aloud, which I could barely do for the emotion. I was one of the examples in it. Mom wrote, "My little boy once protested, 'A whole dime for a torn comic book? You're nuts!' But as soon as the salesman was out of earshot, Paul gloated about his bargain, 'I really got a good buy for only a dime.'" She cited Proverbs 20:14: "'It's no good, it's no good!'" says the buyer; then off he goes and boasts about his purchase." I can still see her smiling and hear her quoting that verse in the King James: "'It is naught, it is naught,'" saith the buyer; but when he goeth his way, he boasteth."
After I finished reading the essay, Gordon said, "I would have really liked your mom." I said, "Everyone did."
I thank God for my maternal legacy. The joy of it, though, is crashing hard these days against the sorrow I feel for those who never experience it. Even as I pen these words, I sit literally six feet away from a young man whose alcoholic mother abandoned him - and his brother, and his father. Two other young friends of mine saw their mother convert from devout Christianity to a "religion" that might be called "Bible-Hating Narcissism." While writing the above line (I'm not kidding! You can't make this up!) a friend called, and in the course of conversation told me that he too was estranged from his mother. When he was young, he said, among other cruelties his mom constantly told his friends that he was the black sheep of the family. "And I was a B+ student who never got in trouble!" he said, and I believe him.
On August 16 and 17 the following obituary appeared in the Vallejo (California) Times-Herald.
Dolores Aguilar, born in 1929 in New Mexico, left us on August 7, 2008. Dolores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life. I speak for the majority of her family when I say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed and there will be no lamenting over her passing... I truly believe at the end of the day ALL of us will really only miss what we never had, a good and kind mother, grandmother and great-grandmother... There will be no service, no prayers and no closure for the family she spent a lifetime tearing apart. We cannot come together in the end to see to it that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren can say their goodbyes. So I say here for all of us, GOOD BYE, MOM.
Sadly, the obituary above is authentic. (You can look it up on Snopes.com). It has lit up the internet because of its brutal honesty and also because it has struck a chord with thousands who, like the author, were left "completely terrorized."
You have no idea how many moms (and dads too of course - but here I'm just focusing on moms) I'd like to wake up and in whose ears I'd like to shout, "What is the matter with you? Trust God and behave well! Don't you know that some day your children will grow up and evaluate you? And that, if they are worthy, they won't care if you made money, or kept yourself thin, or accomplished much, or had fun, or lived a life of self-fulfillment; but they will care whether you were kind and pure and did good to others?"
When I emailed an old friend about my extraordinary experience in Sunday School, he emailed back, "Your mom is one of my all-time favorite human beings of all time." Outside of God's approval, who could hope for a better evaluation than that? No fortune gathered from all the treasuries in the world could buy it. As Solomon said, "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold." (Proverbs 22:1).
While visiting Gordon's church last week I received a shock when the Sunday School paper was handed out. It included an essay on Proverbs that my mother wrote years ago! Gordon had me read it aloud, which I could barely do for the emotion. I was one of the examples in it. Mom wrote, "My little boy once protested, 'A whole dime for a torn comic book? You're nuts!' But as soon as the salesman was out of earshot, Paul gloated about his bargain, 'I really got a good buy for only a dime.'" She cited Proverbs 20:14: "'It's no good, it's no good!'" says the buyer; then off he goes and boasts about his purchase." I can still see her smiling and hear her quoting that verse in the King James: "'It is naught, it is naught,'" saith the buyer; but when he goeth his way, he boasteth."
After I finished reading the essay, Gordon said, "I would have really liked your mom." I said, "Everyone did."
I thank God for my maternal legacy. The joy of it, though, is crashing hard these days against the sorrow I feel for those who never experience it. Even as I pen these words, I sit literally six feet away from a young man whose alcoholic mother abandoned him - and his brother, and his father. Two other young friends of mine saw their mother convert from devout Christianity to a "religion" that might be called "Bible-Hating Narcissism." While writing the above line (I'm not kidding! You can't make this up!) a friend called, and in the course of conversation told me that he too was estranged from his mother. When he was young, he said, among other cruelties his mom constantly told his friends that he was the black sheep of the family. "And I was a B+ student who never got in trouble!" he said, and I believe him.
On August 16 and 17 the following obituary appeared in the Vallejo (California) Times-Herald.
Dolores Aguilar, born in 1929 in New Mexico, left us on August 7, 2008. Dolores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life. I speak for the majority of her family when I say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed and there will be no lamenting over her passing... I truly believe at the end of the day ALL of us will really only miss what we never had, a good and kind mother, grandmother and great-grandmother... There will be no service, no prayers and no closure for the family she spent a lifetime tearing apart. We cannot come together in the end to see to it that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren can say their goodbyes. So I say here for all of us, GOOD BYE, MOM.
Sadly, the obituary above is authentic. (You can look it up on Snopes.com). It has lit up the internet because of its brutal honesty and also because it has struck a chord with thousands who, like the author, were left "completely terrorized."
You have no idea how many moms (and dads too of course - but here I'm just focusing on moms) I'd like to wake up and in whose ears I'd like to shout, "What is the matter with you? Trust God and behave well! Don't you know that some day your children will grow up and evaluate you? And that, if they are worthy, they won't care if you made money, or kept yourself thin, or accomplished much, or had fun, or lived a life of self-fulfillment; but they will care whether you were kind and pure and did good to others?"
When I emailed an old friend about my extraordinary experience in Sunday School, he emailed back, "Your mom is one of my all-time favorite human beings of all time." Outside of God's approval, who could hope for a better evaluation than that? No fortune gathered from all the treasuries in the world could buy it. As Solomon said, "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold." (Proverbs 22:1).
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
September 2, 2008: "What Is Christianity Mainly About?" (Part 3)
Christianity is mainly about glorifying God by believing what is true and doing what is right.
For the past two weeks I have been discussing the core of Christianity, taking as a jumping-off point a comment made by Bill Maher to the effect that religion is bad because "it's not mainly about doing the right thing...it's mainly about getting your butt saved when you die." I believe Maher is wrong on several counts. In the first essay I said that doing the right thing is essential to Christianity - though it is not essential to atheism. In the second essay I said that the prime motive for Christian practice must be the glory of God rather than the salvation of our souls (or of our butts, as Maher more colorfully put it).
Now I would like to put in a word for truth. I am a Christian because I believe that Christianity is true - regardless of whether I am saved, regardless of whether I want it to be true, regardless of whether it helps me be good or hopeful or happy or anything else. I take Christianity as fact, and believe that all statements of fact, simply by virtue of their correspondence to reality, demand assent from all honest men and women. This includes facts that are pleasant and facts that are horrific, those that are completely irrelevant and those that are life-changing. You must believe the truth no matter what it does for you or against you. If I knew beyond doubt that I was eternally damned, it would still be my duty to believe that Jesus was the incarnate Word of God who died for sinners. And - though I admit this would be very hard - it would still be my duty to obey the God who damned me.
C. S. Lewis' "descent" into Christian faith is instructive in this regard. He became a reluctant theist when he found to his dismay that he could not, in good conscience, hold on to atheism any more. He wanted to. Atheism for Lewis was freedom, and theism was a shackle. Who wants to believe in a God who is looking over your shoulder all the time, a God from whom you can never escape and breathe free, a God whom you can't dismiss by saying, "Go over there and tend to your own business, and just leave me alone"? But all of Lewis' wistful hope for God's non-existence could not keep the wrecking ball of Reason from pounding his edifice of atheism to shambles.
Significantly, Lewis was a theist for two years before he came to believe in the afterlife! He was ever afterward grateful to God for bringing him so gradually to the faith. It armed him against the charge (and the internal doubt) that he had become a Christian just to get his butt saved when he died. That was the furthest thing from his mind. He believed in God because God existed, and in Jesus because he was God incarnate. Facts compelled the assent of his mind and the obedience of his will long before the matter of eternal bliss came up.
When we stewards of the gospel proclaim Christ, we must be careful to set before people the reality they must believe and the moral code they must obey. Truth and goodness are not options, spices tossed on to the main dish of salvation. Of course we all want to be saved - assuming we believe in such a thing as salvation and fear such a thing as damnation. There is nothing particularly praiseworthy or even God-pleasing about wanting to be saved. That is just a reasonable (and inescapably selfish) human desire. True Christianity aims at more. True Christianity aims to magnify God, believing in him because he is there and obeying him because he is good.
Christianity is mainly about glorifying God by believing what is true and doing what is right.
For the past two weeks I have been discussing the core of Christianity, taking as a jumping-off point a comment made by Bill Maher to the effect that religion is bad because "it's not mainly about doing the right thing...it's mainly about getting your butt saved when you die." I believe Maher is wrong on several counts. In the first essay I said that doing the right thing is essential to Christianity - though it is not essential to atheism. In the second essay I said that the prime motive for Christian practice must be the glory of God rather than the salvation of our souls (or of our butts, as Maher more colorfully put it).
Now I would like to put in a word for truth. I am a Christian because I believe that Christianity is true - regardless of whether I am saved, regardless of whether I want it to be true, regardless of whether it helps me be good or hopeful or happy or anything else. I take Christianity as fact, and believe that all statements of fact, simply by virtue of their correspondence to reality, demand assent from all honest men and women. This includes facts that are pleasant and facts that are horrific, those that are completely irrelevant and those that are life-changing. You must believe the truth no matter what it does for you or against you. If I knew beyond doubt that I was eternally damned, it would still be my duty to believe that Jesus was the incarnate Word of God who died for sinners. And - though I admit this would be very hard - it would still be my duty to obey the God who damned me.
C. S. Lewis' "descent" into Christian faith is instructive in this regard. He became a reluctant theist when he found to his dismay that he could not, in good conscience, hold on to atheism any more. He wanted to. Atheism for Lewis was freedom, and theism was a shackle. Who wants to believe in a God who is looking over your shoulder all the time, a God from whom you can never escape and breathe free, a God whom you can't dismiss by saying, "Go over there and tend to your own business, and just leave me alone"? But all of Lewis' wistful hope for God's non-existence could not keep the wrecking ball of Reason from pounding his edifice of atheism to shambles.
Significantly, Lewis was a theist for two years before he came to believe in the afterlife! He was ever afterward grateful to God for bringing him so gradually to the faith. It armed him against the charge (and the internal doubt) that he had become a Christian just to get his butt saved when he died. That was the furthest thing from his mind. He believed in God because God existed, and in Jesus because he was God incarnate. Facts compelled the assent of his mind and the obedience of his will long before the matter of eternal bliss came up.
When we stewards of the gospel proclaim Christ, we must be careful to set before people the reality they must believe and the moral code they must obey. Truth and goodness are not options, spices tossed on to the main dish of salvation. Of course we all want to be saved - assuming we believe in such a thing as salvation and fear such a thing as damnation. There is nothing particularly praiseworthy or even God-pleasing about wanting to be saved. That is just a reasonable (and inescapably selfish) human desire. True Christianity aims at more. True Christianity aims to magnify God, believing in him because he is there and obeying him because he is good.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
August 27, 2008: "What Is Christianity Mainly About?" (Part 2)
Bill Maher complained recently that religion (by which he meant Christianity) is "not mainly about doing the right thing or being ethical. It's mainly about salvation. It's mainly about getting your butt saved when you die."
I think I can understand why Maher would say that. He's probably heard some bad sermons over the years. I've heard them too. Ever since I was a boy I've heard invitations to receive Christ that were really only about getting into heaven and staying out of hell - and some of those were so egregiously self-centered that they deliberately gutted the gospel of any call to repent and serve God. Jesus was presented as our ticket to heaven rather than the Lord who must be worshiped and obeyed. He was that "Thing You Had To Believe In" in order to get to the unending fun you really cared about. "You want to go to heaven? Say this prayer!"
The problem of crass Christian exhortation is an old one. When Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto begged the citizens of Geneva to return to Catholicism in 1539, he made a point of appealing to their desire to go to heaven. He wrote: "I presume, dearest brethren, that...all... who have put their faith and hope in Christ...have done so for this one reason: that they may obtain salvation for themselves and their souls."
Was that really the only reason to believe in Christ - to obtain salvation for oneself and one's soul? Not for Christ's own sake, nor for his pleasure, nor even because he commanded it - but simply to get saved? I'm afraid Sadoleto thought so. He even taught that personal salvation was the greatest thing a person could desire: "We all...believe in Christ in order that we may find salvation for our souls. There can be nothing more earnestly to be desired than this."
Sadoleto's letter was brought to John Calvin, who quickly wrote a response that merits careful study on the part of all those who proclaim the gospel. Attacking Sadoleto's notion that the best thing a man could desire was salvation, Calvin wrote: "It is not very sound theology to confine a man's thoughts so much to himself." Exactly. Instead, Calvin continued, we must "set before him, as the prime motive of his existence, zeal to illustrate the glory of God." That is and must always be the Christian's main motivation: to glorify God. The zeal to exalt God must overrule the natural - but purely selfish - zeal to save our souls. Or, as Calvin put it, "This zeal [for God's glory] ought to exceed all thought and care for our own good and advantage."
Calvin even warned that good people would find tasteless and boring a constant stream of sermons about getting into heaven. The following quote is worth reading twice: "It certainly is the part of a Christian man to ascend higher than merely to seek and secure the salvation of his own soul. I am persuaded, therefore, that there is no man imbued with a true piety, who will not consider as insipid that long and labored exhortation to zeal for heavenly life, a zeal which keeps a man entirely devoted to himself, and does not, even by one expression, arouse him to sanctify the name of God."
I don't know if it will do Bill Maher any good, but I hope that some day he gets to hear some solid evangelical preaching that seeks above all else to magnify God. Glorifying God is what our faith is mainly about. Yes, there is that matter of getting our butts saved when we die - but that is just icing on the cake.
Bill Maher complained recently that religion (by which he meant Christianity) is "not mainly about doing the right thing or being ethical. It's mainly about salvation. It's mainly about getting your butt saved when you die."
I think I can understand why Maher would say that. He's probably heard some bad sermons over the years. I've heard them too. Ever since I was a boy I've heard invitations to receive Christ that were really only about getting into heaven and staying out of hell - and some of those were so egregiously self-centered that they deliberately gutted the gospel of any call to repent and serve God. Jesus was presented as our ticket to heaven rather than the Lord who must be worshiped and obeyed. He was that "Thing You Had To Believe In" in order to get to the unending fun you really cared about. "You want to go to heaven? Say this prayer!"
The problem of crass Christian exhortation is an old one. When Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto begged the citizens of Geneva to return to Catholicism in 1539, he made a point of appealing to their desire to go to heaven. He wrote: "I presume, dearest brethren, that...all... who have put their faith and hope in Christ...have done so for this one reason: that they may obtain salvation for themselves and their souls."
Was that really the only reason to believe in Christ - to obtain salvation for oneself and one's soul? Not for Christ's own sake, nor for his pleasure, nor even because he commanded it - but simply to get saved? I'm afraid Sadoleto thought so. He even taught that personal salvation was the greatest thing a person could desire: "We all...believe in Christ in order that we may find salvation for our souls. There can be nothing more earnestly to be desired than this."
Sadoleto's letter was brought to John Calvin, who quickly wrote a response that merits careful study on the part of all those who proclaim the gospel. Attacking Sadoleto's notion that the best thing a man could desire was salvation, Calvin wrote: "It is not very sound theology to confine a man's thoughts so much to himself." Exactly. Instead, Calvin continued, we must "set before him, as the prime motive of his existence, zeal to illustrate the glory of God." That is and must always be the Christian's main motivation: to glorify God. The zeal to exalt God must overrule the natural - but purely selfish - zeal to save our souls. Or, as Calvin put it, "This zeal [for God's glory] ought to exceed all thought and care for our own good and advantage."
Calvin even warned that good people would find tasteless and boring a constant stream of sermons about getting into heaven. The following quote is worth reading twice: "It certainly is the part of a Christian man to ascend higher than merely to seek and secure the salvation of his own soul. I am persuaded, therefore, that there is no man imbued with a true piety, who will not consider as insipid that long and labored exhortation to zeal for heavenly life, a zeal which keeps a man entirely devoted to himself, and does not, even by one expression, arouse him to sanctify the name of God."
I don't know if it will do Bill Maher any good, but I hope that some day he gets to hear some solid evangelical preaching that seeks above all else to magnify God. Glorifying God is what our faith is mainly about. Yes, there is that matter of getting our butts saved when we die - but that is just icing on the cake.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
August 20, 2008: "What Is Christianity Mainly About?" (Part 1)
Last night on “Larry King Live” atheist Bill Maher voiced a complaint against Christianity. He said, "One thing I don't like about religion is that - ask any of the truly devout - it's not mainly about doing the right thing or being ethical. It's mainly about salvation. It's mainly about getting your butt saved when you die."
I suppose by Maher's standards I qualify as one of those "truly devout", but I do not answer, "This is mainly about getting our butts saved when we die" when asked what is central to the Christian faith. What, would I say, is our faith mainly about?
It is mainly about glorifying God. Ethical behavior, doing the right thing, is certainly one aspect of that. How can you glorify God if you displease him? Christians believe that God has commanded us to be pleasant and kind and gracious and honest and noble and generous, and not do things like cheat, lie, kill, steal, extort or insult. Moral goodness is bound up in Christian doctrine, and can't be bled or cut out of it. Ethics-less Christianity is no Christianity at all - it is a bloodless, boneless corpse.
Atheism, however, survives quite well without ethics. In fact, I have never been able to understand how atheism can build a theory of moral behavior that actually succeeds in urging anybody to do good. I am glad that Bill Maher wants to "do the right thing", and I hope he continues to want to do the right thing and does not think too hard about it. Because if he does think about it, he'll see (ask any atheist!) that morality reduces to social custom, which reduces to urges dictated by the competing claims of evolutionary biology, which reduces to chemical reactions in our brains and in our environment, which reduces to electrons jumping from the orbital of one atom to another under the precise laws of physics and the imprecise randomness of quantum mechanics, which reduces to, well, that's pretty much all there is! That is where the chain of moral reasoning stops. What then is to keep the atheist from torturing Guantanamo detainees or falsifying evidence to convict innocent men if, when he asks why he shouldn't, all he's got to answer to (or even formulate an answer with!) are atoms in his brain knocking about like ping pong balls in a lottery glass cage? For the Christian, though, at the end of every chain of moral reasoning (which in some contexts we might call "temptation"), there is a holy God wagging his finger and saying, "You must not do that bad thing."
Doing the right thing is packed hard into Christianity and distributed through every feature of it like crude oil in Canadian shale. Dig into atheism, however, and keep digging hard and deep, and you will bore a hole right through the center and come out the other side without ever having encountered a single thing to fuel good works with. I'm not saying atheists can't find reasons for doing good - I'm just saying they can't find them in atheism. Good atheists (I've known several) will then shrug their philosophical shoulders and say, "Well, I don't know why, but we should do good anyways." Bad atheists (though they are not logically inconsistent) will say, "Nietzsche was right," and, given power, will become our Stalins and Mussolinis and Pol Pots and Kim Jong Ils. Millions die as a result. How can you appeal to the conscience of someone who knows in his heart that conscience is an illusion - the mere froth of an evolutionary heritage that strong people can sweep away with a wave of their hand?
I think there is a reason why, when you go around the world and look for those who are rebuilding schools in New Orleans, rescuing AIDS orphans in Kenya, helping lepers in India, rebuilding the shattered lives of rape victims in the Congo - what you find are Christians, Christians, and more Christians, and virtually nobody representing the atheist and freethinker societies. It is not just because Christians outnumber atheists - though certainly that is a factor. It is because our religion commands us to do good no matter what.
More next week, Lord willing, on what our religion is mainly about.
Last night on “Larry King Live” atheist Bill Maher voiced a complaint against Christianity. He said, "One thing I don't like about religion is that - ask any of the truly devout - it's not mainly about doing the right thing or being ethical. It's mainly about salvation. It's mainly about getting your butt saved when you die."
I suppose by Maher's standards I qualify as one of those "truly devout", but I do not answer, "This is mainly about getting our butts saved when we die" when asked what is central to the Christian faith. What, would I say, is our faith mainly about?
It is mainly about glorifying God. Ethical behavior, doing the right thing, is certainly one aspect of that. How can you glorify God if you displease him? Christians believe that God has commanded us to be pleasant and kind and gracious and honest and noble and generous, and not do things like cheat, lie, kill, steal, extort or insult. Moral goodness is bound up in Christian doctrine, and can't be bled or cut out of it. Ethics-less Christianity is no Christianity at all - it is a bloodless, boneless corpse.
Atheism, however, survives quite well without ethics. In fact, I have never been able to understand how atheism can build a theory of moral behavior that actually succeeds in urging anybody to do good. I am glad that Bill Maher wants to "do the right thing", and I hope he continues to want to do the right thing and does not think too hard about it. Because if he does think about it, he'll see (ask any atheist!) that morality reduces to social custom, which reduces to urges dictated by the competing claims of evolutionary biology, which reduces to chemical reactions in our brains and in our environment, which reduces to electrons jumping from the orbital of one atom to another under the precise laws of physics and the imprecise randomness of quantum mechanics, which reduces to, well, that's pretty much all there is! That is where the chain of moral reasoning stops. What then is to keep the atheist from torturing Guantanamo detainees or falsifying evidence to convict innocent men if, when he asks why he shouldn't, all he's got to answer to (or even formulate an answer with!) are atoms in his brain knocking about like ping pong balls in a lottery glass cage? For the Christian, though, at the end of every chain of moral reasoning (which in some contexts we might call "temptation"), there is a holy God wagging his finger and saying, "You must not do that bad thing."
Doing the right thing is packed hard into Christianity and distributed through every feature of it like crude oil in Canadian shale. Dig into atheism, however, and keep digging hard and deep, and you will bore a hole right through the center and come out the other side without ever having encountered a single thing to fuel good works with. I'm not saying atheists can't find reasons for doing good - I'm just saying they can't find them in atheism. Good atheists (I've known several) will then shrug their philosophical shoulders and say, "Well, I don't know why, but we should do good anyways." Bad atheists (though they are not logically inconsistent) will say, "Nietzsche was right," and, given power, will become our Stalins and Mussolinis and Pol Pots and Kim Jong Ils. Millions die as a result. How can you appeal to the conscience of someone who knows in his heart that conscience is an illusion - the mere froth of an evolutionary heritage that strong people can sweep away with a wave of their hand?
I think there is a reason why, when you go around the world and look for those who are rebuilding schools in New Orleans, rescuing AIDS orphans in Kenya, helping lepers in India, rebuilding the shattered lives of rape victims in the Congo - what you find are Christians, Christians, and more Christians, and virtually nobody representing the atheist and freethinker societies. It is not just because Christians outnumber atheists - though certainly that is a factor. It is because our religion commands us to do good no matter what.
More next week, Lord willing, on what our religion is mainly about.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
August 12, 2008: How To Fight Poverty
In a cover story this week on Pastor Rick Warren, Time Magazine reports that the influential pastor of Saddleback Church is "leading and riding the newest wave of change in the Evangelical community: an expansion beyond social conservatism to causes such as battling poverty, opposing torture and combating global warming."
I'll leave aside torture and global warming for another day, but as for battling poverty - is this a new cause for evangelicals? In the past all we cared about was social conservatism, but now thanks to Warren and others we have awakened to the campaign of ending global poverty?
Among the things I find frustrating about this "new evangelical emphasis" is its blindness to the fact that conservative Christians have always been the best poverty fighters the world has ever known. We own this topic. We've known how to prevent and stay out of penniless misery for thousands of years. All the principles are jam-packed into the pages of the Bible, and they are on display every time we open it up and proclaim its message. There is nothing new about how to fight poverty. Here in a nutshell is how not to be poor:
1) Work hard. (This includes studying hard to learn a skill – work hard at being educated).
The Bible says that "Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth" (Proverbs 4:10). You'll never end the poverty of those who refuse to learn, who drop out of school, who depend on the goodwill and productivity of others for their food. "If a man will not work, neither let him eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10).
2) Don't have sex with anyone you're not married to.
The Bible's laws against adultery, fornication and all other sexual misconduct (Hebrews 13:5: "Let the marriage bed be undefiled") are great anti-poverty measures. Poverty results from the kind of immorality that produces fatherless children, sexually transmitted diseases, broken homes, etc. The other day I read an article about a region in Africa where the majority of children are raped. That is what their culture permits and expects. As long as this inhumanly cruel perverse sexual behavior continues, this region will always be poor - no matter how many billions of dollars of aid are given to it, and no matter how often its debts are forgiven.
3) Don't have vices.
Let me personalize this one. The other day I shocked a man by telling him I'd never had a beer. It's true. Completely aside from any moral implications, do you have any idea how much money I've saved over the years by never buying alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, porn, or lottery tickets? A lot. This is one of the factors that helps explain the minor miracle of how I have been able, in the past few years, to raise two sons in the suburbs while taking home a preacher's salary of $543 a week. But for all those people who waste money on things that ordinary evangelical preaching warns against, well, it doesn't surprise me if they wind up poorer than I am.
If you have a life that obeys the principles above, and a society and environment that respects them, then in all likelihood you won't be poor. Of course there are exceptions. You might be poor anyways because of disease, handicap, natural disaster, oppression, or really bad luck. That's why we have charity, and must always act charitably toward the worthy poor. (Yes, the worthy poor - 1 Timothy 5:9-10 forbids helping widows who had been lazy or promiscuous; they had to have done good deeds.) I've been the thankful recipient of charity many times myself, and am all in favor of it.
We who take the Bible seriously have always known how to fight poverty in ourselves and others, and that fight has always involved an uncompromising message to act morally, work diligently and give compassionately. What then, is "new" about Warren's battle against poverty?
Nothing, really, except for the call upon governments to take action. This is why Warren is convening a forum with Barak Obama and John McCain in Orange County, California. This is why Mike Huckabee and James Meeks left their pulpits and their callings to proclaim Christ so that now they could really make a difference(!) by pushing for political solutions to public problems. This is why a number of evangelical leaders, including Warren, John Stott and Billy Graham signed an open letter to President Bush asking him to undertake the cause of the poor in global concerns.
It is a big mistake. Every government campaign to end poverty has only created more of it in the long run. Lyndon Johnson's well-intentioned programs created cycles of dependency that made and kept people poor. The same Time Magazine issue that features Warren has a stunningly honest article on Africa, "Pain amid Plenty", that outlines how the billions of dollars of charitable aid to Africa over the years has had the unintended effect of fostering perpetual starvation.
I can't understand why Christian clergymen are taking the cause for fighting poverty to governments when political institutions have been so bad at it and we have been so good at it! This isn't government's job. Governments are there to preserve order, protect the citizenry, punish evildoers and reward good behavior. Ask them to do more than that, or worse, give them the power to try to create the poverty-less utopias we like to dream of, and they will find ways to make people starve.
In a cover story this week on Pastor Rick Warren, Time Magazine reports that the influential pastor of Saddleback Church is "leading and riding the newest wave of change in the Evangelical community: an expansion beyond social conservatism to causes such as battling poverty, opposing torture and combating global warming."
I'll leave aside torture and global warming for another day, but as for battling poverty - is this a new cause for evangelicals? In the past all we cared about was social conservatism, but now thanks to Warren and others we have awakened to the campaign of ending global poverty?
Among the things I find frustrating about this "new evangelical emphasis" is its blindness to the fact that conservative Christians have always been the best poverty fighters the world has ever known. We own this topic. We've known how to prevent and stay out of penniless misery for thousands of years. All the principles are jam-packed into the pages of the Bible, and they are on display every time we open it up and proclaim its message. There is nothing new about how to fight poverty. Here in a nutshell is how not to be poor:
1) Work hard. (This includes studying hard to learn a skill – work hard at being educated).
The Bible says that "Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth" (Proverbs 4:10). You'll never end the poverty of those who refuse to learn, who drop out of school, who depend on the goodwill and productivity of others for their food. "If a man will not work, neither let him eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10).
2) Don't have sex with anyone you're not married to.
The Bible's laws against adultery, fornication and all other sexual misconduct (Hebrews 13:5: "Let the marriage bed be undefiled") are great anti-poverty measures. Poverty results from the kind of immorality that produces fatherless children, sexually transmitted diseases, broken homes, etc. The other day I read an article about a region in Africa where the majority of children are raped. That is what their culture permits and expects. As long as this inhumanly cruel perverse sexual behavior continues, this region will always be poor - no matter how many billions of dollars of aid are given to it, and no matter how often its debts are forgiven.
3) Don't have vices.
Let me personalize this one. The other day I shocked a man by telling him I'd never had a beer. It's true. Completely aside from any moral implications, do you have any idea how much money I've saved over the years by never buying alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, porn, or lottery tickets? A lot. This is one of the factors that helps explain the minor miracle of how I have been able, in the past few years, to raise two sons in the suburbs while taking home a preacher's salary of $543 a week. But for all those people who waste money on things that ordinary evangelical preaching warns against, well, it doesn't surprise me if they wind up poorer than I am.
If you have a life that obeys the principles above, and a society and environment that respects them, then in all likelihood you won't be poor. Of course there are exceptions. You might be poor anyways because of disease, handicap, natural disaster, oppression, or really bad luck. That's why we have charity, and must always act charitably toward the worthy poor. (Yes, the worthy poor - 1 Timothy 5:9-10 forbids helping widows who had been lazy or promiscuous; they had to have done good deeds.) I've been the thankful recipient of charity many times myself, and am all in favor of it.
We who take the Bible seriously have always known how to fight poverty in ourselves and others, and that fight has always involved an uncompromising message to act morally, work diligently and give compassionately. What then, is "new" about Warren's battle against poverty?
Nothing, really, except for the call upon governments to take action. This is why Warren is convening a forum with Barak Obama and John McCain in Orange County, California. This is why Mike Huckabee and James Meeks left their pulpits and their callings to proclaim Christ so that now they could really make a difference(!) by pushing for political solutions to public problems. This is why a number of evangelical leaders, including Warren, John Stott and Billy Graham signed an open letter to President Bush asking him to undertake the cause of the poor in global concerns.
It is a big mistake. Every government campaign to end poverty has only created more of it in the long run. Lyndon Johnson's well-intentioned programs created cycles of dependency that made and kept people poor. The same Time Magazine issue that features Warren has a stunningly honest article on Africa, "Pain amid Plenty", that outlines how the billions of dollars of charitable aid to Africa over the years has had the unintended effect of fostering perpetual starvation.
I can't understand why Christian clergymen are taking the cause for fighting poverty to governments when political institutions have been so bad at it and we have been so good at it! This isn't government's job. Governments are there to preserve order, protect the citizenry, punish evildoers and reward good behavior. Ask them to do more than that, or worse, give them the power to try to create the poverty-less utopias we like to dream of, and they will find ways to make people starve.
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