Confessing Quickly Or Ratcheting Up Your Crime (March 14, 2004)

I think Martha Stewart deserves to go to jail, but not because she was guilty of making use of inside information. That was bad, of course, but I can understand it if a person got a call from a broker saying “Dump this stock - it is going to tank” and in a moment of unguarded, unpremeditated weakness the client said, "Thanks! Sell!" That is illegal, of course, and worthy of a fine, but it is not the same as plotting fraud or clubbing someone over the head to steal his wallet. A slap on the financial wrist and a term of community service would suit the white-collar crime.

But Stewart deserves prison time because of the way she chose to escalate matters when she got caught. Rather than admitting guilt, she stonewalled. She lied, obstructed justice, lied, falsified documents, lied, covered up, lied, sought out fellow conspirators, and lied. At this point it would be a miscarriage of justice to let such relentless contempt for the law evade the iron bars of confinement.

More misery is wrought by moral misfits feigning innocence than this world dreams of. If you are caught doing wrong, admit it - just admit it, take your penalty, repent and go on. That is what President Clinton should have done six years ago when he was busy expressing outrage that anyone should accuse him of marital infidelity. Rather than coming clean, he chose to drag the nation through an embarrassing and expensive investigation that we all had to endure and fund. Shameful.

When I worked with at-risk middle school students I frequently had to contend with delinquents who had mastered the art of contemptuous escalation. Brian, for example, would crumple up a piece of paper and throw it on the floor. I would say calmly, "Brian, you need to put that in the wastepaper basket." Brian would pretend not to hear, so I would repeat. Brian would say, "I didn't put that there!" I would say, "Even so, Brian, I would like you to put it in the trash." "I ain't no janitor!" he'd shout, and things would proceed like that until he got suspended. In his view, he got suspended for a picky little thing like throwing a piece of paper on the floor (when nobody was supposed to have seen him do that anyway). But in reality he was suspended for the tantrum and the shouting and the insubordination that followed. Things could have been so simple, so easy, if he had just thrown out the piece of paper in the first place.

As I read through the books of 1st and 2nd Samuel with my boys it impresses me that, though David sinned a lot, he responded quickly to rebuke and took full responsibility for his actions. He promptly admitted that his lies triggered the slaughter of the priests of Nob (1 Samuel 22:22). He acknowledged that he was the villain of Nathan's parable (2 Samuel 12:13). He allowed Joab to slap some sense into him (2 Samuel 19:5-8). You do not see David saying, "Who? Me? I didn’t do anything. I did not have sex with that woman, Mrs. Bathsheba."

Denial escalates mistakes to misdemeanors, misdemeanors to crimes, and crimes to atrocities. Confess your sin quickly and honestly. It is the right thing to do, and it might save you a lot of trouble in the long run.

Unfit For Public Service (March 7, 2004)

It's an election year, and, once again, no candidate who supports abortion will get my vote. Is that narrow-minded of me? After all, there are lots of other issues that are important to me as a Christian and as a citizen. Is it responsible mindlessly to punch the ballot of whatever candidate happens to be pro-life?

No, it isn't, but that is not what I’m doing. I'm not voting for somebody simply because he or she is pro-life. My commitment is strictly negative: I won't vote for anyone who isn't pro-life. That is because anyone who could protect innocent life from those who would destroy it - but refuses to do so - is unfit for public office. He or she is too morally degraded to be allowed to serve the public trust.

Look at it this way. Suppose you knew a candidate with whom you agreed on all major issues - education, national security, economic policy, etc. But this candidate also supports laws that guarantee the right of Nazis to gas Jews. (He wouldn't send a Jew to the cyanide showers himself, you understand - he just feels that people should have the right to choose what to do about the sensitive issue of Jew-slaughter. It is not a matter for government interference, he says. It is something to be decided in private consultation between an anti-Semite and her Doctor Mengele.)

PLEASE tell me you wouldn't vote for this candidate, no matter how much you liked his stands on other issues. Certain outrages ought to disqualify a person from office. John Piper, in an article entitled "Single Issue Politics," put it this way:

No endorsement of any single issue qualifies a person to hold a public office. Being pro-life does not make a person a good governor, mayor, or president. But there are numerous single issues that disqualify a person from public office. For example, any candidate who endorsed bribery as a form of government efficiency would be disqualified, no matter what his party or platform was. Or a person who endorsed corporate fraud...would be disqualified no matter what else he endorsed. Or a person who said that no black people should hold office - on that single issue alone he would be unfit for office. Or a person who said that rape is only a misdemeanor - that single issue would end his political career.

Christians fight an uphill battle to end the political careers of abortion advocates. I can't say I am optimistic about a major upheaval in public attitude that will result in abortion being abolished from the land. But why despair? 300 years ago a man could hold public office even though he had supervised the torture and burning of suspected witches. He could not be elected today. 150 years ago an individual could run for office on a pro-slavery platform. Not today. 40 years ago a governor could advocate "Whites Only" drinking fountains and not be impeached. No longer. Who is to say that in 50 years those who now tolerate ripping baby bodies to bits will not be viewed with the same horror?

Things can change for the good in a democracy, but only if those who know what is right speak up and promote justice and vote accordingly. Do not give your vote to anyone who seeks to maintain our shameful status quo of large-scale infanticide. Such individuals do not deserve to govern, and to vote for any of them is a serious dereliction of Christian duty.

Know Whom You Worship (February 29, 2004)

Bear with me a few moments in the following thought experiment.

Suppose we ask a man if he is a Christian and he says, “Absolutely. I believe in Jesus Christ. He is my Savior and Lord. He died for my sins. He lives in my heart, and helps me to do right. I will see him in heaven."

Certainly this man is an orthodox Christian - at least as far as his verbal profession would indicate. But suppose now we say to him, "Tell me something about Jesus. When did he live?"

"About 150 years ago."

Well, that's off by more than 1800 years, but it is not an essential point - some people are fuzzy about dates.

"How did he die?"

"Bullet to the head."

Well, that is really odd - we know that Jesus was crucified.

"What can you tell me about his life?"

"He was a man who preserved our nation through its most troubling years during the Civil War as our 16th president."

Ah - now we see the problem. This man is actually describing Abraham Lincoln, but has assigned to him the name "Jesus Christ" and has given him religious significance by saying he "died for my sins" and "lives in my heart." Can we still call this man a Christian? No - but not because he rejects or refuses to believe in Jesus. He does believe in Jesus - he told us so himself. The reason he is not a Christian is because practically all his facts about Jesus are wrong. He may call himself Christian, but the content of his belief indicates that he’s really a “Lincolnian.”

My point is simply that it is important for all of us who call ourselves Christians to get our facts right about Jesus. If we let falsehoods creep into our understanding of him, then there will come a point of critical mass when we are no longer loving and worshiping Christ but rather some perversely distorted mental image of him. Rigorous Bible study and careful theological reasoning accompanied by prayer and the Holy Spirit’s direction will help us form right thoughts about Christ so that we can worship him as he is and not as we (perhaps falsely) imagine him to be.

That goes for God the Father and God the Holy Spirit as well. If we believe wrong things about God we will be idolaters worshipping a false deity. This thought occurs to me when I hear of people turning away from God in anger when they do not get a “yes” answer to their prayers. I think, “What kind of God were they praying to in the first place? Were they praying to the sovereign and holy Lord of all creation, or to some glorified genie in a bottle?” The “god” that some people address in their prayers bears no more resemblance to the real God than Abraham Lincoln does to Jesus Christ!

Here is another example. Some years ago I received news of an adulterer who claimed that he was doing God’s will by divorcing his faithful wife. I wrote the beast saying that, despite his claims, he was not a Christian. I said, "Whatever 'faith' you have is worthless, because you place it in a God who condones your plans to dismiss your wife, and that God does not exist. The one true God, the one I worship and fear, pledges to damn unrepentant, vow-breaking lying adulterers like yourself.”

The God who exists is the one whom we know through Scripture, and there is no other God. The Jesus who is our Savior is the one whose life and teachings are recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Knowing and learning the sacred texts and thinking rightly about them is no mere academic exercise. It is a holy thing to do. Through the Bible we know God, the real God, and thus protect ourselves from blurred, false, misleading and even idolatrous images of him.

Real Seekers Long For God (February 22, 2004)

I received a flier the other day from a church that is putting on a production of "Arsenic and Old Lace," a classic comedy about two old lady serial killers. Cary Grant and Peter Lawford starred in the movie version - you'll find it in the classics section of video stores.

I read the flier carefully to see if there was anything about the Lord, or the Bible, or just anything remotely connected to our faith. There wasn't. I did see that the church's drama ministry is “known state-wide” and that the church's senior minister (director of the play) "has been hailed as having the ability to charm everyone he meets and bring out the best in them all." Also, this "highly-respected drama ensemble will present a wonderful comedy filled with mystery and joy. It is an event not to be missed!"

I called the number listed for more information and asked, "Does the play have anything to do with God or Jesus?" I was told no, it was just a play.

I'll be blunt. This strategy of "Let's do something fun to attract seekers!" is a reason why we're losing real seekers to false religions. People who long to connect with God, or who mourn their sin, or who despair over life's trivialities, or who desire to grasp the eternal, are utterly turned off by skits and chuckles and vaudevillian banter. When they see that we are trying to bait them to God with frivolity, and that we seem embarrassed about holy things, then it should not surprise us when they run to religions like Buddhism for spirituality or Islam for discipline. I'm beginning to fear that the public face of Christianity in "seeker-sensitive" churches looks an awful lot like an invitation to be shallow.

Listen to the world. In an episode of The Simpsons, Lisa converted to Buddhism not because she had anything against Jesus but because her family's church had become disgustingly commercial - a mirror of profane culture rather than a refuge from it. Even unbelievers, if they are spiritually sensitive, can discern a church's spiritual descent. A non-Christian friend of my son reacted to a Starbucks-clone coffee shop in a church she visited by saying, "That isn't right." She was correct, and Christians who know the story of Jesus evicting moneychangers from the temple should know better than to accommodate "seekers" by turning their church into a mall.

We gather at church to worship God. That is not to say we can't do other things there too - share a meal, have some fellowship, delight in one another's company. But let it be clear to any visitor, to any seeker, that if he comes to our assembly what he will find mainly is people composing their hearts to worship God and receive grace to be conformed to the image of Christ. We are not ashamed of that. We put it right out there in front, and take care to let nothing distract us from that holy purpose.

Can You Capture The Holy On Film? (February 15, 2004)

I have been thinking long and hard about whether to see Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. I have some misgivings.

The first time I watched a video of Robert Duvall's The Apostle, I had to turn it off and walk away. Not because I objected to the content, but because the line between reality and cinematic representation was blurry, leaving me with a kind of spiritual vertigo. What I mean is, while the film had authentic “Holy Roller” preaching and prayers and invitations to follow Christ, I knew that behind the camera there was a director saying things like "Action," and "Cut," and "Let's have Billy receive Christ again, more tears this time, and we need to adjust the lighting." It struck me as a trespass over the guardrail that shields a holy place from all that is unreal. We may enter a holy place, of course, but only with reverence and fear. All drama and pretense must be left behind.

I feel that the more sacred a thing is, the more it should be left alone, not subjected to the profaning influence of drama. Please understand that I have no problem with Bible skits and plays per se, especially for kids. I've even written a few myself. But even there I observe certain limits. A fellow missionary and Christian puppeteer once said to me, "There are two things I never have a puppet do. One is pray, and the other is receive Christ." I knew exactly what he meant, and was glad for his sensitivity to the sacred. Prayer is real - it is how we connect to the Almighty, and to have a puppet mimic communion with God is wrong. Nor can I see how it honors Christ to invite him into the heart of a soulless, cardboard dummy. I think that is kind of like Uzzah touching the ark of the covenant in 2 Samuel 6: well-intentioned, but a violation of the holy.

Is it a violation of the holy to have an actor portray Christ in his suffering? I wish I could say for sure, but I just know that something in me recoils with discomfort when I see it. Nothing is more real to me, more meaningful to me, than the death of Jesus on behalf of my sins. Can a movie represent that? Can a movie help you appreciate it more?

What comes to mind in this regard is the single most transcendent moment in my life - witnessing the birth of my firstborn, Benjamin. That was a unique event, never to be repeated but always to be treasured. It mystifies me to hear reports of men carrying camcorders to their wives' bedsides in order to film them giving birth. Are they NUTS? How can they film that? How can they put a camera between themselves and the birth of their child? Don't they understand anything about majesty and transcendence, let alone seemliness?

We are all wired differently, and I must keep that in mind as I try to define the border between guarding the holy and squawking my personal preferences. I'm the sort who loves to visit national parks but never takes a camera, knowing that taking pictures will only distract me and looking at them afterward will only disappoint me. All I want to do is bathe in the experience of nature first-hand and then leave it at that.

I pray that The Passion of the Christ will stir hearts and provoke worship and lead souls to Jesus. I do not doubt that it will benefit some. But as for me, I think I’ll pass.

Strengthen The Priest! (February 8, 2004)

Recently I’ve been blessed more by listening to the Catholic radio station, AM 820, than the evangelical one, FM 90.1 (WMBI). My theology of course lines up mostly with WMBI, and I remain convinced as ever that the Catholic Church must repent of the errors that Martin Luther pointed out hundreds of years ago. But at least the Catholics know how to do Christian radio, and I wish that WMBI would be that deep and reverent and respectful of the listener. You have no idea how frustrated I get listening to evangelical Christian radio show hosts trade inept banter and joke about trivialities. (Though maybe the Catholic radio does that too, and I just haven't heard it.)

Sunday morning on the way to church I listened to ex-baseball commissioner (and devout Catholic) Bowie Kuhn share nuggets of wisdom at what appeared to be a Catholic version of a "Promise Keepers" meeting. Among the pieces of advice he himself had received and acted upon was a comment made to him by a bishop who said, "When you go to Mass in whatever city you’re visiting, don't sit in the back pew any more. Sit in the front."

"Why?" Kuhn asked.

"To strengthen the priest!"

(I love that word "strengthen". We evangelicals would say "encourage", but "strengthen" is better.)

The bishop explained that the priests would know who Kuhn was, and it would help them to see a public figure setting an example of interest and respect for the rest of the parishioners. In his own mind, Kuhn saw himself as nothing special, and he had no idea that where he sat would make a difference to anybody. But challenged to view things from a perspective outside his own, away from the pew and up on the chancel where there stood a possibly discouraged priest, it made sense that, by sitting up front, he could render a small kindness to the man of God. From then on, at every new church he visited, he sat up front.

A commitment to moral behavior involves sending your mind outside its selfish confines in order to view yourself from the perspective of another. I am thankful Kuhn was able to "see himself" from the chancel and perceive the effect, and act upon it. Many times I have had the "weakening" experience in the pulpit of watching church leaders giggle to themselves over private jokes as the sermon began, or watching them go out in the middle of the sermon to get a cup of tea. It is hard to feel the Holy Spirit's power when preaching to inattention and irreverence.

But with a congregation of Bowie Kuhns, the preacher will feel stronger and the parishioners will receive a greater blessing.

Why I Am A Theist (February 1, 2004)

A friend of my son Ben is an atheist, something I have never been tempted to be. But talking with him has led me to ponder anew and re-articulate the reasons why I have long felt atheism to be untenable. That is, even if I weren't a Christian, even if God had never called me nor placed faith within me, I think that rational considerations alone would force me to acknowledge - willingly or not - a spiritual reality beyond the physical.

Suppose that there is no God. Presumably then, matter/energy would be all that exists. Which would mean that we ourselves are simply complex configurations of atoms that bounce off each other in a Brownian cacophony of random collisions that produce the illusion of order. While atheists (I think necessarily) acknowledge this fact, I wonder how deeply they have thought through the implications of it. Let me draw out one.

Atoms interact by trading and sharing electrons. That is pretty much all there is to chemistry - electrons moving from one orbital to another. It is fair to say that these electrons have no will of their own - they are subject, en masse, to forces that make them jump in certain ways. Though you never know what one electron will do, if (for example) you bombard enough of them with enough photons under certain conditions, they will necessarily carry out their part in a process like photosynthesis. They can't help it. They are subject to forces and laws.

If atheism is true, then every thought you ever had, every pain you ever felt, every injustice you ever denounced and every affection that ever tugged at your heart have involved nothing more than a large set of electrons jumping orbitals under circumstances precisely governed by the laws of physics. That includes your reaction to these words as you read them. You may think you are evaluating an argument, agreeing or disagreeing, looking for flaws, drawing inferences - but all that is really happening is that chemicals in my brain have sloshed together and fired neural messages to my fingertips to type these words, which in turn bounced and blocked a set of photons which reached (or significantly failed to reach) the chemicals behind your eyeballs which then wired messages to your brain cells for interpretation and response. But "interpretation-and-response," if you are an atheist, is simply a matter of chemicals responding to chemicals. There is no intellectual will, no "But on the other hand I think," no rational agreement or disagreement of any sort whatsoever. I write what I must write and you respond as you must respond because we are under the absolute tyranny of the chemical reactions that define us.

What we perceive to be rational thoughts and choices are, in a purely material universe, a grand collection of physio-chemical farces. Under atheism, all our choices are made for us, and all our thinking is done for us, by electrons acting with the same kind of regularity that makes sodium bicarbonate bubble up when you pour vinegar on it. Our brains' chemical reactions may be more complex than our sandbox volcano projects, but they are no less determined.

I am not saying that, since we would find it abhorrent to regard rationality as an illusion that froths up from a chemical bath in our brain cells, then it just cannot be so. Many abhorrent things are so. What I am saying is that rationality is a fact whether we like it or not. We do reason, and choose, and make judgments both rational and moral. If these inferences and judgments are necessarily the products of physical interactions (at the subatomic or any other level), then there is nothing true or false, or right or wrong, about any of them. While we reason with one another intellectually and admonish one another morally, these attempts to persuade and cajole have nothing (in atheism) to stand on. Try as you might, you can derive no "ought" (as in "You ought to believe this because it is true", or "You ought
not do this because it is wrong") from mere chemicals, no matter how complex, responding to stimuli, no matter how varied.

Then again, if God exists, then both true rationality and true morality are possible, because he provides a ground of reality which allows us to be more than chemicals in motion. The existence of a Reality beyond the physical means that our thoughts can be valid, our actions can be good, our choices can be governed by spirit, our outrages can have moral sanction, and our affections can embrace non-illusionary delights. The world as we perceive it is real, and our actions and thoughts within it are not simply non-rational products of the whole, but responses and initiatives that are genuinely true or false, good or bad, right or wrong.