July 22, 2008: The Trouble With Adoration
A pastor friend told me that he was teaching his congregation to pray according to the ACTS formula (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication), and that he was having trouble with the "A". He couldn't get them to pray prayers of adoration.
I think there is a reason for that which has nothing to do with lukewarmness or immaturity on the part of the worshippers. It is simply because adoration tends to demand accompaniment. Stripped to mere words it comes across awkward and flat. When I pray I only need standard prose to confess, or give thanks, or make a request. But the act of praise wants more - a musical instrument perhaps, or formal expression in poetry or song. It is possible that my stuttering over verbal adoration is due to my coldness or lack of love for God, and if so, then God forgive me and reform me, and may he dismiss from everyone's mind the analysis below. But here is how I see it.
We have an intuition of what makes for an appropriate response to a performance, or revelation of fact, or stimulus. It is the denial of this intuition that allows that stupid line of rhetoric we've all heard in sermons: "At the football game Friday night you cheered for your team and shouted yourself hoarse when they scored a touchdown - are you telling me you can get excited about football but you can't get excited about God?" It is a common preacher's technique for drumming up enthusiasm-by-guilt in a quiet congregation, and it is idiotic. We should not cheer for God the way we cheer a walk-off home run. I believe we can see that by imagining other attempts to gin up inappropriate responses. When I'm hungry, for example, and good food is set before me, I salivate like one of Pavlov's dogs - and you probably do too. Imagine a preacher indicting us watery-mouthed diners with: "You mean to say you can salivate over a plate of food but you don't love God enough to get any spit in your mouth over him?" We'd say, "Fool! God isn't something you salivate over, food is." Or, if you will permit a racy example (we're all adults here), a man's body will respond in certain God-designed ways to the sight of an under-clad, shapely woman. If a preacher said, "You mean to say you can get it on for a woman but you can't do that for God?" I'd just walk out of the church.
The point is that different things call for different responses, and a vehicle of expression that works perfectly well in one setting will not work at all in another. Words work well for some things – like communicating truth, but not at all for other things - like satisfying hunger. And, I contend, words only "kind of" work, clunkily and under handicap, for some other good things. Like expressing love. As you know, love is notoriously difficult to express with words alone. Jim Croce gave up trying to do so and solved his problem musically:
Well I know it's kind of late,
I hope I didn't wake you.
But what I've got to say can't wait,
I know you'd understand.
'Cause every time I tried to tell you,
The words just came out wrong.
So I'll have to say 'I love you' in a song.
There it is, in a song! (Of course, you have to hear the above words sung to get their effect.) Croce was right. Love demands a song the way apple pie demands (for me anyway) a cup of coffee. Lovers stumble over mere words, and find themselves waxing poetical and musical in attempts to get their expression just right. Thus it was and ever shall be.
I believe that adoration of God is like the expression of love. Confine it to words alone and you'll see that it is "not quite right" or "missing something." That sense may be so strong that you'll struggle to get out any words at all. So try singing your praise instead. I can sing "How Great Thou Art", but if I update the language and try to say, "God you're really great," the words seem to die on my tongue. Perhaps they should, because I'm not using the right medium. In a terribly inappropriate (but wickedly funny) skit in Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life a clergyman played by Michael Palin leads antiphonal praise in a chapel service, saying, "Oh Lord...Oooh you are so big...So absolutely huge...Gosh we're all really impressed down here I tell you." This is a lampooning of the Psalms of praise of course, but remember: the Psalms were composed as poetry and performed as songs! Cripple the poetry and mute the music and of course you wind up with something that sounds funny and odd.
I'm recommending to my pastor friend (and if I'm wrong, God give him the wisdom to ignore me!) to leave the confession, thanksgiving and supplication as they are - verbal - but to flavor the adoration with something else. Music, probably. Sing a song of adoration, or perhaps listen in silence to sacred instrumental music. Read a devotional poem. In a charismatic congregation, tongues might do nicely here. Maybe there are visual ways too of provoking the heart's adoration (a friend of mine came to believe in God when he saw mountains!), but I don't know how to do that in a worship service. The main thing is to find a way to give to Adoration the non-verbal accompaniment it demands and deserves.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
July 8, 2008: Think More
I was glad to hear a college-age friend of my son admit that thoughtful investigation was hard.
I had been explaining a cheap-trick method of argumentation that involved nothing more than postulating an underlying motive for an opponent's thesis. For example, suppose someone maintains that gun control laws are counterproductive because "Fewer guns mean more crime, and when municipalities permit concealed carry weapons, the crime rate drops." An easy response to that is, "Well, you just say that because you're in the NRA and you've got a huge gun collection!"
That may be true. But even if the NRA member only believes his statistics because they bolster his position, the question remains: "Are they accurate?" Because no matter what the gun-nut believes or why he believes it, statements of fact must be received or contested on their own terms. If he is wrong, then you can only demonstrate he is wrong by showing that his statistics are in error or that they are erroneously applied. His motives may be relevant for understanding how he came to believe as he did, but they are irrelevant for determining whether what he believes is true. To discern that, you have to investigate and think.
My son's friend said, "That's so hard" and I rejoiced. Exactly. Of course it's hard. Disciplined thinking is always hard - but like most things that require effort there is a payoff for engaging in it and a cost for neglecting it. Indolence is a vice that exacts a toll: physical laziness leaves you flabby and winded; occupational laziness leaves you poor and needy; intellectual laziness leaves you shallow and bigoted; spiritual laziness leaves you far from God. Work hard. This includes forcing your mind to work as hard as it can.
(While writing this paragraph I was interrupted by the doorbell ringing - it was two boys asking me if I wanted to buy something to drink at their lemonade stand. So of course I had to reward their industriousness by going over and buying two cans of pop and a cup of lemonade. Good for them. Now, let's see - where was I? Oh yes, intellectual laziness):
Sunday I was asked about an archeological find featured in the New York Times. It was a Hebrew stone tablet with an apocalyptic message. Looking into the matter afterward I found that the scholar promoting his interpretation of the tablet had a long-standing ax to grind: the overturning of what he thinks is "our traditional understanding of Christianity." It would be easy enough to dismiss his claims on the basis of his motive. But in investigating further and plowing through arcane details of Hebrew orthography, I was happy to find that - though I believe his proposal ultimately lacks merit - it turns out that, if he is correct, his thesis actually supports standard evangelical belief about messianic expectation on the part of first-century Jews!
That was an eye-opener. (The original article and my response are available upon request).
My point is that I was only able to come to this unexpected conclusion through careful reading and investigation and thinking. Valid conclusions and supportable convictions are worth all the "mindly" effort you have to muster to attain them. Think more.
I was glad to hear a college-age friend of my son admit that thoughtful investigation was hard.
I had been explaining a cheap-trick method of argumentation that involved nothing more than postulating an underlying motive for an opponent's thesis. For example, suppose someone maintains that gun control laws are counterproductive because "Fewer guns mean more crime, and when municipalities permit concealed carry weapons, the crime rate drops." An easy response to that is, "Well, you just say that because you're in the NRA and you've got a huge gun collection!"
That may be true. But even if the NRA member only believes his statistics because they bolster his position, the question remains: "Are they accurate?" Because no matter what the gun-nut believes or why he believes it, statements of fact must be received or contested on their own terms. If he is wrong, then you can only demonstrate he is wrong by showing that his statistics are in error or that they are erroneously applied. His motives may be relevant for understanding how he came to believe as he did, but they are irrelevant for determining whether what he believes is true. To discern that, you have to investigate and think.
My son's friend said, "That's so hard" and I rejoiced. Exactly. Of course it's hard. Disciplined thinking is always hard - but like most things that require effort there is a payoff for engaging in it and a cost for neglecting it. Indolence is a vice that exacts a toll: physical laziness leaves you flabby and winded; occupational laziness leaves you poor and needy; intellectual laziness leaves you shallow and bigoted; spiritual laziness leaves you far from God. Work hard. This includes forcing your mind to work as hard as it can.
(While writing this paragraph I was interrupted by the doorbell ringing - it was two boys asking me if I wanted to buy something to drink at their lemonade stand. So of course I had to reward their industriousness by going over and buying two cans of pop and a cup of lemonade. Good for them. Now, let's see - where was I? Oh yes, intellectual laziness):
Sunday I was asked about an archeological find featured in the New York Times. It was a Hebrew stone tablet with an apocalyptic message. Looking into the matter afterward I found that the scholar promoting his interpretation of the tablet had a long-standing ax to grind: the overturning of what he thinks is "our traditional understanding of Christianity." It would be easy enough to dismiss his claims on the basis of his motive. But in investigating further and plowing through arcane details of Hebrew orthography, I was happy to find that - though I believe his proposal ultimately lacks merit - it turns out that, if he is correct, his thesis actually supports standard evangelical belief about messianic expectation on the part of first-century Jews!
That was an eye-opener. (The original article and my response are available upon request).
My point is that I was only able to come to this unexpected conclusion through careful reading and investigation and thinking. Valid conclusions and supportable convictions are worth all the "mindly" effort you have to muster to attain them. Think more.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
July 1, 2008: Our Curse, Another's Blessing
I have a new answer now to the question, "What's your favorite book?" The best book I have ever read is Volume 3 of the collected letters of C. S. Lewis.
It was never intended to be a book. Lewis did not keep letters mailed to him, and he did not expect anyone to keep letters he sent to them. But they did - friends, scholars, children, strangers, lunatics, pastors. They wrote him boatloads of mail from all over the world and he painstakingly responded to every one. They treasured his letters like gold and were able to produce them 30-40 years after his death when editor Walter Hooper went looking for them.
Many who received a personal letter from Lewis were ecstatic (and this encouraged them to write more!), but for him letter-writing was a constant woe. He called it "the bane of my life" when speaking in confidence to a friend. It ate up all his leisure time and bit into his work. He had to get up early every morning to respond to the previous day's mail. When he returned from a brief vacation he'd find an overwhelming stack of 60 letters waiting for him. Since he could not type, and had a genetically deformed thumb that would not bend at the knuckle, he had to do the best he could writing by hand (and he constantly apologized for his bad handwriting, especially as he got older.) For at least a decade he dreaded Christmas, because he would get hundreds of letters at that time, and he felt he needed to answer them all. He begged close friends to write him at some other time of the year.
But Lewis' curse is my blessing. I find his letters to be the best devotional material I have ever read. I noticed long ago that writing that is intended as devotional usually leaves me unmoved. But when I read Lewis dealing graciously with a confused child or correcting an errant scholar or appreciating a gift or simply expressing grief, it inspires me to worship. And as for his casual insights, oh my goodness they leap out from every page. You have no idea how many times over the past few months I've said to my sons, "Remember the other day when we were talking about plagiarism/ the gracious treatment of bores/ the foibles of Rev So-and-So/ the poetry of T. S. Elliot? Well listen to this paragraph I just read in Lewis!" It is as though he had somehow listened to our conversation and nailed the point in 50 words or less.
In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 St. Paul asked to be delivered from a thorn in the flesh, and God said no. Lewis' thorn in the flesh was a constant pile of correspondence he wished he could avoid, but his response to that thorn comes down to me as a source of great enrichment and delight. Now I have a follow-up prayer with regard to my own thorns: "Lord, please take this curse from me. It is the bane of my life. But if you will not, then would you be so kind as to turn it into a blessing for others? Thank you."
I have a new answer now to the question, "What's your favorite book?" The best book I have ever read is Volume 3 of the collected letters of C. S. Lewis.
It was never intended to be a book. Lewis did not keep letters mailed to him, and he did not expect anyone to keep letters he sent to them. But they did - friends, scholars, children, strangers, lunatics, pastors. They wrote him boatloads of mail from all over the world and he painstakingly responded to every one. They treasured his letters like gold and were able to produce them 30-40 years after his death when editor Walter Hooper went looking for them.
Many who received a personal letter from Lewis were ecstatic (and this encouraged them to write more!), but for him letter-writing was a constant woe. He called it "the bane of my life" when speaking in confidence to a friend. It ate up all his leisure time and bit into his work. He had to get up early every morning to respond to the previous day's mail. When he returned from a brief vacation he'd find an overwhelming stack of 60 letters waiting for him. Since he could not type, and had a genetically deformed thumb that would not bend at the knuckle, he had to do the best he could writing by hand (and he constantly apologized for his bad handwriting, especially as he got older.) For at least a decade he dreaded Christmas, because he would get hundreds of letters at that time, and he felt he needed to answer them all. He begged close friends to write him at some other time of the year.
But Lewis' curse is my blessing. I find his letters to be the best devotional material I have ever read. I noticed long ago that writing that is intended as devotional usually leaves me unmoved. But when I read Lewis dealing graciously with a confused child or correcting an errant scholar or appreciating a gift or simply expressing grief, it inspires me to worship. And as for his casual insights, oh my goodness they leap out from every page. You have no idea how many times over the past few months I've said to my sons, "Remember the other day when we were talking about plagiarism/ the gracious treatment of bores/ the foibles of Rev So-and-So/ the poetry of T. S. Elliot? Well listen to this paragraph I just read in Lewis!" It is as though he had somehow listened to our conversation and nailed the point in 50 words or less.
In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 St. Paul asked to be delivered from a thorn in the flesh, and God said no. Lewis' thorn in the flesh was a constant pile of correspondence he wished he could avoid, but his response to that thorn comes down to me as a source of great enrichment and delight. Now I have a follow-up prayer with regard to my own thorns: "Lord, please take this curse from me. It is the bane of my life. But if you will not, then would you be so kind as to turn it into a blessing for others? Thank you."
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
June 24, 2008: "The Lord Has Been Good To Me"
In an email recently I praised an individual for her sunny appreciation of God's blessings. She has to have a sharp eye for those blessings, because in many ways she has a difficult life. In fact, her general situation is so hard that I mentally reference her example when I quote to myself the proverb, "I cried because I had no shoes till I met a man who had no feet." She's the one without feet, and I'm just temporarily shoeless.
But while praising her peace I recalled a time when I was 17 and a friend told me how impressed he was with my mother's spiritual calm when she lost her husband. "She has such a look of the peace of the Lord on her face," he said, and I was shocked. "Oh no - you haven't seen her tears," I told him. "I see her anguish at home all the time."
I also recalled a moment when I was 14 and my mother was deeply upset over the fact that a family member had fallen into sin. Foolishly I said to her, "Mom - look at Dad! He's calm about this. He's taking it well." She told me, "No, he is not taking it well." And she explained how outraged and grieved he was, along with examples of how he expressed that in private. I hadn't known. I simply had not seen his sorrow. He had thought it wise - and certainly he was right - to hide that from his son.
We are like icebergs sometimes. I read somewhere, and suppose it's true, that only about 10 percent of an iceberg floats above the surface of the water. The rest sits heavily below where less sunlight can reach.
But it is good if that 10 percent of us that can bask in and reflect light is also the public side that people can see. This is not hypocrisy but good manners. Joseph washed tears from his face before appearing to his brothers (Genesis 43:31). Nehemiah only once gambled sorrow in the presence of Artaxerxes - otherwise his policy was never to be sad before the king (Nehemiah 2:1). While we must sometimes speak of our burdens in order to give others the privilege of bearing them, we do well to remember that they have their burdens too, and may well find their sorrows eased more by our expressions of gratitude than our cries of complaint. May God give us grace so that, like my saintly friend, our public face manifests a resolve to count our blessings more than we bemoan our curses.
In an email recently I praised an individual for her sunny appreciation of God's blessings. She has to have a sharp eye for those blessings, because in many ways she has a difficult life. In fact, her general situation is so hard that I mentally reference her example when I quote to myself the proverb, "I cried because I had no shoes till I met a man who had no feet." She's the one without feet, and I'm just temporarily shoeless.
But while praising her peace I recalled a time when I was 17 and a friend told me how impressed he was with my mother's spiritual calm when she lost her husband. "She has such a look of the peace of the Lord on her face," he said, and I was shocked. "Oh no - you haven't seen her tears," I told him. "I see her anguish at home all the time."
I also recalled a moment when I was 14 and my mother was deeply upset over the fact that a family member had fallen into sin. Foolishly I said to her, "Mom - look at Dad! He's calm about this. He's taking it well." She told me, "No, he is not taking it well." And she explained how outraged and grieved he was, along with examples of how he expressed that in private. I hadn't known. I simply had not seen his sorrow. He had thought it wise - and certainly he was right - to hide that from his son.
We are like icebergs sometimes. I read somewhere, and suppose it's true, that only about 10 percent of an iceberg floats above the surface of the water. The rest sits heavily below where less sunlight can reach.
But it is good if that 10 percent of us that can bask in and reflect light is also the public side that people can see. This is not hypocrisy but good manners. Joseph washed tears from his face before appearing to his brothers (Genesis 43:31). Nehemiah only once gambled sorrow in the presence of Artaxerxes - otherwise his policy was never to be sad before the king (Nehemiah 2:1). While we must sometimes speak of our burdens in order to give others the privilege of bearing them, we do well to remember that they have their burdens too, and may well find their sorrows eased more by our expressions of gratitude than our cries of complaint. May God give us grace so that, like my saintly friend, our public face manifests a resolve to count our blessings more than we bemoan our curses.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
The Gracious Gift Of Obligation
Do you ever feel tied down to duties from which you wish you were free? Those duties might be God's grace to you. To be relieved of them – if no fresh duties took their place - might be more numbing than pleasant. What happiness you have may depend in no small part on things that, if taken away, would not leave you saying, "Thank God I'm free!" but rather, "What in the world do I do now?"
Lately I have been reading through the private letters of C. S. Lewis (and what great devotional reading that has been!). In 1956 Lewis married a dying woman, Joy Gresham, mostly as a favor to her so that she could remain in England rather than be forced to return to America when her visa expired. He was her caretaker. Then she had a miraculous recovery, and they had a blissful two years together before her disease returned and she passed away. Shortly after she died Lewis wrote the following to a pastor friend:
I'd like to meet. Perhaps I could come up to town some day when you are in town and take you to lunch...For I am - oh God that I were not- very free now. One doesn't realize in early life that the price of freedom is loneliness. To be happy one must be tied.
To be happy one must be tied! Those words hit me so hard I had to put the book down. I know them to be true. A kite, if it could think, might say, "This string pulling at my chest is annoying. If only I could cut it I could fly free!" But if the string were cut the kite would fall. The same string that holds it down also holds it up.
About a year ago I had a dream that had a strong emotional impact on me. In the dream I found myself in a line where people were buying tickets for some kind of entertainment. I happened to spot a lady friend there, greeted her and suggested (or assumed) that we go to the event together. But it turned out she was waiting to meet some other people and would attend with them. Feeling awkward, I excused myself, left and drove away. In the car I thought, "Well, now I can do anything I want." It was early evening and there was nothing on the agenda, so I was free to drive anywhere, eat anywhere, see a movie or go for a walk or anything else. But in the same moment I realized there was nothing that I really wanted to do by myself, and the thought filled me with sadness.
Solomon's near-absolute freedom wound up depressing him, and he wisely concluded that it was good for a man "to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor" (Ecclesiastes 5:18). Not apart from his toilsome labor, but in it. If you have things you must do, people you must care for, duties you must discharge, toilsome labors you must complete: give thanks. To be happy you must be tied to things for which people depend on you. Those duties, disguised as burdens, are often a gift from God.
Do you ever feel tied down to duties from which you wish you were free? Those duties might be God's grace to you. To be relieved of them – if no fresh duties took their place - might be more numbing than pleasant. What happiness you have may depend in no small part on things that, if taken away, would not leave you saying, "Thank God I'm free!" but rather, "What in the world do I do now?"
Lately I have been reading through the private letters of C. S. Lewis (and what great devotional reading that has been!). In 1956 Lewis married a dying woman, Joy Gresham, mostly as a favor to her so that she could remain in England rather than be forced to return to America when her visa expired. He was her caretaker. Then she had a miraculous recovery, and they had a blissful two years together before her disease returned and she passed away. Shortly after she died Lewis wrote the following to a pastor friend:
I'd like to meet. Perhaps I could come up to town some day when you are in town and take you to lunch...For I am - oh God that I were not- very free now. One doesn't realize in early life that the price of freedom is loneliness. To be happy one must be tied.
To be happy one must be tied! Those words hit me so hard I had to put the book down. I know them to be true. A kite, if it could think, might say, "This string pulling at my chest is annoying. If only I could cut it I could fly free!" But if the string were cut the kite would fall. The same string that holds it down also holds it up.
About a year ago I had a dream that had a strong emotional impact on me. In the dream I found myself in a line where people were buying tickets for some kind of entertainment. I happened to spot a lady friend there, greeted her and suggested (or assumed) that we go to the event together. But it turned out she was waiting to meet some other people and would attend with them. Feeling awkward, I excused myself, left and drove away. In the car I thought, "Well, now I can do anything I want." It was early evening and there was nothing on the agenda, so I was free to drive anywhere, eat anywhere, see a movie or go for a walk or anything else. But in the same moment I realized there was nothing that I really wanted to do by myself, and the thought filled me with sadness.
Solomon's near-absolute freedom wound up depressing him, and he wisely concluded that it was good for a man "to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor" (Ecclesiastes 5:18). Not apart from his toilsome labor, but in it. If you have things you must do, people you must care for, duties you must discharge, toilsome labors you must complete: give thanks. To be happy you must be tied to things for which people depend on you. Those duties, disguised as burdens, are often a gift from God.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
June 10, 2008: As For Me And My House
Do parents matter?
Seriously. I'm asking this for real.
I found out the other day that a devout Christian friend of mine never knew his father, because the man abandoned his family when my friend was young. A pastor friend of mine, an example to me of holy good cheer, had a father who was angry and bitter. My father's father was a nasty unpleasant grouch - but somehow my dad wound up with a personality as warm as the sun.
Leon Powe of the Celtics grew up fatherless, and his mother, who had trouble with the law, died when he was a junior in high school. But Powe turned into a saint. Jim Daly, current president of Focus On The Family, was raised in foster homes - some of them really bad – after his parents divorced and his mother died and his stepfather abandoned him. But Daly turned out good.
Jerry Falwell's father tried to make him an atheist, and Madeleine Murray O'Hare tried to do the same with her son William. They failed, and their sons became outspoken evangelists of the gospel their parents hated.
And then there are all those good, godly parents whose children are evil. A missionary couple I know had a daughter who tried to poison them. That is extreme, of course, but I know plenty of cases not too far removed from that. Ever since God created Adam good people have begotten villains.
I find especially instructive those cases of close-in-age siblings, raised in the same home under the same conditions by the same parents, where one sibling is good and the other bad. A friend of mine (a good man) has told me that if his brother ever shows up on his doorstep, he will call the police (and I'm sorry to say he would be right to do so). Another friend who leads a moral life agonizes over a brother who has turned into a criminal bum. This friend happened to mention to me that his parents went out of their way to raise him and his brother just the same.
So, seriously: do parents matter?
After observing life and families and studying the Bible a lot, my answer has become, "Not nearly as much as we think." In the last few decades, parenting and family matters have become an obsession of the evangelical Christian subculture. The topic dominates Christian radio, is featured in a thousand sermon series, has launched millions of books and dozens of institutions. This fosters the illusion that we can control much of the way our kids turn out. The question I have been wanting to ask for a while is, "Why do we say so much about parenting when the Bible says so little?" Read through the whole Bible yourself and you will see what I mean. It is not that the Bible says nothing about parenting, but relative to other topics it is actually pretty low on the priority scale. Consider this: can you name even one child of a disciple of Christ? Can you name any of their wives? The apostles managed to write a whole New Testament and never mention their family members once!
I believe the apostles knew in their bones something we are in danger of losing: every one makes his or her own decision for Christ. Good parenting does not sanctify, and bad parenting does not doom. Do not take credit for your little saints, and do not beat yourself up over your little demons. Do your best as a parent, and remember always that your children will have to answer to God for themselves just as you will.
Do parents matter?
Seriously. I'm asking this for real.
I found out the other day that a devout Christian friend of mine never knew his father, because the man abandoned his family when my friend was young. A pastor friend of mine, an example to me of holy good cheer, had a father who was angry and bitter. My father's father was a nasty unpleasant grouch - but somehow my dad wound up with a personality as warm as the sun.
Leon Powe of the Celtics grew up fatherless, and his mother, who had trouble with the law, died when he was a junior in high school. But Powe turned into a saint. Jim Daly, current president of Focus On The Family, was raised in foster homes - some of them really bad – after his parents divorced and his mother died and his stepfather abandoned him. But Daly turned out good.
Jerry Falwell's father tried to make him an atheist, and Madeleine Murray O'Hare tried to do the same with her son William. They failed, and their sons became outspoken evangelists of the gospel their parents hated.
And then there are all those good, godly parents whose children are evil. A missionary couple I know had a daughter who tried to poison them. That is extreme, of course, but I know plenty of cases not too far removed from that. Ever since God created Adam good people have begotten villains.
I find especially instructive those cases of close-in-age siblings, raised in the same home under the same conditions by the same parents, where one sibling is good and the other bad. A friend of mine (a good man) has told me that if his brother ever shows up on his doorstep, he will call the police (and I'm sorry to say he would be right to do so). Another friend who leads a moral life agonizes over a brother who has turned into a criminal bum. This friend happened to mention to me that his parents went out of their way to raise him and his brother just the same.
So, seriously: do parents matter?
After observing life and families and studying the Bible a lot, my answer has become, "Not nearly as much as we think." In the last few decades, parenting and family matters have become an obsession of the evangelical Christian subculture. The topic dominates Christian radio, is featured in a thousand sermon series, has launched millions of books and dozens of institutions. This fosters the illusion that we can control much of the way our kids turn out. The question I have been wanting to ask for a while is, "Why do we say so much about parenting when the Bible says so little?" Read through the whole Bible yourself and you will see what I mean. It is not that the Bible says nothing about parenting, but relative to other topics it is actually pretty low on the priority scale. Consider this: can you name even one child of a disciple of Christ? Can you name any of their wives? The apostles managed to write a whole New Testament and never mention their family members once!
I believe the apostles knew in their bones something we are in danger of losing: every one makes his or her own decision for Christ. Good parenting does not sanctify, and bad parenting does not doom. Do not take credit for your little saints, and do not beat yourself up over your little demons. Do your best as a parent, and remember always that your children will have to answer to God for themselves just as you will.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
June 3, 2008: Suffering And Faith
Have you ever known someone who lost faith in God because of suffering? I mean his or her own personal suffering - not somebody else's.
I raise the question because people I know or know of who don't believe in God often point to suffering as the reason for their disbelief. The odd thing is, it always seems to be somebody else's suffering. Former evangelist and Billy Graham colleague Charles Templeton indicated that his conversion from Christianity to atheism involved outrage over the plight of starving multitudes in Africa. Templeton himself, however, led a long prosperous life in the United States and Canada. Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn wrote a "How can anybody believe in God?" essay after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami - but wrote it, of course, from the comfort of a desk in Chicago a half a world away from the killer waves.
At that time I wrote, "It just isn't the case that those who have suffered the worst lack religious faith while those who live at ease embrace it." Last week I came across a couple news stories that illustrate the point. The Tribune said that Rabbi Bob Schreibman began to lose his faith in 1988 when he had to conduct the funeral of 8-year-old Nicholas Corwin, who had been murdered in a random act of violence by a psychotic individual who shot up a school classroom. Schreibman, now retired, describes himself as a skeptic. Within days of reading about Schreibman, I saw a report on Bill and Linda Correira, who lost their daughter Bethany to a murderer-rapist in May of 2003. Bill and Linda, deeply religious both before and after the tragedy, have forgiven their daughter's killer.
Schreibman did not lose his own son, but the fact that another couple lost their son was enough to erode his faith. The Correiras, however, actually did lose their daughter - and in just about the most horrible way imaginable. But they have kept on worshipping God.
Though the cases of Schreibman and the Correiras are anecdotal, I do not believe they are merely so. As I pile up lots of consistent anecdotes over the years I begin to suspect that they reflect real tendencies. It would be going too far, and it would be uncharitable, to conclude, "See! No one who ever really suffered lost faith in God because of it." But what I think I can confidently say is this: Though suffering is perhaps the most frequently invoked reason to reject God, there is, in general, no positive correlation between one's own suffering and one's disbelief.
While I don't know a single person who became an atheist because of personal suffering, I do know people who became Christians that way. Some 23 years ago when I was working in a grim warehouse where it seemed that most of my co-workers were neither nice nor law-abiding, I prayed, "Lord, if there are any Christians here, please help me to find them!" Then one day I was in the cafeteria when I spotted a Bible on a table and sat down next to it to see who was reading it on break. It turned out to be a soft-spoken, kind-hearted black gentleman who explained to me how he had become a Christian. It was after his 4-year-old son died of a brain tumor.
Have you ever known someone who lost faith in God because of suffering? I mean his or her own personal suffering - not somebody else's.
I raise the question because people I know or know of who don't believe in God often point to suffering as the reason for their disbelief. The odd thing is, it always seems to be somebody else's suffering. Former evangelist and Billy Graham colleague Charles Templeton indicated that his conversion from Christianity to atheism involved outrage over the plight of starving multitudes in Africa. Templeton himself, however, led a long prosperous life in the United States and Canada. Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn wrote a "How can anybody believe in God?" essay after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami - but wrote it, of course, from the comfort of a desk in Chicago a half a world away from the killer waves.
At that time I wrote, "It just isn't the case that those who have suffered the worst lack religious faith while those who live at ease embrace it." Last week I came across a couple news stories that illustrate the point. The Tribune said that Rabbi Bob Schreibman began to lose his faith in 1988 when he had to conduct the funeral of 8-year-old Nicholas Corwin, who had been murdered in a random act of violence by a psychotic individual who shot up a school classroom. Schreibman, now retired, describes himself as a skeptic. Within days of reading about Schreibman, I saw a report on Bill and Linda Correira, who lost their daughter Bethany to a murderer-rapist in May of 2003. Bill and Linda, deeply religious both before and after the tragedy, have forgiven their daughter's killer.
Schreibman did not lose his own son, but the fact that another couple lost their son was enough to erode his faith. The Correiras, however, actually did lose their daughter - and in just about the most horrible way imaginable. But they have kept on worshipping God.
Though the cases of Schreibman and the Correiras are anecdotal, I do not believe they are merely so. As I pile up lots of consistent anecdotes over the years I begin to suspect that they reflect real tendencies. It would be going too far, and it would be uncharitable, to conclude, "See! No one who ever really suffered lost faith in God because of it." But what I think I can confidently say is this: Though suffering is perhaps the most frequently invoked reason to reject God, there is, in general, no positive correlation between one's own suffering and one's disbelief.
While I don't know a single person who became an atheist because of personal suffering, I do know people who became Christians that way. Some 23 years ago when I was working in a grim warehouse where it seemed that most of my co-workers were neither nice nor law-abiding, I prayed, "Lord, if there are any Christians here, please help me to find them!" Then one day I was in the cafeteria when I spotted a Bible on a table and sat down next to it to see who was reading it on break. It turned out to be a soft-spoken, kind-hearted black gentleman who explained to me how he had become a Christian. It was after his 4-year-old son died of a brain tumor.
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