imagining god

In the past week I have had a couple of people flag an LA Times article at me that declares in no uncertain terms that science has now proven that God is a human invention. The empirical evidence is in; when we consider things of a religious nature, certain key areas of our brain light up. These areas turn out to be the same areas as light up when we process social interaction and relationships. This is proof that our need to engage in social activity and attachment is the same as our need to believe; we are as hard-wired for one as for the other. Faced with this revelation I find I have no choice but to abandon the ridiculous charade of being a purveyor of religion. I am turning in my shingle and looking for a job as a sanitation engineer. Or maybe a bartender. Or... perhaps not.

One of the most stunning statements from the article is this:

Michael Tomasello, a developmental psychologist who co-directs the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has also done work related to morality and very young children. He and his colleagues have produced a wealth of research that demonstrates children's capacities for altruism. He argues that we are born altruists who then have to learn strategic self-interest.

This is profound evidence, once again, of the truism (attributed to Abraham Maslow) that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Tomasello, and others of his ilk have begun their research with a premise. Their overarching metanarrative is that there is no God. Thus, every link in the chain of evidence reinforces that belief (or better, lack thereof), until at the end of the day their point of view is unassailable.

The notion that we are "born altruists who then have to learn strategic self-interest" could only have been proposed by someone who never had to get up for a 3 a.m. feeding. The altruistic infant would somehow understand, upon waking, that Mummy and Da need their sleep, that they will be certain, in the morning, to give the child as much food as he will need to survive, and that he should simply re-aquire his binky and return to blissful, altruistic slumber. Just where such an altruist would first learn "strategic self-interest" in the face of the doting nature of most new parents leaves me puzzled. The behavior of most parents, on the contrary, tends to reveal the better side of human nature—the denial of strategic self-interest. Of course, this evidence would not back up the 'non-God metanarrative', and so it must either be discounted or ignored.

After the page break the article makes the point that  

[S]cientists have discovered neurological explanations for what many interpret as evidence of divine existence. Canadian psychologist Michael Persinger, who developed what he calls a "god helmet" that blocks sight and sound but stimulates the brain's temporal lobe, notes that many of his helmeted research subjects reported feeling the presence of "another." Depending on their personal and cultural history, they then interpreted the sensed presence as either a supernatural or religious figure. It is conceivable that St. Paul's dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus was, in reality, a seizure caused by temporal lobe epilepsy.

  What if science were to presuppose, rather than a [John] Lennonist notion of "no God, no religion", a God who, consistent with biblical evidence, created all things, declaring them "very good"(Genesis 1.31)? Might then one be able to see the sparking of the human brain under Persinger's "god helmet" as evidence that he was stimulating the very centers of the brain of the believer as are stimulated by the Holy Spirit? Could not the existence of these areas themselves be seen as evidence for God, rather than against Him? Rather than adaptive evolutionary triggers we have developed to insure that we all have a predisposition toward connectivity, may it not just possibly be, Drs. Persinger and Tomasello, that they are the product of "Intelligent Design"—that Whom we know as God, the Creator and Redeemer of the universe?

  What if St. Paul's dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus was, in reality, his temporal humanity being seized by the God who redeemed him?

Imagine that.

...or what's a heaven for?

There has been so much heat—and no small amount of light, as well—throughout the Interwebs surrounding Rob Bell's latest book, Love Wins, that I feel compelled to say something about the subject. Not about the book, mind you, nor even about Bell himself. I have not read Love Wins, and I honestly have no intention of so doing. There are some excellent reviews out there, if you are interested. I, though, find it difficult enough to keep up the good fight of reading things I believe will increase my knowledge and wisdom regarding the things of the Kingdom of God. To spend any great amount of time reading that with which I must necessarily do mental and theological battle is for me misuse my time, apologetics not being my prime calling.

While the idea of "know thine enemy" is a valid one, the depth of that knowing is something we must carefully judge. And while I am pretty certain I would not classify Bell as "enemy", he seems to ascribe to certain—well, "fuzzy" is not too unkind an adjective, I think—ways of thinking about God and the Gospel. So much of what passes as theology today is what H. Richard Niebuhr described as liberal thought: the idea that "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross"—in other words, a theology without theology, or at least such as could be recognized by the Fathers of faith. Add to this my belief that the best way to spot the counterfeit is, as the Secret Service knows, to get intimately familiar with the real, and I feel the need to reflect.

So, it seemed fitting and proper to me, during this Holy Week, to spend a little time looking at the truth of the Gospel, and why it is important. In 900 words or less. Bold, you must admit, if somewhat audacious. Please keep your appendages within the vehicle, and remain seated at all times until the ride has come to a complete stop.

The first thing to remember about the Gospel is this: it is an offense to the thinking of the world (cf. 2 Peter 2.6-8, 1 Corinthians 1.18-31). Nothing about "dying in order to live" makes any sense to the world. The notion—in a culture where it is imperative that no one ever feel bad about himself—of being broken, or (God, or Whoever, forbid!) a sinner and in need of being fixed or "redeemed", is anathema.

The Gospel, however, is clear: every human being, save One, is a fractured image of humanity, of what we were intended to be—a clear reflection of God (cf. Genesis 1.26). Every one of us. Everyone. We have rebelled against God, and in the reality of creation, those who rebel against the Creator are doomed to die. That death, again according to Scripture, is eternal and tormenting. This is the bad news; and we have to deal with the bad news before we can approach the Good News. That bad news can be summed up thusly: Without direct intervention from a Source outside ourselves, we shall surely be lost, tormented in death forever unending. This thought does not make people happy. Nor is it intended to. It is, however, the truth; and it is offensive.

But it is not the end of the story. Once we acknowledge the bad news we can pass through it to the Good News. And the Good News is this:

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God" (John 3.16-18 ESV). 

The short version: God does not desire that we suffer the penalty we ourselves have incurred, but has indeed made a way that we should not have to suffer that penalty through the work of God the Son, Jesus Christ. Contrary to the false premise some theologians put forth, God does not condemn His creatures to Hell; He rather provides the means, through the shedding of His own blood and the giving up of His own life, for us not to have that horrific never-ending end.


God is holy, and His holiness cannot, by very nature, abide that which is unholy. Jesus is completely holy. He is also completely human. Because of that, humanity has access once again to the One True and Holy God. We are saved, not by our own doing, and not because God is too nice to let anyone spend the eternal life He gave him in the torture of unending death. No, we are saved through trusting in God's unending, unquenchable, unconditional, unfathomable love revealed through the death of God the Son by the horrific torture of the Cross. While our lot is death forever, in Jesus Christ we may have life forever. Which will we choose?

wisdom like lightning...

I ran across this quote from Benjamin Franklin today, and it struck me how often I violate these simple principles:

The great secret of succeeding in conversation is to admire little, to hear much; always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our friends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as possibly we can; to hearken to what is said and to answer to the purpose. (1.)

I have often considered the art of conversation, and sometimes felt as though I were a hacker at it. While I am seldom at a loss for words, it is often the art of soliloquy that I embody. I have on more than one occasion found myself apologizing and recommending those objects of my verbosity with the misfortune to be standing around me to that support group for loved ones of preachers: On-and-onAnon. I was, honestly, convicted in every turn by Ben. Allow me to take him point by point:

To admire little, to hear much—which is to say I must not be enamored of my own thoughts and words nor necessarily of those around me simply because I may admire or respect them. It is easy for me to fall in love with my own ideas; but it is also easy for me to make the mistake of not thinking critically about the ideas of others in whom I invest high praise. The best prevention, as Franklin notes, is to listen before assessing, to get all the information possible.

Always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our friends—it is nearly impossible to see around our own paradigm, to escape our own worldview. And those with whom we share fellowship most readily are likely to be, at least in part, within that same paradigm. It is well that we let our friends speak into our lives, but we need to apply the same critical thinking to their ideas that we apply to strangers or mere acquaintances.

Never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as possibly we can—one of my professors at seminary was an absolute master at this. I always walked away from a conversation with him feeling like he felt I was the smartest guy in the room. It was not that he was without wit; quite the contrary. But he was never concerned with making everybody else realize that he was brilliant and clever. He drew it out of everyone with whom he spoke. We were all giants with him. And in the process, he formed our minds and our theology. May I someday attain to such wit.

To harken to what is said and to answer to the purpose—how many times do I listen with half an ear while preparing in my mind what I am going to say next? More than I care to admit. Or, if I'm not thinking about what I will say, I'm thinking about how the other party could better have said what it was she is saying. Rude! I find that when I focus on the other person's words and do my best to understand the underlying thoughts of what he is saying, then give myself some space before responding, that conversations are much more meaningful and engaging.

For me, this boils down to St. Paul's letter to the Philippians: Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves [Philippians 2.3 ESV].
______________________

(1.) The_great_secret_of_succeeding_in_conversation_is. (n.d.). Columbia World of Quotations. Retrieved March 29, 2011, from Dictionary.com website:http://quotes.dictionary.com/The_great_secret_of_succeeding_in_conversation_is

the cost of discipleship

A dear friend of mine caused me to return to a book I had begun but had let languish, overcome by events and general busyness, since our vacation in late September: Eric Metaxas' Bonhoeffer—Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. As soon as I picked it back up I was hooked all over again. Metaxas' writing is like butter on warm cornbread, and Bonhoeffer's life is absolutely fascinating.

The tome is daunting, 542 pages exclusive of photos, endnotes, bibliography and author's bio. Yet every time I pick it up I am hard-pressed to put it down. I confess that I have never been much of a biography reader; still, I find that I am blessed I know not how on my journey by studying the lives of others. And Bonhoeffer is strong medicine, indeed.

I bring Metaxas' book up because I have been thinking a lot about truth over the past several weeks, and wondering how we got to such a state as we find ourselves today. As I was reading on the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer I was struck by his assessment of the students at Union Theological Seminary,
 and of the mainline Protestant churches in and around New York City when he studied in America in 1930-31. I was astonished to see evidence of the war against truth in his words:

There is no theology here... They talk a blue steak without the slightest substantive foundation and with no evidence of any criteria. The students... are completely clueless with respect to what dogmatics is really about. They are unfamiliar with even the most basic questions. They become intoxicated with liberal and humanistic phrases, laugh at the fundamentalists, and yet basically are not even up to their level (Metaxas, 101).

The theological atmosphere of the Union Theological Seminary is accelerating the process of the secularization of Christianity in America... [and] there is no sound basis on which one can rebuild after demolition. It is carried away with the general collapse (105).

Metaxas writes of Bonhoeffer's observations:

In an attempt to be more sophisticated than the fundamentalists, whom they hated, [professors and students at Union] had jettisoned serious scholarship altogether. They seemed to know what the answer was supposed to be and weren't much concerned with how to get there. They knew only that whatever answer the fundamentalists came up with must be wrong. For Bonhoeffer, this was scandalous (103). 

Bonhoeffer found tepid faith in the churches he visited, with one exception:

Things are not much different in the church. The sermon has been reduced to parenthetical church remarks about newspaper events. As long as I've been here, I have heard only one sermon in which you could hear something like a genuine proclamation [of Christ and His atoning work for sin], and that was delivered by a negro (indeed, in general I'm increasingly discovering greater religious power and originality in Negroes). One big question continually attracting my attention in view of these facts is whether one here really can still speak about Christianity... There's no sense to expect the fruits where the Word really is no longer being preached (106).

All this in 1931. This has been going on much longer than I think we imagined. And perhaps it was not new even then, considering the work that needed to be undertaken in the great councils of the early church. The real truth is that the Enemy can't come up with any new lies. Same girl, different red dress.

Let me encourage you to check out Metaxas' Bonhoeffer from your local library, or even purchase it for yours. You will find a great story of a great theologian, as told by a great writer. And you'll love to compare the cover picture with the author's photo on the flyleaf!