Category: theology and philosophy

crossfire

I haven’t posted anything for the past few days because I haven’t been using my computer… because I misplaced my cord. After the battery died a few nights ago, I shrugged, moved on, and thought, “Well, there’s that.” I knew it would turn up eventually. This is one of those times when I’m reminded I don’t fit in US culture anymore.

But, cultural careening aside, I’ve been diving in to some precious reads lately. Finding Calcutta by Mary Poplin, Saving Leonardo by Nancy Pearcey, and the Perspectives textbook are striking straight conviction in my heart and sending me to Scripture and prayer.

I keep coming back to this idea of knowledge.

I know, I know. I’ve already hashed it out – knowledge is useless unless it results in obedient acts full of love. But, I literally have to remind myself of this every day, multiple times a day. It’s a discipline to recall those things I’m learning and then, instead of simply sharing my realizations, put them into practice. If I am learning to serve, then I must ask, “What can I do to serve right now?” instead of, “How can I explain what I’m learning about service right now?”

So, I’m learning what it means to see knowledge as responsibility – personal responsibility.

I’m also learning that catchy phrase from School House Rock, “knowledge is power,” holds true for our culture in a way that we often ignore.

Mary Poplin spent most of her life running after isms and throwing rocks at religion. After becoming a believer while a professor at Claremont in California, she decided to spend two months volunteering with Mother Theresa and the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta. Her book, Finding Calcutta, explores how her journey shaped her young faith and impacted what she would understand a “Christian life” to look like. Let’s just say it looked a lot different than the Christianity she ran from for so long… and it had a lot to do with how our knowledge of God plays out in the everyday-ness of our lives. In grappling with her role as an educator, she writes about a realization she had on a plane ride one day,

“…Genesis 1:1-3 informs us that ‘in the beginning… the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light.’ I saw distinctly the three moving as one – God, His Spirit and His Word. What a miracle that these three always agree! The Gospel of John reveals more about the Word that God spoke, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without Him was not anything made that was made… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ Paul tells us in Hebrews that Jesus ‘is the exact imprint of God’s very being,‘ and in Colossians that ‘by him all things were created… and in him all things hold together.’ I asked myself, If these are true, then how could anything I taught not relate to God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus?”

Christianity is not knowledge on Sundays to make our Monday through Friday knowledge a little less painful. Following Christ is not about believing a nursery rhyme because believing real truth is just too depressing.

Some of our generation’s atheist thinkers (who would philosophically trace back to David Hume), explain our fascination with religion in this dualistic way. Because we can’t deal with the reality that life has no meaning, we create meaning so we can sleep at night. We have what Francis Schaeffer called a two-story concept of truth.

          VALUES          
FACTS

We conveniently hold two competing worldviews in a dichotomy so that we can appease both the ‘scientific facts’ and the ‘subjective feelings’ warring within us. We can say, “The sun will come up” with sure, scientific conviction as much as we can be convinced that “no one really knows the meaning of life or if there is one.”

Pearcey takes Schaeffer’s two-story idea in her book Saving Leonardo and explores its implications throughout history – bringing us up to our jumbled, dichotomous understanding of truth today. She writes of one Cambridge philosopher, Peter Lipton, who has a Jewish background. In an interview, he once said, “I stand in my synagogue and pray to God and have an intense relationship with God, and yet I don’t believe in God.”

Stranger than his statement is that to question him is ‘intolerant’ and anti-intellectual. When did “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” start to say, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Biblical wisdom” in Psalm 9:10? We are not so developed, my friends – not so progressive as we like to think. It used to be that the great theologians were naturally the great philosophers; that great pastors were naturally the great scholars; that great evangelists were naturally great orators. Why? Because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7)… and not just cute, Sunday school knowledge. All knowledge.

What Mary Poplin realized on that plane ride was that there is only one Truth. Sure, people believe different things – about science and philosophy and art and what happens to the worms who will one day eat our flesh. But, believing in something doesn’t make it true. There is only one Truth that makes sense of things on this earth and it starts with a holy fear of the Lord.

Our culture is parched. The people are desperate for this no-holds-barred message. Forget sugar-coated. Forget patty cake and beating around the bush. They want answers. The hard stuff. The rated R conversations with God.

Two Cathedrals clip from The West Wing (warning for language)

The world will not make sense until we understand that all knowledge must begin with a fear of the Lord. Until then, our generation is simply caught in the crossfire of heaven and hell with no defense, just like Brandon Flowers croons.

Crossfire by Brandon Flowers (lyrics here)

Our culture is CRYING OUT and hoping that something calls back. I think they’re even willing to wrestle it out, ready to tear down the stories of skyscrapers built to stand against religion, if it means there is something solid to stand on underneath.

We Don’t Eat by James Vincent McMorrow (lyrics here)

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Posted on by Caroline 1

this & that

It’s raining/snowing and the murky sky suits this Thursday.
I don’t mean that today is despairing, but I do mean that today seems like one of those days where weighty thoughts find a rightful place in the front of my brain. Maybe it’s the ushering in of the Lenten season or perhaps the strange, brown winter we’ve been ambling through… but today is full of weight and maybe you’d like to carry it with me.

Honduras never left my heart, but these past few weeks it’s been intense with two huge fires. You might have heard the news stories about the prison fire and the central market fire. The fire in the market was 5 minutes from where I lived a few short months ago. My sister in Christ tells me to pray for open doors so ministries can reach out during this time. My heart is heavy.

As I try to reflect in prayer during Lent, this blog post by Brett McCracken with Lenten Prayer requests is especially helpful. Oh, that my heart would be situated in a place where I can hear from the Lord.

Now that I’m living in the States again, this whole season feels different. There is something about a Catholic/Latin culture that surprised my spirit around this time. Apart from soccer, the religious traditions surrounding Easter always caused my heart to slow and consider the cost. This blog post by Russell Moore, “Always Mardi Gras, Never Easter” reminds me I must readjust my cultural lens to understand how to engage in conversations with Catholics/Protestants here.

I thought this article “Give up the Gimmicks, Youth Pastors” was an excellent read. I struggle seriously with all the games/programs/bells/whistles that make up our youth outreach programs in the US (and to Christian youth in general). I just don’t know what the best method is to effectively “speak their language” without sacrificing the content they are more than ready to receive.

I know I’ve certainly wrestled with “Why?” questions when it comes to God’s sovereignty. Just last night, I met up with some friends and before I could sit down they told me they were arguing about reincarnation. Before the conversation got too far, I found out the one guy’s mom was a Jehovah’s Witness and he knew his theology. At one point, he looked at me cynically and said, “Oh, sure. It’s about “sovereignty” isn’t it? Right. God is “sovereign” and that’s why it’s okay to say He created everything only to let it go to crap so that He could save it?” Whew! I tried to meet him where he was at and encourage his questions, but when I read this article from DesiringGod.org, “Why Did God Let Paul Become a Murderer?” I thought about all the answers that are foolish to those who don’t believe in the cross. I need serious grace and faith to believe God will give the words that make sense in the right time to the right people.

Well, folks, that’s a lot of reading. I’ll repeat the challenge from my last “this & that” post: How can my knowledge of God inform my obedience in a way that leads to actions full of love in reponse to these things?

Last night, I spoke with one of my dear friends who is still living and working in Honduras. She shared about a time recently when she was so full of sadness – days of heavy, unrelenting sadness because of the brokenness she sees. We agreed that sometimes – precious, painful sometimes – God responds to our prayers to, “break our hearts for what breaks Yours,” by allowing us a sliver of His pain. We couldn’t handle any more than that, but if we are fervently praying, we shouldn’t be surprised when our hearts start to swell inside our chests. We shouldn’t wish it away either. Those moments are precious – gifts to draw near to Him and grieve all the ways we’ve mangled his magnificent design. And then, to pray for His purpose to be realized through us – that every nation, tribe, tongue will hear the glorious news of the Gospel. The news that sets the crooked straight and the broken mended.

even with heavy hearts, in the power of the resurrected Savior, we can

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

oh, to be covered

Ash Wednesday.

Breathe.

Today marks the start of Lent and my soul is stirring with discontent. Living in this flesh is uncomfortable. I’m aware of my awkwardness inside this dusty skin; distressed at my nakedness.

I’m in need of a covering – something imperishable and outside myself that I put on as garment to guard against the world’s weather. A covering that allows me audience with the Almighty and release for my shame.

In 1 Corinthians 15:42-49 Paul writes,

So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

 

Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

“Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.”

I think back to Genesis – to the first Adam – when he became dishonorable and weak by his act of disobedience. I remember the way shame clothed them in their nakedness and sent them cowering behind leaves. I remember how uncomfortable man was inside his own skin.

God, in his grace, provided covering. He shed the blood of an animal to provide a way for man to keep company with God once again. He provided covering and man saw  that nothing could happen outside God’s power and providence. The story could have ended there.

God could have started over with a new plan.

But God provided a covering.

Today, that covering is the second Adam, Jesus. Jesus shed his own blood so that no other sacrifice is necessary. No sacrifice is capable of the eternal covering that lifts us from perishable to imperishable, from dishonor to glory, from weakness to power.

This covering is Christ and I’m longing today to shed my skin and get wrapped up in Him. I know Christ’s covering is sufficient and forever, only that my faith daily wavers.

As we prepare for Easter, let us reflect on the already, not yet nature of this covering. We  stand righteous and accepted before God because of Christ’s sacrifice, yet our hope is rooted in a not yet reality that God has still to reconcile all things to Himself.

I’m uncomfortable in this skin, but today I am covered clear to the return of my precious Savior and King.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Here’s a helpful guide for Lent if you are interested: http://www.aholyexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Forgiveness.freshstarts.pdf

Posted on by Caroline 0

Think on These Things

Too many times we imitate what we see in the world around us. We settle for mediocre instead of magnificent; for better instead of best.

As C.S. Lewis lamented, we are content to play in mud puddles instead of enjoying a holiday at the sea. This infographic from challies.com is helpful in understanding how God has designed us for BEST.

If you would like the graphic in high-resolution, you can download it in JPG or PDF.

Posted on by Caroline 2

this & that

It’s been awhile.

There are simply too many things to read. I’m hoping (in light of yesterday’s post) that whatever knowledge we add to our heads today means adding obedience to our hearts. How can we use knowledge to result in obedient actions full of love?

In light of religious turbulence in the UK (see this recent radio interview with leading atheist Richard Dawkins that making more than airwaves), I strongly urge you to read this article, “No secularism please, we’re British.”

Oh, Martin Luther. Do you know that Luther died on February 18, 1546? Maybe you need a little refresher about what this man contributed to our religious heritage. Read, “The Forgotten Influence of Martin Luther” from the Gospel Coalition blog.

Josh Garrels is an artist who is not afraid to do things differently. His most recent album is completely free to whoever wants it, because he said he has been overwhelmed by the blessings of his musical journey. Wow. He’s not a musical mess-around, either. What he makes is beautiful. Anyway, now Garrels is partnering with Mason Jar Music to make (what appears to be) a really incredible film.

Lastly, I wanted to mention (again) the film Tree of Life. The first time I watched it, I chewed on it for days but I missed SO much because I was scribbling notes on journal pages. The second time I watched it, tucked into an attic room with several beautiful folks, I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. Put it on your list and sit through it, if nothing else then for the music and cinematography.

Challenge: Choose one thing on this list and then ask how learning can lead to obeying and  actions full of love. The whole idea of “this & that” is to keep informed, but cannot be just that. I realize there are blanks that need filling in, but this is the kind of thing we’re made for, right?

What does it mean that I now know England is wrestling with the religion of secularism, or that Martin Luther almost single-handedly changed the course of modern church history, or that Josh Garrels believes there is power when we invite others into our joy?

How can learning things in this life lead me to knowledge of God and produce acts of obedience full of love? I hope the answer is a treasure hidden in this day!

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

teach them to obey

“… and teach them to obey all that I have commanded you.”

As I sat soaking up the the last minutes of lecture in Perspectives today, I almost didn’t hear these words, “We don’t teach to learn, we teach to obey.” My mind rewound and replayed and something clicked.

I don’t think obsessive is too strong a word to describe the fascination the West has with education. We are greedy about our learning. I’m smack dab in the thick of things, too. I want more in my brain, sometimes just so I can come up with something in conversation to trump the thing someone else said. It’s ugly, really. If you’ve ever seen that clip from Portlandia, it’s something like this and I’m not a bit proud of it.

We want knowledge because there’s something elite about it, something powerful.

and this was never how God intended knowledge

It was not a bad thing for Adam and Eve to know things about the Lord, about the garden, about their place in it. In fact, It delighted God for humans to grow in understanding because it produced praise – the lifestyle kind – where their knowledge resulted in actions full of love. The more they knew of God, the more they wanted to know of Him and please Him. We all know that came to a bad end, but it’s important to remember that our pursuit of knowledge hasn’t always been bittersweet. It was once only beautiful.

“… and teach them to obey all that I commanded you.” These are Jesus’ well-known words from Matthew 28. He is not asking the disciples to go out and form institutions where they teach people to learn. Learning for the sake of learning is a lame movement. The only thing contagious about it is our own greed for more. Learning to obey means letting knowledge sink down deep where it won’t grow stale – where it turns into obedient actions full of love.

When we learn to obey, we know our Master in such a way that our greatest delight is to please Him. When we teach to obey we are teaching that following Christ means conforming to His image (not knowing about conforming to His image).

How dismal the Gospel would be if it was only about knowing. How glorious that, through our obedience, God sanctifies us. I don’t want to just learn the Gospel and I don’t want to teach others to just learn the Gospel.

I want to obey and teach others to obey, that God would be glorified and that our supreme delight would be in Him.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 6

lost in translation

"Luke", mixed media on canvas (Makoto Fujimura)

As I sat listening to Nancy Pearcey, my pen wavered, scribbled, wavered, and surrendered. Her masterful articulation put my pen strokes to shame. I won’t try to summarize or capture her description of Francis Schaeffer‘s two story dichotomy in our society today. For that, I will wait to dive into the pages of Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning.

For now, I want to mention one thought: lost in translation.

When Pearcey was asked, “How can we bring this message to our culture today – what do we do practically to get this message out?” at the end of her seminar, she lamented a dreadful linguistic loss. She sighed, “Well, we talk about it.”

Sadly, it’s hard to find words and harder to find conversants. As we rush into “progress” and grow out of our too-small, sacred shoes, the Gospel gets lost in translation. As Makoto Fujimura, prominent NYC artist, describes it,

“We, today, have a language to celebrate waywardness, but we do not have a cultural language to bring people back home.”

Tonight, I watched the film 50/50 with some friends. I was struck by all the ways language broke down around the main character diagnosed with cancer.
His friend fails to communicate love as he follows the haphazard advice of a book.
His girlfriend can’t find words to describe her guilt.
His therapist can only speak textbook and theory.
His father speaks the language of forget and his mother, worry.
And he, the main character, tries hard to speak no language at all.

Today, we have all sorts of language to walk people out to the ledge, but (in all our progress) we struggle to give a living translation of the Gospel in a way that brings people to the only safe Refuge.

God designed us for relationship – a right relationship with Him and Creation. So far, we’ve used great word wizardry to narrate – even glorify – the ways these relationships are wrong. We flood the cinemas with the drama and doom of this language. We overwhelm bookshelves with this unsettling lexicon.

So where is the Gospel in the language of this culture?

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

upheld

L’abri Conference
Rochester, Minnesota
February 10-11

Today I’m surrounded by eager minds and running pens.

“Christ brought the universe into existence with His speech and only by His speech does it continue to be upheld.”

It was some version of this sentence that settled deep – especially that one word: upheld.

There is not one movement, material, musical note, or molecular formation that exists in this day without being upheld by Christ through His speech. His words – most powerful words – hold all things together. All things.

We fret over governments and institutions and the unraveling of societies, but we forget the One who is sovereign over all things, Whose word alone holds all things together.

Calvin writes, in his Institutes,

“While it becomes man seriously to employ his eyes in considering the works of God, since a place has been assigned him in this most glorious theater that he may be a spectator of them, his special duty is to give ear to the Word, that he may the better profit.”

I can only imagine the kind of “becoming” Calvin meant – perhaps that our taking an active role in marveling at the glory of Creation would send us on the most beautiful earthly course toward heaven. But it is this second phrase which captures me now, “…his special duty is to give ear to the Word, that he may the better profit.”

“In the beginning was the Word,” we read in John, “and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

Let us respond to our special duty and so better profit – give ear to the Word, Christ Himself. By Him our very existence is upheld.

When Christ was tempted in the desert, how did He respond?
“It is written…”
Wasn’t he, in fact, saying, “I Am He.”

The very words that held the desert together as a backdrop for this dramatic scene were breathed out of Christ Himself – the Living Word. In Him all things hold together (Colossians 1:17). Miraculous.

And can it be that in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28)? Inside the Word, we live and move and have our being?

This is what it means to be human: to be in the Word, marveling at a universe hanging on the very words of its Creator.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

Men Without Chests … and the miseducation of children

I posted this several years ago, but I’ve been thinking about it recently (especially in light of the rumblings in the presidential primaries).

_________________________________________________________________________

The book starts with an eloquent description of an elementary text book.

An interesting object on which to base an argument, but C.S. Lewis does just that in his opening of what was originally a lecture series titled “The Abolition of Man” (the subtitle reads: Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upper forms of schools).

With all the nebulous talk of improved education among scholars and legislators, I have long wondered if there is truth to the fabled “subliminal message.” After painstakingly reading one of Lewis’ most controversial books, I submit that merely wondering at such a possibility is just as damaging as promoting it.

C.S. Lewis refers to the elementary text in question as The Green Book and sets out to argue that the authors teach very little about literature. In fact, The Green Book essentially seeks to ‘debunk’ the existence of any objective value.

Now, that may not strike you as dangerous or deceiving, but this ideological shift is not so plainly described by the authors. The example Lewis gives from their book cites the “well-known story of Coleridge at the waterfall” (of which I knew little) where one tourist called a waterfall sublime and the other pretty. Lewis writes that Coleridge, a renowned poet, mentally endorsed the first description and was disgusted in the second. This is the excerpt from The Green Book:

‘When a man said This is sublime, he appeared to be making a remark about the waterfall… Actually … he was not making a remark about the waterfall, but a remark about his own feelings. What he was really saying was really I have feelings associated in my mind with the word “sublime,” or shortly, I have sublime feelings.’

Keep in mind, the young mind for which this text is intended has little reference for such a proposition. Boys and girls are more concerned with receiving good marks then defending the notion of objective value. And herein lies the danger.

The authors (possibly unintentionally) are making no claims about literature. They are instead suggesting that human sentiment is contrary to reason and ought to be eradicated. Interestingly enough, as Lewis points out, to say something is reasonable or unreasonable means that there must be a standard to make that judgment.

And now, by way of this disastrous summary of Lewis’ first chapter, we start to see the development of Men Without Chests. Assuming objective value is unreasonable, Lewis moves toward the logical question: On what grounds does any value exist in the world and what force would move me to protect this fleeting, traditional idea?

Interestingly enough, though this idea is purported in institutions across the country, the opposite is expected in life’s vernacular. Students might be taught to disregard value and view all things in relativistic terms, yet when it is time to preserve society, all are called to sacrificially stand on the high grounds of character. Lewis writes that youth are encouraged to strive to be people of character, while being conditioned to believe such traits are unreasonable.

“In a sort of ghastly simplicity,” Lewis writes, “we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise.”

Strip life of sentiment and you are left with a skeleton. Relativism may be trendy and “progressive,” but this kind of progress would lead straight to humankind’s demise. There will simply always be those who make the rules and those that follow them. If the rule makers decide life is void of sentiment, they will certainly reap the benefits of this stale standard.

Dangerous? yes. Deceptive? yes. Merely wondering at the possibility of ‘value debunked’ is just as damaging as promoting it. Can we recapture the necessary distinction of humanity? Can we hold firm the objective value intrinsic to our created nature? I believe we were born for such a purpose.

Maybe someone should write a children’s book about it.

___________________________________________________________________

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
the true, beautiful kind

Posted on by Caroline 5

like diamonds

diamonds are attention-getting

Sometimes, it’s the only thing you remember when you walk away from a conversation. Somehow, a diamond can make everything else seem insignificant and dull.

This is the GOSPEL to me. I want to wear it like diamonds, so that everything else is its backdrop. I want the Gospel to be the first and last impression I leave with every conversation. I want the Gospel I’m wearing to sparkle with mystery and throw off a curious reflection.

Last night, in a conversation with a self-proclaimed “agnostic, buddhist, Indian scientist,” I hope he noticed the Gospel above all else.

I hope Truth shone like diamonds, because there is nothing more beautiful.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0