If Sports Builds Character…

Where'd All These Villains Come From?

I loved sports. Past tense. There was a day when I was pretty well married to basketball, and football and baseball weren’t far behind. But these days, I can take ‘em or leave ‘em.

It started when I realized how much more prone I was to sin when competing—anger, pride, bitterness, selfishness, disrespect to authority, the whole depraved nine yards.

But what really has me aggravated lately is the recent deluge of immoral and contemptible behavior among professional athletes, coaches, and officials: the NFL’s infamous thug list, the doping scandals in baseball and the Tour de France, Nick Saban’s lies, NBA official Tim Donaghy’s gambling, and now Bill Belichick’s cheating. Nice. Quite frankly, I’m disgusted.

As a result, you can imagine my delight when I ran across this article entitled “Obviously, Sports Do Not Build Character,” by Anthony Bradley, assistant professor of apologetics and theology at Covenant Seminary. He begins:

If you are one of those people who believe the old adage “sports builds character,” you have some explaining to do.

Why are so many professional athletes, who have spent their entire lives in organized sports, masters at cheating, serial adultery, drunkenness, compulsive gambling, drug abuse, and thuggish fighting (to name just a few of the vices)? The truth is that sports no more builds character than attending Clemson University football games qualifies you to replace Tommy Bowden as head coach.

In spite of my irritation, however, I’m reluctant to give up on sports altogether. True, sports do not build character, but they provide a very helpful context in which character can be built… under the right circumstances. What circumstances? Well, I think Bradley gets it right near the end of his critique:

Sports do not build character in young people but virtuous adults do. In one sense youth sport is simply a medium for adult mentoring within the context of challenging situations. Character is bestowed – or not – from one generation to another.

Reminds me of a post I read a while back by CJ Mahaney. CJ loves sports, but he values biblical masculinity and godly character far more. In this post, he lists specific behaviors he commends to his son, Chad—practices which make sports a means to the end of developing godliness. Here’s CJ’s perspective:

There is nothing original or profound about this list. But helping my son apply it to his heart and life can make a profound difference. So after each game, I review the above list with my son. I go over the game with him and celebrate any and all expressions of humility and godly character. I tell him that this is more important to me than how many points he scored or whether his team won the game (although we do play to win!). Remember, fathers, what you honor and celebrate, your son will emulate. Therefore, we must celebrate godly character more than athletic ability or achievement.

If you’re a parent or a coach or even just a Christian sports fan, I’d encourage you please to read CJ’s entire piece. It’s absolutely excellent.

I want to conclude by offering my sincere thanks to the many Christian parents and coaches and fans out there who approach sports this way. Keep up the good work! If only there were a couple thousand more of you, perhaps we might have something to cheer about.

Own or Rent?

A Perspective on Possessions

I’m studying for a sermon on Acts 4:32-37, a passage describing the profound unity and mutual care in the Jerusalem church. On the table in this text is that dreaded subject, money:

Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. Acts 4:32

I need to give most of my time today to study and sermon writing, so this post is intentionally quite short. It’s just a helpful little analogy I found earlier this week as I was reading a book by Ralph Doudera, a highly regarded Christian investor. He writes:

My mentor, Evangelist Tommy Tyson, at one time considered joining a commune where everyone owned their property in common. God prompted him to take his wallet out of his pocket and count the money inside, asking him where he got the funds. Acknowledging that it was a gift from Him, he felt God say to him, “If you will accept everything as a gift from Me, and you are willing to use it as I guide you, then I don’t mind if you carry it in your own pocket.”

This concept has been helpful to me regarding the material things that I own. For example, if I had a rental car that was stolen, I probably wouldn’t get very upset, just report it to the authorities and get another one. But if “MY” car was stolen…? If only I could have this mindset for all my possessions. (Wealth Conundrum)

Confessions of a Bible Critic

How a Christian Reads the Psalms

Sometimes the Bible irritates me. There, I said it. And now, before you call me a blasphemer, keep reading and let me explain…

The Bible doesn’t always say what I expect it to say. More to the point, it doesn’t always say what I want it to say. (I hope that’s true in your life, too. If it’s not, you’ve either died and gone to heaven and been glorified, or you aren’t reading closely enough.)

Like this morning… I was finishing up Psalm 119, and that writer just kept on saying things that I could never say—things that made me really uncomfortable because of what I believe about our depravity and sinfulness and need for grace. I wanted to pull him aside and offer a little friendly counsel on how he could improve his inspired Bible writing, especially on verses like these:

Look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law. (v 153)
Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, but I do not swerve from your testimonies. (v 157)
Consider how I love your precepts! Give me life according to your steadfast love. (v 159)
My soul keeps your testimonies; I love them exceedingly. (v 167)

It sounds like this guy really thinks he’s got it going. “I do not forget your law. I love your precepts. I’m all that...” And when I started thinking about it a little more, I remembered that this isn’t the only Psalm that talks that way. Psalm 15 can make me feel like I never should attend a worship gathering again. Psalm 26 reads like a flavor of Christianity I’ve never tasted. And so on…

So what do we do with Psalms like that? Ignore them? Explain them away, like we're some dusty, liberal theology professor? “This particular selection from the psalter furnishes us with an undisputable example of hyperbole as the author writes of things he himself knows not literally but rather exaggerates the claims of his religious experience…” Spare me. If that’s what is happening here, how can we tell when the author means it and when he doesn’t? Is God really a rock and a fortress who can protect us from all our troubles, or is that just exaggerated language, too?

No, I think there’s a better way to understand the Psalms when they talk like that.

First, it’s helpful to remember that the Psalms were written during an age when God’s arrangement with His people emphasized due punishment and/or reward. He had given laws; their responsibility was to keep them. (Of course, it’s both true and very important to recognize that grace was very much at work in this period as well. I’m just suggesting that the emphasis was somewhere else.) Thus, it’s only natural that a follower of God would want to point out his efforts and successes at abiding by the arrangement.

Second, it’s helpful to adjust our expectations about the self-awareness of these OT writers. As one of my seminary profs pointed out to me a few years ago, these men and women didn’t have Romans 7 or Ephesians 2 to help them understand how truly awful they are without Jesus. Thus, we should not expect them to have the same level of intimacy with the wretchedness in their own heart as we have, viewing it through the lens of these later Scriptures.

Finally, it’s critical to remember that the Psalms are part of what the New Testament writers sometimes call “the Law.” That doesn’t mean it no longer applies to us. It just means that when we feel convicted by it like I was this morning, we need to remember how the Law is supposed to function in our life, namely, to convict us and lead us to Christ.

To say it a different way, all of these Psalms that sound so far out of reach for us actually are… and are not. They ARE out of reach in ourselves, but they ARE NOT out of reach if we are in Christ. In other words, Jesus did live like this. He could actually say these things and mean it. He could take verses like this on His own lips and talk to God like that! I love how Dietrich Bonhoffer puts it:

The psalms that will not cross our lips as prayers, those that make us falter and offend us, make us suspect that here someone else is praying, not we—that the one who is here affirming his innocence, who is calling for God’s judgment, who has come to such infinite depths of suffering, is none other than Jesus Christ himself. It is he who is praying here, and not only here, but in the whole Psalter. (Life Together)

This is what Bonhoffer calls “the secret of the Psalter,” and I think it’s probably the single most important thing I’ve ever learned about how to read the Psalms. These are Jesus’ prayers before they are mine, and I must pray them and read them through Him. In other words, the right way to read the Psalms is with a heart of repentance and faith—repentance for not being like this and faith that, thankfully, He is.

Remembering

9/11 and the Christian Life

At today’s 9/11 memorial service at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, DC, the Reverend Luis Leon suggested that each of these anniversaries presents us with a dilemma: how to remember that event appropriately while still pressing on with our lives. In my experience, it’s not been an easy balance to find.

The ability to press on with our lives, it seems to me, is a characteristically American strength. Historically, we have had a knack for bouncing back from disaster stronger than before.

But I wonder these days if we’re quite as good at remembering. We used to work hard at it: “Remember the Alamo!” during the Texas Revolution. “Remember the Maine!” in the Spanish-American War. “Remember Pearl Harbor!” for World War II. But “Remember 9/11”? Not so much.

I’ll admit, I’m really tired of the conflict in Iraq. I wish we weren’t there. I hate war. I hate killing. I hate hatred. Please understand that I’m thankful to be an American, and I’m very proud of most of our troops. I just wish they could come home. I guess I need to remind myself why they’re there.

Forgetting is easier. It’s painless, effortless, and all too natural. Unfortunately, it’s also bad for us. We grow only when we remember. We learn only when we recall. We bear up only when we bear in mind.

It’s that way in the Christian life, too. In a certain sense, remembering is the key to everything. I’m not talking about some sort of vast, comprehensive, infallible remembering that helps us get every single one of our little Christian duties done. No, the remembering we need to do is much more simple.

Paul told Timothy: “Remember Jesus Christ.” (2 Tim 2:8) Can’t get more basic than that.

Similarly, Jesus said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." And later: "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." (1 Cor 11:24-25)

I think that’s Christianity in a nutshell right there: remembering Jesus. How He lived. How He loved. How He died. How He rose. How He reigns. How He’s coming back.

One more thing… It’s interesting to me to ponder what God chooses to remember… and not to remember.

I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Is 43:25 (cf. Jer 31:34)

How can He “not remember” our sins? Because unlike us, He always “remembers” Jesus.

Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free
For God the Just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me

("Before the Throne of God Above" by Charitie L. Bancroft)

Monday Quotables

From Craig Blomberg's Neither Poverty Nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Possessions

"...we must take care not to assume that wealth necessarily, or even frequently, represents God's blessing." (p 36)

"So, without necessarily calling into question the wisdom of modern distinctions between legal and illegal aliens for legislative purposes, it would seem unconscionable that any Christian should ever support efforts to withhold basic human services from the neediest in any land, regardless of their country of origin." (p 48)

"Both sexual immorality and material selfishness stem from the same self-indulgent attitudes." (p 78)

"The key to evaluating any individual church or nation in terms of its use of material possessions (personally, collectively or institutionally) is how well it takes care of the poor and the powerless in its midst, that is, its cultural equivalents to the fatherless, widow, and alien." (p 84)

"As in Proverbs 30:8-9, Jesus is concerned to moderate extremes. But the main focus of his ministry, the road to the cross, and his call to his disciples to imitate him in similar self-denying sacrifice rather than basking in glory, suggests the overarching paradigm of generous giving rather than 'godly materialism,' for the one who would faithfully follow Christ." (pp 145-146)

"So, too, professing Christians today who have surplus income (i.e., a considerable majority of believers in the Western world), who are aware of the desperate human needs locally and globally, ...and who give none of their income, either through church or other Christan organizations, to help the materially destitute of the world, ought to ask themselves whether any claims of faith they might make could stand up before God's bar of judgment." (p 155)

"The church does not pay its ministers; rather, it provides them with resources so that they are able to serve freely." (p 187, quoting Don Carson)

"Christian giving is a gift from the grace from God, which he enables Christians to exercise." (p 191)

Final conclusions:
"1. Material possessions are a good gift from God meant for his people to enjoy.
2. Material possessions are simultaneously one of the primary means of turning human hearts away from God.
3. A necessary sign of a life in the process of being redeemed is that of transformation in the area of stewardship.
4. There are certain extremes of wealth and poverty which are in and of themselves intolerable.
5. Above all, the Bible's teaching about material possessions is inextricably linked with more 'spiritual' matters." (pp 243-246)

Final applications:
"1. If wealth is an inherent good, Christians should try to gain it.
2. If wealth is seductive, giving away some of our surplus is a good strategy for resisting the temptation to overvalue it.
3. If stewardship is a sign of a redeemed life, then Christians will, by their new natures, want to give.
4. If certain extremes of wealth and poverty are inherently intolerable, those of us with excess income (i.e., most readers of this book!) will work hard to help at least a few of the desperately needy in our world.
5. If holistic salvation represents the ultimate good God wants all to receive, then our charitable giving should be directed to individuals, churches or organizations who minister holistically, caring for people's bodies as well as their souls, addressing their physical as well as their spiritual circumstances." (p 247)

"'Give me neither poverty nor riches,' prayed the writer of the proverb; but, since most of us already have riches, we need to be praying more often, 'and help me to be generous and wise in giving more of those riches away." (p 253)

Milestone Meditations

Reflections on My Last Ten Years

This Monday is a significant anniversary of sorts for Aundrea and me, but since I’m going to do another “Monday Quotables” that day, I figured I’d write about Monday’s milestone today.

On September 10, 1997, Aundrea and I drove a 15-foot U-Haul loaded with everything we owned into the parking lot of the Berean Baptist Church in Livonia, Michigan. Hard to believe it was ten years ago. I know it's cliché, but it really does feel like yesterday.

When I stop and think about it though, I can see amazing changes since then. Our seven-person family was then two. Livonia gave way to Louisville, back to Livonia, and finally to Colorado. We’re replaced both our vehicles, our wardrobes, most of our furniture, and our skin cells several times over (if my high school biology serves me correctly).

It’s interesting for me to think back to those days. Ten years ago I had never…

• been a parent,
• heard of John Piper,
• endured a church split,
• led a wedding ceremony,
• cared about Michigan football,
• shared a meal with a missionary,
• been baptized after my conversion(!),
• experienced the death of a close friend,
• counseled someone considering suicide, or
• considered how the gospel affects my daily life.

I still don’t care about Michigan football, but a lot of other things have changed this past decade. But rather than belabor all of the changes, I’d like to suggest some effects that this kind of reflecting has on my soul. Looking back over these ten years makes me really want to…

Seize the day. If these ten years took only a blink to pass by, what does that say about my entire life?! I’d better stay focused on making it count. Looking back makes me more resolved than ever to spend each moment as wisely as possible. TV is out; family time is in. Gaming on my cell phone is out; reading is in. Mindless hobbies are out; dates with my wife are in.

Love my family. The changes of this last decade remind me that I’m not guaranteed anything. How foolish for me to obsess over stupid drivel and argue with my wife or get hacked off at my kids.

Regulate my spending. I wish I had given more money to kingdom work over the last 10 years. But instead, I’ve frittered away $25 here and $40 there, figuring that my little percentage-based giving was good enough. The regrettable result has been that I’ve turned down dozens of requests for help from short-term missionaries, needy folks in my own community, and those ubiquitous World Vision people.

Cherish the gospel. I think the single biggest change in me over the last ten years has been an awakening sense of the importance of living and applying the gospel every day. I’m grateful to God for that change, but it’s one that I feel is only just beginning. Looking back over these years makes me more thankful than ever for the cross of Christ, because I know that every bad thing was (or will be) overcome by the cross and every good thing was purchased for me by the cross:

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Rom 8:32

In the words of my hero, John Newton:

’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

From the Inside Out

The Death of Death

Last Sunday during the Lord’s Supper, I made the simple observation that one of the ways to appreciate the cross more fully is to ponder its effects. Then we pondered together the awesome truth that at the cross, Jesus completely disarmed Satan, both physically and spiritually.

To be more specific, Satan’s greatest physical weapon is death, and his greatest spiritual weapon is unforgiven sin. Death destroys our body, and unforgiven sin can destroy our soul. And Jesus wrenched both right out of Satan’s hands in His death and resurrection. But He didn’t do it quite how we would expect. Here’s how it works…

In Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ, John Piper points out that if Jesus had wanted to remove Satan’s deadly influence from this world, He could have done it with one command: “Go to hell.” But instead, He chose a different route to destroy Satan:

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil… Heb 2:14

How did He destroy the devil? By submitting Himself to Satan’s most powerful physical weapon—death—and then destroying it from the inside out. The picture that comes to my mind (WARNING: It’s not very sacred, and it’s also kind of gross…) is from the movie Men in Black, when Tommy Lee Jones entices the huge alien bug to eat him, finds his weapon somewhere in there, and then blows the thing to gooey bits from the inside out.

It’s not like Jesus proved He was stronger than death by being immortal—i.e., never dying. Jesus was not like a soldier who moved behind enemy lines without getting caught. Instead, he went right to the enemy general, gave Himself up, got locked away in a POW camp, and then blew holes in the walls of every cell in the whole compound. Now every single soldier who gets taken captive can just walk right out through the holes left by the Man who went there before him.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (1 Cor 15:20)

But wait... there's more. The resurrection also defeated Satan’s most powerful spiritual weapon: sin.

When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Cor 15:54-57

Ever notice that, in the opinion of most people these days, the only thing you need to do to get to heaven is die?! That’s not what Paul thinks. He believes death has a massive stinger called "sin" which will make death a door to hell instead of heaven… if not for Jesus.

If it weren’t for Jesus, the worst part about dying would be that now we have to start paying for all the sins we committed when we were alive. Once death comes, Satan would sting us with our sin and carry us straight to hell forever. That’s what “the power of sin is the law” means. God’s law says that the penalty for sin is eternal death (Rom 6:23).

But Jesus broke the power of sin by fulfilling the demand of the law: He died for sin. And then He removed the sting of death—sin—by securing our full justification so that no accusation of sin could ever be brought against His people again.

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. Col 2:13-15

Isn’t that good news?! The gospel tells us that Satan’s two major weapons are gone: 1) death is not the end; we will rise again; 2) our sin will not be used to condemn us.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow'r of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand.

(“In Christ Alone,” by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend)

The Darkness of Doubt and the Light of the Gospel

Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith

Mother Teresa of Calcutta died ten years ago today. And since that day, evangelicals (i.e., those who affirm the good news that Jesus died for our sins) have been speculating on what happened to her next. That is not the point of this post (though I will say that I think it is presumptuous and oversimplified to assume “practicing Catholic = does not know Jesus = destined for hell”).

Rather, I am interested in what it means for us that Mother Teresa, the universal icon of Christian service and spirituality, would write:

Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love — and now become as the most hated one — the one — You have thrown away as unwanted — unloved. I call, I cling, I want — and there is no One to answer — no One on Whom I can cling — no, No One. — Alone ... Where is my Faith — even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness — My God — how painful is this unknown pain — I have no Faith — I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart — & make me suffer untold agony.

According to a newly released collection of her private correspondence, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, the depth of spiritual darkness expressed here was not the exception for her. It plagued her for over six decades—virtually from the time she founded the Missionaries of Charity until her death. Time’s associate editor David Van Biema has written an illuminating cover story on the book. He reports that she referred to her spiritual experience as “dryness,” “darkness,” “loneliness,” “torture,” even as a sort of hell. Once she even wrote that it caused her to doubt the existence of God Himself.

Why? Why would such an apparently devout woman struggle so mightily with unfulfilled longing and unshakeable doubt? Biola’s Fred Sanders has offered a compassionate list of ten edifying (to me, at least) speculations, beginning with: “Maybe it’s depressing to be immersed in the lives of the poor of Calcutta, every day for your whole life. Think about the last thing you saw that ‘ruined your day.’ Then think Calcutta.”

But more important for me than the “why” question is the inescapable “so what?” What does Mother Teresa’s spiritual crisis have to do with me?

At the very least, it warns us against an experience-based, emotion-driven approach to the Christian life. Mother Teresa’s testimony reminds us that we must “believe our way” rather than feel our way through the Christian life. Pastor Rick Phillips has posted an excellent analysis of Mother Teresa’s testimony in which he writes:

Why was her faith so dry and dead, as she lamented for over sixty years? One key answer seems to be that her faith was not rooted in the Word of God, but in experiential ecstasy. In this, parallels can be seen between Mother Teresa and Christians of many stripes -- many of them evangelicals -- whose faith is driven by spiritual experiences instead of by the truth of God's Word. How much of the frantic, sterile restlessness of the evangelical culture today is charged by this same drive.

But I see an even larger issue at stake here. Mother Teresa’s struggle forces us to reckon with the veracity of the Christian faith. If Christianity is real—i.e., if there really is a God and He really has sent His Son and His Spirit really does commune with His children—then why would such a devout, self-sacrificing follower of Jesus suffer such an intense silence from God?

As I mentioned briefly already, I do not think it works to dismiss Mother Teresa’s darkness as the unavoidable experience of an unbeliever who simply doesn’t qualify for real fellowship with God. While I am deeply troubled that she was not known to articulate the good news of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, I am also forced to reckon with her incredible selflessness, her compassionate love for the needy, and most of all her many statements of intense personal longing for Jesus—all of which the New Testament considers to be fruits of a true work of God’s Spirit. I will certainly concede that all of these “fruits” could be worked up by human effort, but that only backs the question up a step and forces me to ask why I (and most other Christians) do not live with the Spirit’s help anything like she lived without Him!

So the question remains: in light of Mother Teresa’s internal struggle, can our faith really be true? Before suggesting an answer, I want to affirm the normalcy and even the value of times of deep spiritual depression. Countless saints of history have admitted going through seasons of profound darkness: David Brainerd, William Cowper, and Charles Spurgeon are the three that come most quickly to my mind. And though these seasons are painful, they can be extremely valuable because they teach us to “walk by faith and not by sight,” in other words, to trust God’s words rather than our own ideas or emotions. Nothing forces us to rely on our flashlight (cf. Ps 119:105) like pitch darkness.

As for the question of the truthfulness of the Christian faith and the reliability of the Christian gospel, I would suggest that the answer is found right in the gospel itself. The gospel tells us that our salvation has been secured entirely by Jesus Christ—through His sin-free life, debt-paying death, and hell-conquering resurrection. A necessary consequence of this message—and a clear biblical teaching—is that salvation comes to sinners completely by God’s free grace, not by working to earn it but by treasuring and trusting Jesus, who earned it for us.

“Trusting Jesus.” That is the response called for in the gospel, and I would suggest it is the answer to the even bigger issue of whether the gospel itself is even true to begin with. Trust Jesus. Look to Jesus. Consider Jesus.

When we take a closer look at the life of Jesus of Nazareth, we will see that no one lived like this man. No one loved like He did. No one spoke with His wisdom. No one had His power and authority. No one brought together such diverse qualities in perfect proportion as He: strength and tenderness, justice and mercy, submission and sovereignty, meekness and majesty.

The accounts of His life in the four gospels are so compelling, we are forced to listen to His words. And when He speaks, He says things like this: “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mk 10:45) And this: “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” (Lk 22:20)

Apparently, Jesus Himself believed that His own life and death would make it possible for sinners to be ransomed and forgiven. In other words, Jesus believed the gospel was true. And if this most incredible, compelling Man thought it was true, I’m willing to trust Him in that, too.

As with yesterday’s post, I am going to wrap up with the fitting words of Al Mohler:

Our confidence is in Christ, not in ourselves. We are weak; He is strong. We fluctuate; He is constant. We cannot trust our feelings nor our emotional state. We trust in Christ. Those who come to Christ by faith are not kept unto him by our faith, but by his faithfulness.

I possess no ability to read Mother Teresa's heart, but I do sincerely hope that her faith was in Christ, and not in her own faithfulness.

Homosexuality, Christianity, and The Gospel

What Does the Bible Say?

About the time Brokeback Mountain came out a couple years ago, I realized I had never addressed the subject of homosexuality in the many years that I had been ministering to students. To remedy that a bit and to address the public controversy stirred up by the movie, I put together a short list of several biblical principles that I felt were critical to the issue.

In light of the Larry Craig scandal, I've reproduced my list in this post, along with some Scripture and a little commentary.

1. Any time we talk about sin, we should not think in terms of “them”; we must think “we/us.”

Matthew 7:1-2 Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Galatians 6:1 Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.

As I will point out below, the Bible does call homosexual behavior "sin." But the Bible also condemns pride, racism, gossip, hypocrisy, indifference to the poor, lying, heterosexual adultery, materialism, gluttony, laziness, hatred, anger, and a whole host of other attitudes and behaviors. As a result, when Christians speak of homosexuals as "sinners," we are merely putting them in a category with ourselves. It's an indictment we all share.

2. A few fundamental truths have to guide our thinking about this issue and all others:

• The Bible, as God's word, is true and trustworthy, and it can predict outcomes and consequences with absolute certainty.
• The Bible predicts that when God's created things violate His purpose for them, disorder and destruction result. When they conform to His purpose, order, life and joy result.

The Bible acknowledges that homosexual behavior can bring pleasure. The Bible also acknowledges that a homosexual couple can find happiness together. But since the Bible warns against homosexuality, we must conclude that God is thereby protecting us from some sort of destruction and disorder. In essence, then, the truly Christian response to homosexuality is motivated by a desire for these people to know more joy and order and life, not less.

3. Homosexual behavior is sin. Homosexual desire is sinful and may lead to sin.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

James 1:14-15 ...but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

4. It is never biblical or true or necessary to say our desire equals our destiny.

1 Peter 1:14-16 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

1 Peter 2:11 Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.

The simple fact that we crave a thing does not mean it is good or right for us to have it. Because we are sinners, our innate desires cannot always be trusted. In fact, some of our desires can be destructive, especially if we give them full sway.

5. Christians must learn to love sinners who are still struggling with and even blinded by their sin, and our love must take practical, tangible, undeniable forms.

Galatians 5:14 The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

The church has erred grievously by ridiculing, ostracizing, hating, and ignoring the homosexual community. In all our misguided (often self-righteous) zeal for keeping God's law, we have neglected this summary obligation: "Love them like you love you."

6. Our sins and the sins of those we love, no matter how deep and powerful, are no match for the power of the gospel.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

What awesome news the gospel is! But here is precisely why our failure to love the homosexual community is so grievous: Christianity is the only source which offers them a power sufficient to wash, purify, and pronounce them righteous before their God.

7. The gospel must be the message we say most often and most loudly, the truth that defines us in our own minds and in the mind of the culture.

1 Corinthians 1:22-24 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

It's sad to me that Christians are often far more outspoken about abortion and homosexuality than about the gospel. I wish we were known for the message "Christ died for our sins." I wish Christians could be heard saying that as loudly and as often as we are heard parroting our pro-life and pro-family slogans.

I'm reminded of some of Al Mohler's comments on Larry King Live during a discussion about Brokeback Mountain. Mohler continually redirected the conversation to the gospel in ways like this:

You know my main concern, Larry, is not with the gospel of heterosexuality, even though I think that's very important. It's with the gospel of Jesus Christ and what I find lacking in the movie, the screenplay and in the short story is any resolution that really brings these persons to know why they were created and how God really intends them to live and how they would find their greatest satisfaction in living just as God had intended them for his glory.

And this (when asked about whether he believes homosexuality is a choice):

I don't doubt for a minute, Larry that there are millions of people who struggle with attractions to the same sex or other kinds of attractions that they don't even know they ever chose. They may never have and as they know themselves would never have chosen them.

But the big issue for all of us is how we find out what our creation was all about and what we were made for and why this incredibly powerful thing called sex is such a big part of our lives and how we are to bring it into a right alignment.

In other words, there are heterosexuals who struggle with all kinds of desires that are just not right desires and when it comes right down to it I, as a Christian, believe that we are also deeply affected by sin that we don't even know ourselves well enough to know why we desire the things we desire.

What I hope for is that persons, heterosexual and homosexual, will come to know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, would come to know new life in him, would come to understand that sinners can find the only help that is -- that is worth finding and the only salvation and solution to our problems by coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and then understanding that God, our creator, has the right to define every aspect of our lives including our sexuality.

And this (at the very end of the show):

Well, I think we're watching the breakdown of norms in this society. I don't doubt that. I sense that we have a big task as Christians to articulate what is our most basic concern, and that is, Larry, that on the cross, Christ died for sinners, heterosexual and homosexual, and the only way to be made whole is in him, and that is more important than anything else I could possibly say.

Well said, Dr. Mohler. Well said.

Monday Quotables

From John Stott's The Cross of Christ

"Before we can see the cross as something done for us (leading us to faith and worship), we have to see it as something done by us (leading us to repentance)." (pp 59-60)

"If we spoke less about God's love and more about his holiness, more about his judgment, we should say much more when we did speak of his love." (p 132, quoting P.T. Forsyth)

"The priority [in the gospel] is neither 'man's demand on God' nor 'God's demand on men,' but supremely 'God's demand on God, God's meeting his own demand.'" (p 152, paraphrasing Forsyth)

"Divine love triumphed over divine wrath by divine self-sacrifice." (p 159)

"The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man." (p 160)

"As we stand before the cross, we begin to gain a clear view both of God and of ourselves, especially in relation to each other." (p 161)

"...whereas usually the one who sins and the one who dies are the same person, on this occasion they were not, since it was we who sinned, but he who died for our sins. This is love, holy love, inflicting the penalty for sin by bearing it. For the Sinless One to be made sin, for the Immortal One to die - we have no means of imagining the terror or the pain involved in such experiences." (p 214)

"No theology is genuinely Christian which does not arise from and focus on the cross." (p 216)

"Powerless wisdom or foolish power: it was (and still is) a fateful choice. The one combination which is not an option is the wisdom of the world plus the power of God." (p 225)

"[The cross] appears to be total defeat. If there is victory, it is the victory of pride, prejudice, jealously, hatred, cowardice, and brutality. Yet the Christian claim is that the reality is the opposite of the appearance. What looks like (and indeed was) the defeat of goodness by evil is also, and more certainly, the defeat of evil by goodness. Overcome there, he was himself overcoming. Crushed by the ruthless power of Rome, he was himself crushing the serpent's head (Gn. 3:15). The victim was the victor, and the cross is still the throne from which he rules the world." (p 228)

Scandal in the Senate

A Christian Response to the Craig Crisis

In June, Idaho Senator Larry Craig was arrested in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and charged with soliciting sex from a plainclothes police officer in a public men’s restroom. Obviously, the story is a bizarre one, and its ramifications haven’t fully unfolded. As of this post, Senator Craig is protesting his innocence, though he has resigned his committee posts in the Senate and may even resign his seat entirely.

What makes the story especially thorny is that he signed a plea agreement in August admitting his guilt, though for only one of the two charges against him. Adding to the scandal, Senator Craig is a third-term Republican who has been a strong supporter of family values and has consistently voted against legislation favoring same-sex relationships.

Though I don’t often blog on politics, I think this sad situation offers the opportunity for a thoughtful response from the Christian community… a uniquely Christian response. By “uniquely Christian,” I mean a response that is more than just politically expedient or commensurate with traditional family values. I’m after a response that only believers in the gospel could give.

What does the gospel say about this sort of scandal? Does the message that “Jesus died for our sins” demand that we think or do anything in particular?

First, we should pray. The gospel tells us that sin matters most, not because it costs us political support or personal success, but because it offends the God who created us and will someday judge us. So we should pray that this event will bring about some spiritual good in Senator Craig’s life. When God arranges events such that we get caught in our sins, it is His mercy to us (even though it feels more like judgment). Sin corrupts, and left unchecked, it can destroy. But when our sin is exposed, its advance is halted and the impending disaster is avoided… IF we awaken to the danger, turn, and seek help to change. So we should pray that God’s mercy at work in these circumstances helps Senator Craig to awaken, turn, and avoid greater destruction.

Second, we should fight hypocrisy. Our own, not Senator Craig’s. Of course, in his case, the political cartoonists and late-night TV hosts have had a heyday working the hypocrisy shtick. But once again, the gospel changes our viewpoint and reminds us that we are all sinners in need of a Savior. The cross reminds us that when we speak of sin, we need cast the problem in terms of “we/us” rather than “they/them.” Only a blatant liar or a self-deceived fool would lambast Senator Craig for hypocrisy and not admit the same despicable hypocrisy in his/her own heart. Who among us has a perfectly pure heart? Which of us does not know the shadows and distortions of sexual perversion in our own depraved soul, at least at some level? “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone” (Jn 8:7). One of the things that makes Christianity (and conservative politics) so objectionable to many people is the hypocrisy that so often characterizes those claiming to be its adherents. This is a criticism we can deflect, not by being perfect through our own self-righteousness, but by admitting that we are not perfect, casting ourselves on God’s mercy, and directing attention to the only Perfect One who ever lived.

Finally, we should love each other. If Senator Craig wanted to find a safe place to retreat this weekend, a place where he would be loved and not laugh at, helped and not harangued, do you think he should come to your church? I would suggest that if we were loving each other as Jesus intended (cf. Jn 13:35), then scandalous, self-conscious sinners would know that they are welcome among us. What a great reputation to have! We might actually start hearing the sorts of accusations Jesus heard: “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” (Lk 5:30)

So next time Larry Craig’s face is paraded across your TV, let it be your reminder to pray, to be real, and to love.

New Mercies, Take Two

Another Perspective

NOTE: My good friend Brad, who lives in Michigan, emailed me his response to my post from yesterday. It's very funny, but that's not the only reason I'm posting it. I'm posting it mainly because it makes the same point I was endeavoring to make, but from a much different perspective. Enjoy!

My morning goes more like this…Alarm goes off and I am already tired – oh wait, that wasn’t the alarm…it was my daughter kicking me in the ribs while she, still asleep, rolls for the 100th time in our bed. I jump out of bed (no…I am still half asleep and only imagine jumping out of bed). My back hurts far too much to jump, so I rise slowly, trying to straighten the kinks. As I head to the shower, I see the framework of the sun rising outside the bathroom window, desperately trying to fight its way through many layers of clouds. After stepping from the shower, I see myself in all my natural glory, marveling at the 30 pounds I put on over night…thought about riding a bike a few years ago. As I lumber out into the room to try to cover my flabbiness, I hear the crisscross of small feet in the rafters of the bedroom ceiling - not my sons, but some other denizen of this fallen world seeking the destruction of my home. I too see light coming from downstairs, only to discover that it is emanating from the basement. This particular light reminds me of a trick candle – no matter how many times I turn it off, it comes back on within a few minutes (I have a similar one in the garage). Eventually, I make it to the garage, glass of cold water and box of dry cereal in hand (my creative breakfast most days). I trip over the bike I thought of a few years back, then trip a few more times over kid’s bikes, a rusting pitchback, and a few other items. I gingerly attempt to make my way through the minefield I call my garage. In the process I spill some water on my computer bag (carrying that in my third arm) and hope it doesn’t make it to the computer. I hop in the car and start driving, shaking to the familiar wobble in a tire or some other part of the drivetrain that is refusing to be diagnosed and repaired properly. Another day has begun.

Strangely I have the same thought as you…

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

Thanks, Brad, for the great reminder that it's not the glory of the morning but the glory of our God that satisfies our soul!

New Mercies

The Beginnings of Another Day

Alarm sounds. Snooze. A voice in my head: “It’s too dark to ride.” Alarm. Snooze. Another voice: “The whole day goes better when it begins on time.”

My wife stirs, my eyes open, and my feet slide over the side of the bed. With contacts in, riding gear on, and Zune in hand, I head for the garage. My three-year-old son stands in the doorway as I stretch by the van: “Hi, Dad.” He rubs his eyes and yawns as I turn him around and head him back toward his bunk.

It’s a cool morning, and wet. I stand on the pedals, letting the wind awaken my body and mind as I coast downhill. The sky is brightening, but the full moon is still visible above the mountains to the west, streaked with a few thin clouds. As I turn uphill to the north, the long incline burns my lungs and legs. The mountain air is invigorating, and I savor the smells: fresh rain and wet lumber. Two of my favorites.

I stray from my normal route and turn east to watch the sun rise as I climb another hill. Cresting the ridge, I see the thumbnail of fire breaking the horizon and scattering the darkness from the forests and fields around me.

Three miles out I turn and head for home. The downhill ride makes my ears ache with the wind, but it gives me the chance to relax a bit and coast. A yellow spray of wildflowers covers the hills. A snake moves on the pavement. Two bucks bound across the road in front of me; a doe lags behind.

Braking slowly, my bike glides to rest next to my wife’s. I slip quietly back into the house and notice that lights are on in the bathroom, the kitchen, and the hallway. Apparently my attempt to delay my son’s waking failed, and his quest for breakfast is fully underway. After making sure he’s all set, I grab my journal and Bible and head for the couch. Another day has begun.

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

A Reminder of Home

...In the Death of a Friend

I miss my brother-in-law. It’s weird. Sometimes I sort of forget that he’s gone, and I have this spontaneous urge to call him up. About six months ago during a time of extreme mental and emotional fatigue, I even had a fleeting moment driving home one day where I picked up my phone and actually started looking for his number. I remember having a vague notion that he had left and gone to a place where I hadn’t been able to talk to him for a while, but strangely, my weary mind suggested: “Oh! I could just call him!” And a half-second later I remembered that that number had been disconnected for months, and the quiet ache settled in all over again…

I wish I had some profound thing to say about all this, but I don’t. But that figures, because raw emotion is usually ineffable anyway. The closest emotional category I know to put it in is longing, but even that isn’t quite right. It’s deeper than normal longing, and heavier, but with tiny flecks of gratefulness and joy here and there, too.

There is a positive in all this, a silver lining around this dark cloud that has lingered on my horizon for so long. It always reminds me that I’m not home. I think C.S. Lewis is probably right when he says, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” (Mere Christianity)

Ed’s death is God’s reminder to me that something is dreadfully wrong here, but that thankfully, “here” is not my main address. I’m a traveler, one who has lost a dear companion on the journey, but one who knows that he’s not lost or fallen behind. He just beat me home.

His memorial service was 13 months ago today. My sister asked me to speak, and so, reluctantly, I did. These were my closing two paragraphs:

I recently read of a man whose wife passed away from an incredibly painful disease. Her suffering had been especially intense in her final days, and a few hours after it ended, her husband said to their pastor, “Pastor John, I think my wife suffered as much as Jesus did.” To which the pastor tenderly responded: “Perhaps. And if so, when their eyes met three hours ago, they didn't have to say much.”

That’s how I’ve imaged Ed’s home going. Face to face with Jesus, one of those broad Ed-Horn smiles, but not many words. One look said it all. And during their strong embrace, I have no doubt that Jesus put his lips to Ed’s ear and whispered: “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Welcome home."

I think I started this post out wrong. I put a period on that first sentence a little prematurely. After thinking about it a little more here, I guess it would have been more accurate to say, “I miss my brother-in-law… because he reminds me of home.”

Sir Justin the Bold

To Justin, my adventurous and chivalrous son
From Dad
On your 6th birthday: October 27, 2006

NOTE: I love to write goofy little poems for people. Usually I just stick them in birthday cards for friends or scratch them on the front porch at home with sidewalk chalk. But a few weeks ago, my wife challenged me to undertake to write a special poem for my kids on their birthday each year, and I agreed to give it a try. The boys have been studying the Middle Ages in school. Added to Justin’s well-established love for swordplay and his gentlemanly spirit toward ladies, I was all set for a fitting tribute to my second son. Enjoy!

In these fair lands the tale is told
Of a young knight—Justin the Bold,
The bravest hero in the West,
Who set out on a daring quest
To save a princess from her fate
Of landing on a dragon’s plate!

Sir Justin braved the mountains cold
And mighty seas where high waves rolled;
Across the desert without rest,
He came upon his greatest test—
The dragon’s castle, black as slate
And there behind the iron gate
He saw, with princess in his hold,
The dragon on a heap of gold.

Hot flame spewed from the evil pest
And blazed upon the royal crest
Of Justin’s shield. And with a great
Charge Justin slew the beast of hate,
Thrusting his spear into a fold
Between the dragon’s armor old.
And catching up the maiden lest
She fall, he smiled and did his best
To get her home and not be late
So they could go on their first date!

Sabbatical

An Explanation

After 366 days of complete silence, I figured an explanation was in order. I am currently in my final semester of seminary and, if all goes as planned, will be free to write again in January. I'm hoping to find a nice rhythm of posting new Waltzian Heresies a couple times a week, if my priorities shake down as I expect they will. See you in 2007!

The 1994 I Never Knew

Reflections on Hotel Rwanda

I remember the summer of 1994 very clearly. I spent 12 weeks traveling the western United States with 6 friends, singing, acting, and just having an all around great time. We spent a day at Disneyland. We surfed at Pismo Beach. We crisscrossed the Rockies. We spent a night buried in sand on top of Soldier Mountain in the Mojave Desert. We visited the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite. We got all we could of San Francisco: Alcatraz, Chinatown, Broadway’s The Phantom of the Opera, even clam chowder out of a sourdough bread bowl at Fisherman’s Wharf.

I made two of the best friendships of my life that summer: Josh, who loosened me up in more ways than I can count, who stood up in my wedding, who still calls every couple months just to see how I’m doing even though he’s a major player for an internationally known and massively influential youth ministry; and Aundrea, whom it was the greatest honor of my life (knowing God excepted) to marry.

Yeah, my summer of ’94 was absolutely incredible.

Not so on the other side of the world. In April-July of 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were massacred by their own countrymen in less than 100 days.

I just watched Hotel Rwanda. “Watched” is hardly the right verb, but my numbed mind can’t command a more fitting one right now. I was able to restrain most of my emotion during the film, but when the final image froze and the credits began to roll, the dam broke and the hard sobbing began.

Just last night I spoke to some teens of my experiences in Kenya the summer before The Great ’94. In 1993 I fulfilled one of my life’s dreams: to visit Africa. For 6 weeks we worked among the Kenyan people and a bond was forged in my soul.

I love Africa. My first gift to Aundrea was a cherished “Kenya” sweatshirt that I purchased on the streets of Nairobi. The clock in my office is a brass map of the continent, complete with country outlines and a few animal figurines. My shelves and walls are covered with African carvings and musical instruments and keepsakes. Basically, I’d love to end up there for good someday cuz I… love… Africa.

Thankfully, Director Terry George spares viewers most of the gore and unimaginable horror of those months in Rwanda. But my imagination fills in the gaps with horrible effectiveness. And when I turn my thoughts back home, back to me and my own life, this movie helps me to see some things I really, really hate.

I hate my ignorance. I was living large and partying on while Rwandans were fleeing and falling from machetes. And I had no idea.

I hate my apathy. The little snippets I heard about Rwanda failed to produce any marked effect in my soul. That was over 10 years ago, but similar things are happening today on a much smaller scale in Myanmar, Sudan, Uganda, etc., etc., etc. Yet I tend to stress more over the price of gas than these atrocities.

And I hate my sin. When the rolling credits were reflecting off my tear-drenched cheeks, I heard myself crying out, “Oh, God… Oh, God, why?” And the only answer I know is "sin." Sin does this to us. Satan brought us this Pandora’s Box. The nearest rival in the universe to the height of God’s love for humanity is the depth of Satan’s hate. And every time I bite into the fruit he offers me, I’m feeding from the hand that soaked Africa in Rwandan blood.

I’m sure there’s more to say about Hotel Rwanda and even more to say about the horror of genocide. I suppose I should add “I hate my lack of skill to evoke compassion in readers” to the list above. But I don’t imagine that God brought me this movie tonight for your benefit, my good readers. He brought it to me for mine. And I thank Him for it. I’ll never look at the summer of 1994 the same way again.

Getting Glad in God

My New Blogging Venture

If you're interested, I've begun a second weblog. As you'll read from the description at the top of the page, it's basically my devotional journal.

My goal for my own devos is to get my heart happy in God, and so that's the intent of publishing these thoughts to the web—to stir up joy in God in your own heart.

I also have a couple secondary purposes: 1) to offer you something of a pattern, though an admittedly weak one, for your own reading and meditating on the Scriptures; 2) to offer me a little public accountability for writing something worth reading in my devo journal.

So check it out at your leisure. I hope you’re delighted by what you see of God there.

Math vs. The Creative Writer

The Christian Priority Of Language

Math is so round
As I lay on the ground
Trees call me

Baffled? I was, too, the first time I heard those lines. We were in pre-calc, sitting in the back row, struggling with some new math thing, when my friend leaned his head back on the chalkboard and spontaneously expressed his bewilderment with that three-line poem. Go figure…

Crazy as it is, this little bit of poetry sets me right up for what I want to say in this post. By bursting forth into verse, my buddy showed me something about himself at that moment—that math wasn’t his natural territory; language was. He was a pretty decent logical-mathematical thinker, but his “primary intelligence” was linguistic.

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a little educational psychology. About 20 years ago Howard Gardner, an education professor at Harvard, recognized that different people seem to show intelligence in different areas. Some people are really good with words, others are good with numbers, others are musical, others are relational, others are visual, etc. His theory of multiple intelligences laid out eight different types of intelligence, eight different ways people receive and process information.

The result? Well-trained teachers don’t restrict themselves to the “I-talk-and-you-listen” method of instruction anymore. Thanks to Gardner, now we’ve got hands-on projects, music, group cooperation, art activities, role play, multimedia, inner reflection, and all kinds of other teaching techniques being used in the classroom for just about every subject. If you’re a visual learner who likes pictures more than words, that’s OK: we’ll teach you your way. If you’re more musical than logical, no worries. We won’t press you into our mold.

So far so good. In my last post I mentioned that I’m teaching math to my boys this year. In our first lesson, we played with blocks. We drew pictures. I talked; they listened. I demonstrated; they followed. I queried; they answered. I applied all the diverse methods I could. Why? Cuz I took ed psych in college, and I believe Gardner was right: different intelligences warrant different teaching methods.

Gardner’s influence doesn’t stop with schools these days. He’s also begun to shape how we do church, too, most noticeably in how we preach. A song inserted into the sermon helps drive home the point for musical learners. A video clip or a drama sets things up nicely for those who are visually oriented. Giving each worshipper a little item to represent the topic of the sermon offers those bodily-kinesthetic learners something to touch and manipulate.

But here is where I get a little more cautious. Here’s where I want to inject a little bit of sober reflection into our unrestrained enthusiasm for multiple intelligence theory. It’s not a matter of propriety or tradition or association. None of these reasons makes me balk at the new approaches to public sermon delivery. What makes me uncomfortable is the apparent assumption that all intelligences are equally valuable, equally helpful, equally desirable, and equally Christian.

I disagree. Christianity, it seems to me, places a clear preference upon linguistic learning. Why do I say that? Two main reasons:

1. God revealed Himself in a book, more precisely, a book of words and not pictures. Presumably, He could have waited until DVD technology was available; after all, He waited at least until paper was around. But His choice to reveal Himself in a book says something important about what sort of learning best suits Christian instruction. Historically, Christians have always recognized this, demonstrated by the phenomenon that where Christianity increased, literacy also increased.

2. God can be known most accurately and completely through words. No visual representation of Him could ever convey His glory completely. Subjectivity and ambiguity render images unsuitable for teaching us the most important things we need to know about God. This is the whole point about general vs. special revelation. We need words from God, not just images. In fact, the Second Commandment actually prohibits us from trying to depict Him visually, a clear argument for the priority of language in communicating about God.

Lest I be misunderstood, let me point out that Christian worship appropriately incorporates every one of Gardner’s intelligences in some way or another: cultivating relationships, observing the ordinances (baptism and the communion), singing, self-examination, etc. All of these are integral to Christianity. But there’s a clear priority on verbal, propositional instruction.

So what’s the point?

The minor point is that Christianity doesn't view all the intelligences as equal. We must hear words from God, and I think pastors would do well to uphold that understanding by prioritizing the spoken word over all other forms of communication when they bring the word of God to their people.

The major point is this: cultivate your aptitude for verbal thought. Read. Write. Listen. Work very hard to make your mind more receptive to logical, propositional thought. To my little math students I say, "Devin and Justin, learn your math well; but know that in the end, numbers serve words. We do math in order to do language better. And we do language in order to know God."

No matter what kind of learner you are, cultivate your ability to receive and process words. Why? Because Christianity would survive without pictures or music or numbers. But not without words.

Adding Up To A Promising Tomorrow

What’s At Stake In Your Everyday Math Class

Everything changed today. As I drove away from home, I had that feeling that we were on the brink of something really big and there's no going back. See, about two weeks ago my wife and I made the very, very tough decision to educate our boys at home this year, and so now Dad, the math major, has a math date with the little dudes at 7:45 at the dining room table every morning.

Today was the first day of school. Just like that I’m back in the educational scene again, but this time I’m on the teacher’s side of the desk for the first time since I left teaching to become a youth pastor back in 1997.

We don't know how long we're going to keep this educational arrangement. We’re taking it one step at a time. Might be just this year; might be quite a while. Our expectation is that we’ll keep it this way until all five of our children complete 8th grade. That’s a long time. Devin is 8 years away from high school, but Julia Grace won’t be there for 13-14 years. And like I said, that is a looong time.

And so as I drove away from home, I had the distinct feeling that we were talking about an arrangement that could last for quite a while. My mind immediately zoomed out into panoramic, big picture mode. My thoughts raced ahead several years to some future day when we’ll have spent literally thousands of hours on math alone. Five days a week, nine months a year, for eight long years, we’ll meet, and we’ll work over some mathematical concept. What do I want my little dudes to take away from all this?

A gazillion ideas came to answer the question I posed to myself. Two of them—two reasons for all this expenditure of time, money, and mental energy—caught my attention and dominated my thoughts for the rest of my drive to the office. I’ll treat one in this post and the other in the next (which is when I’ll finally get to the importance of language, which I promised I’d write about in my last post ages and ages ago…)

Math is worth the effort, not so much because of what it puts in our mind, but because of what it does to our mind. In my opinion, math is less about content and more about effect.

Here’s what I mean. When we learn that 1 + 1 = 2, we are given an indispensable element of a successful future in math. It’s also a relatively helpful bit of knowledge for everyday life.

But when we nail down this little 1st grade mathematical concept, there are much bigger things at work in our brain. We’re actually learning far more than the mere sum of 1 and 1. For example, learning that 1 plus 1 equals 2 also teaches us:

• to assume the existence of universals and absolutes. No one proposes that 1 + 1 can be whatever you’d like it to be. It’s always 2 for every person everywhere.
• to rely on logic rather than observation or intuition as the standard of truth. A child’s intuition might lead him/her to believe that 1 + 1 = 1, following the pattern of ones in the left half of the equation; but logic demonstrates that things are not always as they appear.
• to follow deliberate, objective steps in moving toward a conclusion. Math forces us to follow rules of thought, sometimes self-consciously, thus sharpening our ability to think clearly and properly.
• to think creatively in solving problems we don’t remember seeing before. The problem-solving skills we develop in math class have far broader effects than just getting 4 credits toward a high school diploma.
• to work with symbols, thus enhancing our ability to handle abstraction. The black marks on the page that appear to us as 1 + 1 = 2 are actually universal symbols that we use to represent a specific proposition: any 1 thing coupled with any other 1 thing nets you 2 things.

I suppose a real mathematician could go on and on with the list. My point is this: math does something to our mind. All those multiplication tables in 4th grade and word problems in 7th grade and geometric proofs in 10th grade actually shape our brain to work in certain ways. They are like the forms that construction workers put in place when they pour concrete, getting our mind ready to handle abstract, propositional thought with accuracy and fluency. Years and years of math ready us for a future of careful, productive cognition in every other discipline: theology, ethics, history, the languages, the arts, all of them.

So here we are, with thousands of hours of math before us. And what do I see? As a math teacher, I see myself shaping little brains, training ready minds, raising young thinkers… and wearing out a whole lot of pencil lead and erasers along the way!

Got a math class this semester? Great! Need some motivation? How about this: working hard at math gets you a thousand intellectual benefits later in life.

All this time you’ve been complaining about that confusing, irritating y = mx + b stuff… all the fears that it might keep you from a high SAT, a top-notch college, and that great career… Actually, the exact opposite is true! The way I see it, today’s Slope-Intercept Form is tomorrow’s irrefutable argument or well-reasoned decision or creative solution!

So there you have it. Math: today’s ticket to a promising tomorrow!

When Words Won’t Work

What We Learn When Life Leaves Us Speechless

Sometimes I wonder if words get in the way of what our heart really wants to share. Ever feel like that? You’re speechless, not for lack of something to say but because words can’t quite capture it.

I’ve seen that happen to lots of people as they try to describe their feelings about God or a struggle they’re dealing with or the reason they made the decision they made. Our feelings often surpass our ability to communicate them.

Just thinking about it takes my mind in lots of different directions. (How ironic that there’s so much to say about being speechless!) Here are some of the questions that come to mind…

I wonder if this what the Bible means when it talks about the groanings of our spirit or when it says things like “we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Rom 8:26).

I wonder if, when the words are working for us, we tend to hold back a little bit in our effort to communicate. I mean, those moments when words fail us, we usually get all animated and start using gestures and sounds (like when “talking” to someone who doesn’t speak very much English). We put everything we’ve got into our attempt to share our message. But when the words are there, we just kind of blurt out the first phrase that comes to mind, expecting the listeners to understand it just like we meant it.

I wonder if, when we are the listener and not the speaker, we content ourselves with hearing only the words and miss the meaning. Perhaps we’re too quick to assume that if we hear their words, we’ve understood their heart.

And I wonder if there’s a way to talk and a way to listen that makes those wordless moments workable anyway. I wonder if we can train ourselves to listen to someone’s heart so well that the words kind of fade into the background and we actually hear a person instead of just some words.

Anyway, I’ve come to a conclusion from all this talk about being speechless. It’s certainly true that God has graciously given human beings the capacity for language, and we are foolish to neglect it (more about that in the next post…). But we are even more foolish to suppose that mere verbalizing equals communicating.

In our relationships with other people, I think we would do really well NOT to assume that simply saying our piece or listening to theirs means that we’ve reached an understanding. Human beings are not mere minds that think with mouths that talk. We have a body that directly encounters our world and a soul that filters and sorts and shapes and is shaped by what we experience. And sometimes those experiences go beyond what we are able to put into words.

I think God does that to us on purpose. Why? To remind us that we aren’t God, first of all. Only He has infinite capacity for Self-expression. But there’s probably another reason. Perhaps God gives us those speechless moments just so we’ll remember that real communication goes way beyond words and phrases and clauses. Real communication happens heart to heart, soul to soul, person to person. It’s beyond logic and deeper than emotion. When you experience it—when you really connect with someone—it’s… it’s…

To Teach Us To Love

Reflecting on Terri Schiavo’s Case

I see at least two angles from which to approach Terry Schiavo’s situation. The first is the moral/legal angle: is what is happening to her right or wrong? In my opinion, the answer is pretty straightforward: passive euthanasia is as indefensible as active euthanasia.

The second angle is the personal one: should her situation affect me personally? There’s probably a whole lot we could say here, but what follows gets to the very heart of the matter. My sister wrote these reflections on Terri’s case in her journal yesterday. Her entry affected me so deeply, I asked her if I could republish it here. (For those who are concerned about such things, I changed the names.) Here’s her post…

The Terri Schiavo case seems to drag on and on, pushing into the numb areas of our brains til we no longer want to hear any more about it. Til we no longer care, really. That’s just human nature—it doesn’t affect me personally, and until it does, please just shut up about it. I went to the website that tells her story, and I felt it begin to affect me personally. So I thought I'd tell why.

I used to work in a huge 24-hour care hospice for mentally retarded, physically handicapped, often self-abusive people. I worked in the children’s ward. Each CNA was assigned a group of 4 to 6 children, often separated by gender. I was assigned the boy’s group more often than not because of my age and physical strength. I grew to love those boys in a way that has never left me.

Brandon -- autistic and mentally retarded. He would play for hours with difficult toys, holding them just out of his vision and operating them perfectly. He walked with gigantic, jerky steps. He was tall for 16, and his autism ran him into a mental and emotional cave. I discovered that he would let me hug him from behind, digging my chin into his right shoulder and humming. He would not only let me, he would actually giggle.

Brent -- he was my first grand mal seizure. I cried. I'd never seen a human form reduced to such helplessness. When it was over, he was limp. It was the only time Brent was ever able to be limp. His muscles were normally stretched taut, poisoned by rigidity. He was sweet and precious in his coos and smiles and huge eyes. He was 14.

Marky -- what a challenge. Tiny, soooo tiny. He was 17, but I could carry him as easily as I carry my 4-year-old today. He would slam any area of his body into his large, pointed teeth. He had sores and green infection all over from his self-abuse. He was born with no eyes. He had the highest cognitive ability of any of our residents. He could feed himself, walk unassisted, bathe himself, drink, use the bathroom. He would go into fits of rage and throw himself around his room, damaging his body horribly. I was afraid of him. Then I found out how much he loved his baths. I had to lay entire blankets into the tub, lining the hard sides, before filling it with water, but every single night I'd go through the ritual for him. He'd let me undress him and put him in, and then he'd grope about, trying to find the hard surface he knew was there. He wanted to bash his face into it, repeatedly. I'd gently redirect him, guiding his hand to the surface of the warm water, hoping he'd relax and begin to pat it with his boney hand, like he loved to do. I'd sing to him, and I'd tell him that I loved him. After his bath, I'd cuddle him on his bed, rocking him and singing to him. He'd relax into me and breathe in a humming fashion to himself. His destructive fits began to take on a personal pain for me. His parents, unlike most of the others, lived just down the street. They never visited. Not once in the three years I was there. They sent a card for his birthday one time, and I don't believe what he did to it had anything at all to do with chance. I read him the card and helped him feel the fuzzy animals on it. He held it, sat still, and slowly ejected a large wad of spit onto it. I felt the same way.

Kendall -- my little doll. He was born normal, but he had a drop seizure at age two. He was forever two, at 16 years old. He would grab his pillow and yell, "BED!!!" Or he'd point at a picture and grin madly while hollering, "BALL!!!!" He had to wear a football helmet because of his drop seizures, but you could always see his grin and big brown eyes through the face. Everyone was
"mommy" to him.

There were so many others. But the one that I think of when I think of Terri Schiavo is a girl named Anna. She was most often in my co-worker Becca's group. I would help Becca with Anna because Anna required large blocks velcroed between her legs and arms/body every night. And a diaper, of course. Everyone wore diapers. Anna was one of our tube feeders. The other was Chelsea, a responsive, smiley little girl. Anna was the daughter of a couple who had died in a house fire. She survived, but barely. She did nothing; she was capable of absolutely nothing. I never understood why she was even alive. Chelsea's tube feedings were three times a day, administered by us with the nurse on duty. She knew she was eating and would even lick her lips as we filled the tube in her tummy. Anna's tube feeding was constant, like an IV drip. One night, fully expecting Becca's ready agreement, I said in a cutting tone, "I don't even understand why Anna is alive or even here. She is practically comatose." Becca dropped what she was doing, and her eyes met mine, rather shocked and horrified. "Do you really feel that way, Danna?" "Well, not to be mean, but yeah, she never responds, never moves, is capable of NOTHING, yet she lives on through the tube feeding and all our administrations." Becca set her jaw, and asked me to follow her. When we reached Anna's bedside, Becca motioned for me to be quiet. She leaned down to Anna, looking full in her face. "Hi, Sunshine," she cooed at her. "How are you tonight? Do you know I love you, Sunshine?" Anna's body made a shifty move and she smiled a wide, contorted, toothy smile, her fingers flexing jerkily. I felt stabbed. With guilt . . . with total regret. I was red-faced as I walked out next to Becca, and I thanked her for setting me straight.

Anna became one of my biggest blessings after that. She changed my life. She would be described as "no quality of life" and maybe even "persistive vegetative state" incorrectly like Terri Schiavo. But sometimes it's not for us to decide quality by our own subjective standards. Sometimes it's just our responsibility to love and care for our weaker brothers.

I have two daughters. I suffered from an eating disorder. I relate to Terri Schiavo on a couple levels, and I relate to her parents on a universal level. I don't understand why Terri's husband will not relinquish his control, allowing the people who are the reason he is WITH Terri to have her back as their child, their responsibility. Terri is not on life support. She is tube fed. Just like Chelsea and Anna. She is loved and her life is valued.

Why is our justice system bent on protecting a man who does not have the best interests of all involved at heart? Eating disorders don't come from nowhere; my suspicions are ALL on him. He has made two children with his current girlfriend. None of this adds up to "loving" his wife. Why can't he let her go to the ones who want to spend their lives caring for their daughter? I think I would pull a "John Q" if I were them, if either of my daughters was being tormented by her husband like Terri Schiavo is. She left no will, he puts words into her mouth, and from her history, it would appear it's not the first time.

I believe Terri's life is worth protecting. As much I believe the lives of my own children are. Anna taught me that. And I believe that's why God allows Anna and people like her to live: to teach us to love.

Scolding Squirrels and Pesky Parents

How Life Doesn’t Come Naturally to Humans

As I was walking out to my car today, a squirrel hopped down from one of our trees, bounced across the lawn, and scurried up one of our neighbor’s trees. He found a perch to his liking on a limb about 20 feet up where he hunkered down and scolded me with all his little might. I noticed that about ⅔ of his tail was missing, which really got my attention and started me to thinking: “Wow, you’re in a bad mood! What’s with the attitude? And what in the world happened to your poor tail?”

Driving away, I kept thinking about my little woodland critter-criticizer. But now I was thinking in broader categories: “Squirrels use their tail for all kinds of stuff. He must be quite a survivor to live with the little stubby one he’s got. How did he do it? I wonder if he had a tail-loss support group for a while…” And then my train of thought derailed entirely and careened off in a direction that can probably happen only my randomly wired mind…

I started marveling at all the amazing things animals do without any training whatsoever. Little birds leave the nest without ever learning how to build one. Squirrels just know that it’s time to gather food in the fall. Salmon swimming upstream, beavers building dams, bees making honey, whales singing their song… who teaches them this stuff? Sure, some animal species do a little more “child-training” than others, but for the most part, life just comes naturally to animals.

Not so for people, though. We don’t “do life” very well if we’re left to ourselves. Infant human beings have a very limited repertoire of innate abilities: sucking, the falling reflex, stuff like that. And it’s true that a normal, healthy child has incredible potential for development, some of which happens naturally: motor skill progression, language acquisition, and all the other cool stuff you study in developmental psychology. But generally speaking, human beings require purposeful care and training to live, or at least, to live well.

Think about it… Imagine if you had to approach life entirely on your own, no teachers, no models, nothing. You’re given all the raw materials of life but no instruction for how to use them. So you start in on teaching yourself the skills of childhood—tying shoes, adding numbers, telling time, reading words. It’s conceivable that you could eventually learn to do it all on your own; after all, somewhere back there in history some pioneering mathematician worked out 2 + 2 all by himself. But can you imagine the inefficiency, the repeated failures, the frustration, the wasted time and energy?

And then you come to the skills of adolescence and young adulthood—choosing friends, making major decisions, developing your own views of right and wrong, learning to handle your own emotions and desires. Once again, it’s conceivable that you could eventually learn to do it all on your own. But just imagine the inefficiency, the repeated failures, the frustration, the wasted time and energy. Our instincts don’t serve us very well when it comes to this stuff; for our species, life goes better with a teacher.

But here’s where it gets a little sticky… For some strange reason, somewhere along the way to adolescence, we get the idea that we’re ready to go it on our own. We come to believe we’re ready to live by our own instincts. We’re convinced that life comes naturally to us, and we don’t need the help of models or teachers anymore. Hmmm… how strange. But I’ve gotten ahead of myself a bit…

Ever think about what God could have done? He didn’t have to set up our world this way, right? I mean, He created this world; He wrote the rules; He could have set it up any way He wanted. He could have created us to be just like squirrels, where everything just comes naturally and we negotiate through life perfectly well from start to finish with very few dependencies or needs. But He didn’t do it that way. He created us with built-in deficiencies, a need for careful training, an irremediable lack if left to ourselves. God made us this way on purpose.

And then He gave us some built-in, batteries-included, complete package, personal tutors to help us learn what we need to live well. Any idea what I’m talking about? Think it’s your school? Nope. The internet? Not really. Angels who come down and help every new generation? Not quite. God’s solution for our inability to live well on our own is our own parents.

These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Dt 6:6-7)

God commanded our fathers to teach their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments. (Ps 78:5-7)

Why all this strange contrasting of human development with squirrels? Cuz I want you to take full advantage of the access God has given you to your own personal life coaches. Here’s what I mean…

If you’re still living at home or simply away at college, realize that God gave you parents for a reason. Don’t be so foolish or so arrogant as to assume that you’ll do perfectly fine negotiating through life on your own, thank you very much. Remember how nice it was to have parents who could help you learn your multiplication tables? Well, why not ask them for help with that problem at your lunch table… or with that really huge question you’ve been afraid to ask… or with that temptation you’re struggling with… or with that relationship that you’re mulling over… or whatever else it is. God gave you parents; use ’em!

But not everyone has that option cuz their situation is different. Know what? The family is still the answer even for people with really dysfunctional parents… or only one parent… or none at all. How is that true? Well, that’s where the church comes in as the “family of God.” What your own parents lack in character or wisdom or influence, God intends for you to get from a church family. Even when you’re out of the house and on your own, God still wants you in a family. He gave you the church; use it!

So here’s the deal… You might as well give up on the idea that you’re ready to tackle life on your own. It’s not gonna happen. Ever. Life doesn’t come naturally to humans. We need instructors, teachers, models, and friends. In short, we need family. So quit acting like you’re some squirrel. It’s time to quit reading this blog, get off the internet, and get talking to your parents!

Get Real, Part 2

Making It Happen

Nick asked a really good question after reading the post “Get Real” below: “How can we fight the easy but disappointing tendency to keep to ourselves?” I thought a lot about it, wrote out ¾ of my answer a couple days later, and then tucked it away with all my other unfinished posts. Until now…

How can we fight for community? My answer falls into two parts, a two-directional approach that targets our own heart first and then our approach to relationships second.

In our original created state, complete openness extended all the way to our physical forms: “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” (Gen 2:25) The point here is not nudity; it’s community. They had absolutely nothing to hide. Total openness, nothing concealed. But obviously that state of perfect community didn’t last beyond the first recorded human meal. The first two things they did after their dinner of forbidden fruit were to get dressed and to hide from God. The lesson is pretty clear: sin destroys community.

This realization is a pretty important part of the answer in and of itself, because we don’t usually fear sin for what it will do to our relationships with others. Typically we fear sin because we like a clean conscience or we want to stay out of jail or we want to keep up our image in the eyes of other people. Rarely do we fear sin because we love being so close to people and we know sin will pull us apart. But the simple realization that sin ruins relationships—even sin that is not inherently related to the relationship itself—this awareness heightens the stakes considerably. Temptation loses lots of luster when I realize that even my secret sins or my little problems like greed and pride and laziness ruin the intimacy in my marriage, my friendships, and my community.

So the first way to fight for community is to fight sin in our own lives. My own sin is the biggest obstacle to intimacy in any of my relationships. Peter makes this point when he writes: “Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.” (1 Pt 1:22) In other words, we can’t connect when we’re covered with crud. It’s like trying to hook up a trailer that’s been sitting with its hitch in the mud: the connection isn’t possible until you get the gook out.

The second way to fight for community is to develop a cross-centered approach to our relationships. Put most simply, a cross-centered mindset works like this: “I’m completely forgiven and accepted by God because of Jesus. So how does that impact this friendship?”

For example, genuine community demands openness: no secrets, no façade, no desire to impress. False pretenses make pretend friendships. The alternative, of course, is to be who we really are, but yikes! What if we open up and we get rejected? Ouch! What a risk!

Enter the gospel… The cross minimizes risk in a couple ways. First, since the most important Person in the universe accepts us, it matters a lot less if other people don’t. Second, the cross means that the crud people might see when we let them in isn’t our permanent crud. We’re actually a guest on God’s “Complete Makeover: Soul Edition.” People are a lot more forgiving when they realize there’s a transformation going on, like when they see those “Please Excuse Our Mess” signs at the mall when they’re remodeling a store.

The need to be cross-centered is pretty obvious, if we think about it. After all, the cross fixed what the Fall ruined. If we understand that the Fall ruined community, we can intuit that the cross restores it.

One of clearest examples of people living in really close community, sharing their stuff, and enjoying intimate relationships is the Jerusalem church. “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.” (Acts 4:32) Where did that kind of community come from? The very next verse says, “And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” I take that to mean, among other things, that this was a group profoundly centered on the gospel. The gospel is the garden where real community grows.

So, that’s my answer. The first step is directed inward; the second is outward. Fight sin in your own life; live the gospel with others. There’s probably a whole lot more to it that these two things, but I am pretty sure that these two are at the very heart of the matter.

One more thing… I think we’re going to need some very powerful motivation if we’re going to break out of our comfortable but uninspiring habits and pursue community like this. We need more than technique; we need inspiration. So how about this…

John takes up the theme of community in his first letter, and he hits it pretty hard. He’s arguing with all his might for close fellowship, extolling our love for each other, commending forgiveness, going on and on. But just a couple verses into the subject, he gives us his motive for writing: “we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete” (1 Jn 1:4). Catch it? He’s stirring them up to pursue community so that his joy and theirs will be full, perfect, complete. So there you go…

Want to be fully, perfectly, completely happy? Get real.

Hi!

...And A Quick Update

Hey all you Waltzian Heretics out there! Just a quick post to let you know I’m still alive and I intend to keep writing. BUT… I have to figure out when.

Things have been crazybusy lately (to use a term coined by another blogger). If you were to check the date on my last post, you’d have the exact moment my life hit warp speed. My seminary classes started up again that second week in January, and things haven’t been the same since. In fact, even as I write this post I’m spooning soup into my mouth between sentences, opting for a working lunch instead of the preferable “lunch break.” (Reminds me of Jesus’ situation in Mark 6:31: “many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” Yep, that’s me – just like Jesus!)

So anyway, please check back occasionally. I think I’m getting a little better handle on things. And thanks to those of you who have continued to check and have even asked me what’s up. Life is what’s up.