Hast thou heard...

In The Everlasting Man, G. K. Chesterton calls Job "one of the colossal cornerstones of the world," and in his introduction to the book of Job (read it, people), he calls it one of the most interesting of all modern and ancient books. Further research, including an awesome commentary that I first discovered in Oxford but have more recently discovered on teh internets, has only caused me to agree with this statement of vast importance more and more. The book of Job is extremely important, and remains to this day one of the most immediately relevant and applicable books of all time.

And it is not merely because of the ending. It is not merely because Job does not fail. It is because of the sense, inherent in the book of Job, that at any moment Job might fail. At any point in his dialogue with his friends, Job might "curse God and die." Everything hangs by a thread, and all the heavenly beings are on the edge of their heavenly seats, waiting to see what this man of clay will do.

The first interesting thing about Job, of course, is that it is God who throws down the gauntlet and Satan who picks it up, God who boasts of Job's faith and Satan who angrily (and defensively) attacks that faith. God initiates the heavenly challenge, the celestial wager. And Satan leaps at it. Satan believes that Job, like himself, is ultimately in it for himself. Faith in God has provided him with earthly wealth--take it away, and Job's faith will disappear. The angels chuckle and nudge each other when God brings up Job--they all know Job, especially those whom God may have tasked with rewarding Job for his faith.

And then the heavenly host falls silent as Satan angrily hurls his challenge: "Stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face!"

All eyes turn to the glorious, radiant throne. But immediately comes the response, and the angels gasp and the devil, almost disbelieving his good fortune, leaps: Satan's request is granted, and all that Job possesses, save his own person, is in the hands of the great Accuser. Satan wastes no time: Immediately he leaves the heavenly court and, upon arriving once again on earth, completely destroys everything that Job has--all his property, all his livestock, but more importantly, all his sons and daughters. The angels are struck dumb, the devils cheer, but the throne of Yahweh is silent. As MacFadyen says, Satan uses "not only the robber tribes of the desert, but the very lightning, the fire of God from heaven, and the mighty rushing wind that comes up from the desert. These calamities may be natural in their kind, but they are supernatural in in their intensity and in the rapidity of their succession." There can be no doubt in anyone's mind that this is the work of God. And all the angels in heaven and all the devils in hell watch as Job cries in pain, rips his robe, shaves his head, and finally collapses into the dust.

His lips quiver. His words catch in his throat. Finally he gathers the strength to speak, face streaked with tears and muddy dust. "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. Jehovah has given, Jehovah has taken: The name of Jehovah forever be..." There is complete and utter silence in the universe, as every unseen spirit huddles close around to hear what his next word will be. Satan is poised to begin his celebratory journey to Jehovah's court. The angels are nervous, comforted only by the still-radiant throne of Jehovah.

But Satan has chosen poorly. The Great Cynic (as MacFadyen calls him) has met his match. "The name of Jehovah forever be blessed." And the cheers from heaven drown out the shrieks and howls of hell, and Satan staggers back, puzzled and furious. Job blesses God, despite his knowledge that God could have protected him. Satan can take Job's possessions, his livestock, even his family away: But he cannot take God away, and it is to God that Job clings. I'm going to end this section (I think there will be a part 2 soon) with a quote from MacFadyen:

Why do good men suffer? One answer to that is this: That through their suffering a divine purpose—we do not yet say what purpose, but some purpose—is being worked out. To the thinking heart life would be intolerable and history a chaos, were their seeming confusions not redeemed and illuminated by a sense of purpose. This is the faith that reconciles us to the mystery, and this is the faith which shines through the story of the council in heaven. The blows that shatter to atoms the happiness of Job are not dealt by chance or accident or any random hand: they fall by permission. They come, because "Jehovah had said to Satan, ‘Hast thou considered my servant Job?’” That is, the sorrows below find their explanation in the world above. 


Check out part 2 here.

Ethical infanticide

Two ethicists in Australia have argued, in an international journal of medicine, that it is acceptable to kill a newborn baby soon after birth. Some of you may have seen this already, but for those who haven't, click here. If you just threw up in your mouth a little bit, I understand, Go spit it out and get a glass of water. I'll wait.

Ready? Ok.

They admit that a baby, even a fetus, is both a "human being" and a "potential person." But a newborn baby is NOT a "person," because a person is someone who "is capable of attributing to her existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her." In short, to be considered a person, and thus to merit "a moral right to life," you must possess the cognitive function to be aware of your existence and to attach value to that existence.

So newborns are not people. If the continued existence of the child would cause hardship to the parents or society (for instance, if the child had Downs syndrome),  then the "actual personhood" of the parents, or society as a whole, would override the "potential personhood" of the newborn baby. There is, therefore, no reason to keep the baby alive: the most sensible option is to kill him or her to eliminate the inconvenience to the "actual" people.

So here's another thing that isn't explicitly pointed out in the article: This type of reasoning is not limited to babies with birth defects. All newborns are merely "potential people"... and they remain potential people for a long time, until they develop the cognitive skills to assign value to their existence. So you could choose to kill your child just because it would cause you economic hardship. Because it would inconvenience you. As to adoption, the researchers state that here, once again, the rights of "actual people" supersede those of "potential people": they say that the natural mother suffers psychological distress from giving up her child to someone else--the natural solution being, of course, to merely kill the child out of hand.

Now here's the really important thing: Once you accept the moral goodness (or at least ambiguity) of abortion, you have no ground for arguing against this. This is the logical next step for those who support abortion. If a child who has not been born does not deserve life, then surely a child who has been just born does not deserve life. What is the difference between a child seconds before being born and a child seconds after being born? And what is the difference between a child seconds after being born and a child one year old? As the National Catholic Register has pointed out;

"Once you say all human life is not sacred, the rest is just drawing random lines in the sand."

Random lines. This is the next logical step... but it is not the last. If merely being human does not give you an inherent right to live, then what does? For now, the line has been drawn at being aware of the value of existence. But it is an arbitrary line, and it cannot ever be more than that. Where will the arbitrary line be drawn next? Mental retardation? A minimum IQ level? Once you accept that "personhood" is something that can be defined and redefined at will, there is no logical defense against moving that line still further. I cannot stress this enough. If you support abortion, then you support this kind of reasoning. Think it through. Try and find some logical, consistent way to justify killing unborn children and defending the lives of the newborn.

I'm angry, and sad, and disgusted and horrified right now. I can only say that this is the future secularism has led us too: It is the only path secularism can take, could ever take, and it will progress further and further down it until it destroys itself... or until God comes to make all things new.


EDIT: The ethicists have since done a radio interview to clarify their position, which is summarized here. I just want to post one excerpt: "She notes that after-birth abortions should be permitted if parents decide that they want to prevent their child from having a difficult or painful life. One of the reasons many people abort fetuses, she notes, is due to diseases or other deformities. But, some of these disorders are not detected while the child is in the womb. In cases such as this, Minerva and Giubilini argue in their paper, termination of the newborn should be allowed. This sentiment should also apply then to healthy newborns, she says, because some people abort perfectly health fetuses for a variety of personal reasons as well." Indeed they do... and none of them right.

Love and Tolerance

A few weeks ago, an image was posted on imgur.com that raced across facebook and other social media. It appears that there was a gay pride parade in Chicago, at which a Christian group showed up with signs: Signs reading "I'm sorry for the way the church has treated you" and other similarly toned messages. The picture, view-able here, shows a man clad only in underwear embracing, and being embraced by, a member of that Christian group. So far, so good, right? The church screwed up big time a while back, and we're still dealing with the consequences. It's good to see Christians showing love to the homosexual community.


But there is a problem: If not with the act itself, then with how it was perceived by people at large. Go back to the picture and scroll down to the comments. "This is the Christianity I grew up with! Finally... some tolerance!" "Tolerance and Acceptance...you're doing it right." Finally, one that really sums up the problem: "It's a new time of acceptance and allowance. Love reigns..."

Those of you who regularly read my blog may remember a post I did a while back regarding the world's perception of love and tolerance. Judging by the comments on the image, the world is incapable of separating "love" and "tolerance." To the world (and an increasingly large number of Christians), it is unthinkable that you can love someone, and not be tolerant/accepting of their lifestyle. 


I'm going to use an analogy now. And, as with all analogies, their is a danger in it being misunderstood. The only purpose of this analogy is to demonstrate that one can love a person and still seek to change a core aspect of who they are. Understood? Let's take a man with a heart condition. Let's say he has a hole in his heart that gets microscopically bigger with each beat: Let's even say this condition was congenital--he was born this way. In ten or twenty years, he will die. Can you love the person, yet insist he get treatment for it? Of course you can. 


But that's not the same as homosexuality, clearly. That's a purely physical condition, whereas homosexuality is a matter of mind and spirit. So let's take mental illness (note: analogy). Here I should say that I have extensive personal experience in being close to and loving someone who is mentally ill. Often, the illness can very nearly define the person suffering from it, and, to make things worse, the sufferer will often refuse to believe that they are even mentally ill. The illness has been with them so long, it influences every single thought they have, it extends into almost every portion of their being... it seems perfectly, utterly natural to them (indeed, to them it is natural) and they do not understand why they need to take medication, because they're fine, they really are. 


Now: Can you love someone who is mentally ill and, in love, try as hard as you can to get them to take their medication? Indeed, it seems as though that's the only loving thing to be done. It would not be loving to tolerate their illness as something natural, even if it is something they were born with (although here, my personal experience does not extend). It would not be loving to accept their dangerous illness and leave them be. 

That is not love.

But it is tolerance. It is acceptance. It is allowance. And its result is apathy and death.

As a Christian, I believe that homosexual actions are sinful. I understand that to many homosexuals, their homosexuality is a key part of their identity, and I am NOT saying that homosexuals are in any way less human than any other person. But as a Christian, I believe that the proper response, indeed the only response, is to do as Jesus did to the woman caught in adultery: To love the person wholeheartedly, and show absolute intolerance for the sin. "Neither do I condemn you. Now go, and sin no more." Jesus does not condemn her for her sins... BUT neither does he give her (or us) any room for thinking that her lifestyle is acceptable to God. Jesus loved her, not her lifestyle, and he seemed to easily separate the two.

Hotwings cannot buy happiness (who knew?)

Got a cool story to tell you guys. So... most of you know that I love hotwings (and yes, for me it is one word). Even thinking about the word, and then typing it out, has caused my mouth to water a little bit. Hmm... hotwings. But anyway, my old apartment in Fresno was about ten minutes from Buffalo Wild Wings (as is my new apartment: life is goooood). And Buffalo Wild Wings has this really cool thing going on Tuesdays: $.50 wings. I'm gonna say it again. Fifty. Cent. Wings. It's basically the greatest invention in the field of hotwings since, well, hotwings. So it became a regular thing for me to go there and get wings to go for lunch, every Tuesday. It made me very happy. It was the non-Anna-related highlight of my week (still is, some weeks). So the backstory is done. Here comes the actual story.

So it's Tuesday. All morning I'm looking at my clock, because while ten o'clock may be too early to get a lunch of hotwings, it's definitely not too early to think about a lunch of hotwings. Around twelve I decide I can go get hotwings without shame. So I head over there: uneventful drive, avoiding most of the traffic. I get there, pull into an open "take-out only" spot (so close to the doors!). I walk in--no line. I go straight to the counter, order my wings, get one order closer to five dollars off (there's a little card that you hand them and they punch a hole in it... pretty standard stuff). Sit down, surf LoL forums on my phone for ten minutes, and get my wings way before I expected them to be ready. I open the bag, crack the cardboard box a bit, and fill my nostrils with the delicious, delicious scent of hotwings. After i regain my composure, I walk out, feeling on top of the world. If I knew how to whistle, I'd be whistling. If I knew how to strut, i'd be strutting. Life is good.

So there I am. In ten minutes I'm gonna get my hotwings all up ins. I open my car door, slide in, set the hotwings down on the seat beside me (oh, the sheer smell of them...), put the keys in the ignition, turn them, and...

Nothing. Just the sad, pathetic sound of my engine telling me, "You know what? I'm not really feeling it right now." No. I turn the key again. No. Again. No no noooooo! Now the smell is taunting me. What am I to do, eat them without soda? In my car? No. That'd be ridiculous. I try again. Still nothing.

Now my car does have issues. It does this sometimes. So the last time I'd been home, my good friend and constant giver of marital advice Silvas had fixed it up for me. I hadn't had problems for probably a month. And then this happens. I call up my dad, call up Silvas. They tell me what to do, but I can't get it done. So now I've been sitting in the car for a good ten minutes. I'm thinking, "I should be eating these wings right now, watching some entertaining show and drinking soda." A thought strikes me, and I pray. And then, on a whim, I try my key again... and it works.  I drove home. I ate the wings. They. Were. Delicious.

But here's the point of the story: Here's that thought that struck me, and continues to strike me. I was so very happy at the prospect of hotwings. I'd been excited all morning about them. And looking back, I can't remember anything related to prayer that morning. No thoughts of God. No thinking Him for an awesome fiance (wasn't married yet). No thanking him for a (mostly) working car. No thanking him for the miraculous job he'd placed in my lap. All of these things were evident. They were right there. But I was excited about hotwings.

And I haven't had any problems with the car since. I think, I really think, that it was a God thing. I think it was God telling me, "Yes, you have hotwings... but you couldn't even have gotten out of the apartment parking lot without my help. You wouldn't be able to afford that apartment without my help. You wouldn't have a job, or a fiance, or a loving family, without my help." And I realized all that as I sat in my car, smelling that delicious smell that at once tantalized me and taunted me. I do think that God broke my car for those ten minutes. And then, when He'd made his point, he fixed it again.

I still get excited about hotwings. But I try to be more excited about God and the awesome gifts He's given me.

Religion

It's a little late, but a lot of you probably noticed the spurt of religion-bashing that went through the Christian circle of Facebook a couple weeks ago, beginning with a spoken word rap titled "Why I hate religion, but love Jesus." Not gonna touch that today: A much brighter mind than I has already dissected it literally line for line and demonstrated why it's a terrible piece of theology. No, my beef is with something I saw a few days ago on facebook: a quote from Roy Gustafson reading, "Religion is the story of what a sinful man tries to do for a holy God: the gospel is the story of what a holy God has done for sinful men."

Now, this is not necessarily meant to bash organized religion... but, coming as it did on the heels of the aforementioned, extremely popular video, that's how I took it. And it irked me.

Read it again. It's got a nice flow to it. A nice compare/contrast, good repetition of key words, which combine to make it easy to say, easy to remember, and, in turning a popular notion on its head, easy to agree with: All of which, as I have pointed out in a previous post, are qualities that are highly sought after in the evangelical catchphrase department. Unfortunately for us all, just because a phrase is catchy doesn't mean it's accurate.

Now the intent of this phrase seems to be to create a dichotomy between "religion" and "the gospel." Religion is portrayed as ultimately futile: What a sinful man tries to do for a holy God. The gospel is the opposite of religion: it is what a holy God has already accomplished for sinful man. The point, it seems, is that religion is not only unnecessary, but useless and even counter-productive in the face of the gospel.

Now, to some extent this is, obviously, true. Religion is, on some level, an attempt by men to do things for a holy God. And the gospel is certainly what God has already done for man. The problem is the implicit conclusion that in the face of the gospel, religion is futile, useless, and a hindrance to all good followers of Christ (the term "Christian" being deemed too religious). The problem is thinking that you can separate the good news of Jesus Christ from religion for even a second.

"Religion is the story of what a sinful man tries to do for a holy God: the gospel is the story of what a holy God has done for sinful men." However, the gospel is also the story of a holy God participating in religion with his people, as the very Word of the Father is baptized (a religious practice), participates in ceremonial worship and teaching in the temple (in a somewhat religious manner), and partakes of a yearly, highly ceremonial meal absolutely loaded with religious significance.

And let's not forget about the rest of the New Testament: How about when Paul includes moral instructions in his letters? What about when he tells Titus to teach sound doctrine and train people to be self-controlled and pure? What about when he tells Timothy to reprove and rebuke those who don't teach sound doctrine, or when he gives Timothy exact specifications for elders and deacons and men who serve the church?


Aren't all these things instructing fallen man how to better "do things" for a holy God?


And what is wrong with such an attempt? Are we not told by James that faith without works is dead? And what are works, if not this very definition of religion that Mr. Gustafson gives us? What are works if not "what a sinful man tries to do for a holy God"? That means that, accepting Mr. Gustafson's definition, faith without religion is dead. There is a necessary correlation between what a holy God has done for sinful men, and what sinful man does for a holy God: for the works, the religion, are a sign and result of the saving work of Christ.

My gospel is not one of human passivity. My gospel is not one in which Jesus goes around talking to all the static people telling them to sit tight, that they don't need to do anything. My gospel is one in which Jesus is the center of whirlwind of activity, a whirlwind of teaching and ceremony and asking and seeking and knocking, feeding the poor and taking communion and gathering together to pray...

My gospel is the story of a holy God saving sinful man, and then teaching that sinful man how to do religion right. You cannot love Jesus but hate doing things for him. You cannot take the religion out of Christianity.

Wisdom Gleaned from SNL

I was watching SNL with Anna the other day, and one of their skits was about a show called "You Can Do Anything!" It brilliantly satirized the modern culture of endless affirmation. One contestant was going to juggle ten bowling pins, and on hearing that he had never juggled before, the hosts encouraged him, saying "You can do anything!" When he failed spectacularly, failing to catch a single pin, they continued encouraging him, saying "Now, when people ask you if you can juggle, you can say yes!" My favorite line, however, came at the end, when the last contestant unveiled his skill of combining Irish dancing with Chinese calligraphy (spoiler: it doesn't go as well as you'd think). His final line after finishing his skill is "I tried, and therefore no one should criticize me."

Now, some of you may have stopped laughing (if you ever were), because this culture has even pervaded the church. There is the attitude that God doesn't care whether you fail or succeed at what you're trying to do: All that matters is that you try. If you fail, then it's certainly not your fault: God must not have wanted you to succeed in the first place! And this is all fantastic and very comforting and affirming to everyone involved, but there's one problem: This is not how Jesus acted. On the contrary...

Many of you are familiar with the Transfiguration. Jesus takes his three closest disciples--James, John, and Peter--up to a mountain to witness his Transfiguration. But we're going to look at what happens immediately after that, in Matthew 17, Mark 9, and Luke 9. After the transfiguration, they begin making their way back to the other disciples. But there's something unusual going on: A crowd of people are gathered around the other disciples, arguing with them. Jesus asks what they're arguing about, and a man begs Jesus to look at his son, because the disciples were unable to heal him.

Now look how Jesus reacts. He doesn't go over to the disciples, put his arm around them, and say, "There, there. It's alright. You tried, and that's all that matters to me. I don't care that you failed." On the contrary. Jesus answers "Oh faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?" Jesus is positively pissed. But who is he angry at? He's not angry at the guy who brings his son to him: That guy is demonstrating his faithfulness by bringing the boy to Jesus in the first place. The only logical explanation is that he is angry at the disciples. And why is he angry?

Because they failed. Or, more accurately, because of their lack of faith, which directly caused them to fail (see Matthew 17:19-20). Now, there are times when, despite having done almost everything right, we still fail. In that case, God probably does have something else in mind for us. But in this case, it's not that Jesus planned for the disciples to fail. It's not as though they did everything right and God just wanted to teach them something. Most importantly, it's not as though God put them in a situation where they were destined to fail. God gave them an opportunity: To cast out this demon, demonstrating to the crowd that their rabbi has given them that power from God. God had given the disciples everything they needed to succeed, and then he gave them an opportunity to shine... and they blew it. And Jesus is rightfully angry at them, because the responsibility for their failure lies firmly on their shoulders. (And the vehemence of his response leads me to believe that the disciples weren't exactly accepting responsibility for it.)

This isn't just an angry rant. When you fail, don't just brush it off as if it were something unavoidable, as if God had simply doomed you to fail.  Examine yourself, see what you could have done differently, and accept criticism. Then prepare yourself for the next challenge. There is a difference between success and failure, victory and defeat, and in the disciples' case, their actions were what tipped the scale. Pray in faith, and be victorious.

On Marriage

"Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." I was expecting, about a month ago, to be able to write coherently about this passage now. To say that I know what it means, what being one flesh entails. But I was wrong. If anything, I feel as though I know even less about it.
Getting ready for my wedding, people constantly asked me if I was nervous or freaking out. I was always able to say that no, I wasn't nervous. I was very excited, but also somewhat calm: I eagerly awaited marriage. Then, the night before the wedding, it hit me. The reason I wasn't nervous was because I still had only the faintest idea of what marriage entailed. The more I thought about it, the more I realized: the only way people are able to make it all the way through a wedding without completely flipping out is by not thinking too much about the crazy, incredible, mind-blowing fact of marriage.

All human beings are, by nature, dependent on God. But it is possible for human beings to be, more or less, independent of other human beings. You could be an island, a unit of one, completely independent regarding the rest of the human race. I was not that, not quite... but I could have been, in theory. But not anymore.

I am now forever linked, inseparably, to another human being, and she is linked to me (and believe me, I got the better part of that deal). I am not independent: I am now completely dependent on her, for I am no longer a unit of one. Nor am I one of a unit of two. Two become one flesh, meaning I am half of a unit of one... but it is a much greater one than the one I was before. And one half of something cannot claim, even for a moment, to be independent of the other half. Each half depends completely on the other, because only with the other can each be whole and functional.

My life is forever changed. In fact, it may well be incorrect to call it "my" life. If something is now bonded insuperably to something else, can it still be referred to as something distinct from that thing? I don't think so. That's what I mean about not being able to understand marriage, or coming close to understanding it, without freaking out. It's so mindblowingly huge that it will actually blow your mind. So to continue... our lives--my individual life and her individual life--may not even exist. They may not be things anymore. It is not our lives... it is our life. Till death do us part (if then: the Eastern Orthodox church has a super cool view of marriage). But anyway... one life. Our life.

And it's gonna be freaking awesome.