Pagan Birds and Breakfast Foods

Someone asked me if I write Christian music. She meant to discern whether my lyrics are Jesus-y and intended for church use, and my reply would have been "sometimes," if only I had been willing to leave it alone. But I would have walked away feeling very misunderstood, and since humans have a deep need to be understood, this simply wouldn't do.

I wanted to ask her if she makes Christian waffles. I wanted to tell her that Christ has all of me, including my creative ability, and I am therefore as incapable of writing a non-Christian song as a duck is incapable of making non-duck-like sounds. I wanted to tell her that the songs of mine that best reflect the revealed nature of God are the least likely to be sung corporately or enjoyed in a church setting. I wanted to tell her that my songs about adultery and depression are more Biblical than "I Can Only Imagine."

Instead, I just said "No, not really."

The Thickest of Threads

I broke bread on two separate occasions this week in the company of men with whom I have little in common. Through the nature and content of our conversations, I've come to a conclusion: unity would be a meaningless concept if those bound were exactly alike. The diversity of those unified is what makes the idea worth talking about. It's not so much complete agreement as it is resolve to remain attached in spite of disagreement. All that needs to exist is a single common thread that transcends any and all dissonance. The more transcendent the thread, the more strongly it binds, and so we find that love (self-sacrifice for the benefit of its object) is the thickest of threads.

Film Noir (Now in technicolor)

He was a yellow man with a black and blue heart who scowled at the bronzed bodies of the silver screen's golden era, green with envy and always seeing red.

Joining the Church

It seems to me that there are two ways in which one can interpret "join the church."

The first way is if one views the church as an organization, in which case it is the same as joining a club or a society: To go from being on the outside to being on the inside.

The second way is if one views the church as an active organism accomplishing a work, in which it is the same as joining a charity board or a chain-gang: To go from being inactive to being active.

It also seems to me that the second interpretation is the only Biblical one.

McCartney and the Blessed Mother

"Mary said, 'You see before you the Lord’s servant. Let it be done unto me as you have said.'"

In our world, wisdom comes from experience. Practically speaking, even Scripture backs that up. The sin is in believing that wisdom comes only from experience: that innocence equals naiveté. Mary was a virgin child, and yet even the great pagan philosopher Paul McCartney lauds her wisdom,

"When if find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom: ‘Let it be.’"

If there’s one thing the humility of the nativity teaches us, it’s that the powerless can have great authority and the inexperienced can have deep wisdom. Mary surrendered herself to the miraculous work of God in her life when she could neither deserve nor comprehend what was taking place. She stated simply, "Let it be." This is true wisdom.

Joshua Nakamura

I saw an advertisement for an upcoming film entitled, The Day the Earth Stood Still. I have no idea what it is about nor do I care. But it caused me to think about the day the sun stood still as recorded in Joshua 10. The historicity of the account is met with sharp Copernican criticism and this criticism is met with a reasoned rebuttal followed up by a jump to a typical conclusion that is typically decimated by physics. Usually it goes this way:

guy 1 - "The sun stood still."

guy 2 - "Big deal. The sun always does that. It's the earth that moves."

guy 1 - "Semantic trifle. Of course it was not the sun that stood still. But don't we in the scientifically emancipated 21st century still call it sunrise even though we know astronomically speaking it should be called the earthspin? It was really the earth that stood still."

guy 2 - "The earth and its passengers move at a rate of 66,600 miles per hour. If Earth stopped suddenly, all life would be ripped apart and slingshot from the earth at that same rate until friction stopped it. No survivors. Not Amorites, not Israelites, not even cockroaches."

guy 1 - "[pause] God can do anything."

guy 2 - "Why are we having this discussion?"

...And we have reached communication breakdown (It's always the same...).

Both sides are wise to accept that the language describing "the sun standing still" was intended to communicate the effect of whatever physical phenomenon occurred and not to scientifically document the phenomenon itself. What the scribe recorded was that an ancient commander asked his God to make the sun still because, by his ability to perceive, it seemed to him that this would give him longer daylight under which to defeat his enemies. It also seemed to him that this was exactly what happened. No need for his God to clarify. "Listen Joshua, the Sun always stands still. Answering your prayer literally would be meaningless because it's the earth that moves. [pause] Yes, seriously. And since stopping the earth would be globally cataclysmic, I'll have to do something else for you." Why go to the trouble? Joshua doesn't need a physics lesson; he needs his God's help. What physically happened is of no relevance to the commander or to his scribe. To them, the day was much, much, longer.

Where the conversation takes its fatal turn is when, after guy 1 and guy 2 agree that it couldn't have been the sun that stood still, guy 1 immediately jumps to the conclusion that the uncharacteristically immobile culprit was the earth, leading guy 2 to point out the obvious. Allow me to offer another option.

While we're allowing that the sun standing still was only the people's perception of the phenomenon, why not explore other scenarios that could produce the same appearance? What if instead one thing slowing down, other things just moved much faster? Time is relative, therefore so is speed. I think it's possible that God allowed both armies to have an altered time-space experience until the battle was over. To Joshua, it looks like his prayer is answered literally, so why get into the details?

I now open the floor for a possible discussion. Or disinterested silence. Whatever.

The Song and the Sacrament

This will be a long post, but it begins with the Star Wars Last Supper. I therefore make no apology. Finally, after a couple of weeks of boring definitions and historical lectures, we get to the exciting divisive stuff that splits churches and starts wars. Yay! If you promise to try not to get bloodthirsty, I will begin with an observation. A couple of elements of corporate worship, it seems, have at least partially had their identities swapped within the past century. They are the song and the sacrament. Since one of the purposes of these essays is to give us a shared understanding of worship under which we can unite as a body, and since this topic is particularly divisive, I am going to attempt to tread lightly in my examination of this phenomenon. For those of you who know me, this is no small task, so please read with a forgiving spirit if I do offend. If you believe I have not taken a hard enough stance on an issue, perhaps you are right. But let us remember: "Unity in the essentials, liberty in the nonessentials."

1.) Traditionally a song has been a tool whereby the body of Christ might better align her sentiment with her intellect. The major purpose behind singing in corporate worship has been to identify one's self with accurate theology and appropriate sentiment. That is, to make sure we're thinking the right things about our feelings and that we're feeling the right things about our thinkings. It's a shalom thing.

Jonathan Edwards said, "True Religion, in great part, consists in holy affections." It reminds me of Robinson's famous plea that God would, "tune my heart to sing thy grace." (Almost as though there were wrong ways to sing about God's grace. Hm...) The song is often played with the minor 6 chord played in the 9th measure, around the time we sing "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it," giving us that pathos of longing to accompany the ethos of our depravity. Music has the uncanny ability to connect the realities of the intellect to the realities of the heart when used well. We return to the major cadence in the next part of the verse when we come to "Here's my heart, Lord take and seal it; seal it for thy courts above," and we are resolved both in the truth of the words sung and the spirit with which they are given. Music has been given special dominion over this phenomenon of unity. It joins the heart, soul, mind, and strength of a man as we see him cry out in his desperation to the God who alone can save him, encouraged by melody and harmony to express with everything he has in his person this deep declaration.

Very powerful stuff.

2.) Traditionally, a sacrament has been a means of grace whereby the body of Christ might receive the real presence of Christ through the senses. The Roman church recognizes seven sacraments, and the majority of the protestant church only two. There is not only this difference, but also what is meant by "means of grace," "receive," and "real presence of Christ" varies quite completely between denominations. Put your pitchforks away. We're not going to go there. First, I'd like to submit to the reader that I will only be focusing on one sacrament in particular here, for it is the common denominator and that's what we're going for here.

The traditional understanding of Holy Communion, (or Mass, or the Lord's Supper, or the Eucharist), is that something unique happens when we come together in remembrance of Him, breaking the bread and taking the cup as He did, that happens at no other earthly time. For hundreds of years, this act was the centerpiece of each and every worship service. In fact, the Roman Catholic church still refers to the entire service by the name of the sacrament: Mass. You'll remember that the four main elements of the corporate worship of Yahweh since the Levitical law (never revoked or expired, only fulfilled!) were the Gathering, the Proclamation of the Word, the Sacrifice, and the Sending Forth. The sacrificial piece was preeminent, for it was what made the people right before God and enabled their relationship. Jesus' fulfillment of the sacrificial requirement was not an annulment of the debt but a complete payment of said debt. The church rightly saw that we did not therefore remove the time of sacrifice from the order of worship, but rather we celebrated it all the more. Jesus commanded his church: "Do this in remembrance of Me." One must believe that in remembering him, we are not merely reminiscing about the good old days, but we are instead honoring the God-man for who He truly is and what He really did.

NOW, I think it only fair to point out the following things:

1.) The musical piece of today's worship service, is often itself called "worship." Hauntingly reminiscent of the sentiment that gave the ancient worship services the name "Mass." We've changed the name of the service to exclude the sacrament and we've changed the name of the song to elevate it to the centerpiece status once held by the Eucharist. Reformers may defend the switch, claiming that the sacrament had been raised to the point of idolatry. Perhaps, but the solution is not to lower it to the point of our sacrelidge. "The music IS worship" is the agreement now, whereas it was once said that "worship IS Mass." Communion has not been removed completely from the picture, however. It does have a recurring role quarterly (perhaps until the contractual obligations have been fulfilled and we can finally kill off the culturally irrelevant character one and for all). Instead of partaking in Holy Communion to remember, now we're merely doing it so as not to forget.

2.) When we gather in "worship," it is often said (if the music was good), that God was in our midst. We even feel like we've gotten an extra special boost from God and now we can make it a bit farther than we could have on our own. What we have effectively said is that this partaking in the musical acts has been "a means of grace whereby the body of Christ has received the real presence of Christ through the senses."

3.) When we hear that someone has visited a local church for the first time, the question asked is often, "So, did you like the worship there?" This question would not have even made sense to people who thought of worship as a duty and a need instead of as a consumer product. They also would not have understood that you were referring to the music and atmosphere.

What has happened? I feel dirty, as though I've taken part in staging the coup against Caesar Eucharist, and he's looking down at me, saying, "Et tu, musician?" My craft was designed to play the supporting role in a high drama where the starring role belongs to the craft that remembers Christ and His supremacy. I repent my part in this egocentric mutiny where our consumer mentality is paramount in our worship, and I pray that we as the Church will truly seek to respond to God’s divine progressive revelation appropriately.

Proposition Eight(y-sixed)

Proposition 8 was voted down by the vast majority of Californians on Tuesday, nullifying the judicial precedent allowing same-sex marriage in that state. When asked to comment, actor Sean Penn stated, "Bigotry has happened here." I can't help thinking that if the reverse decision had been handed down by the people, Penn might have said, "Democracy has happened here."

The Obamanation of Desolation?

Since I've been asked, I will share the few thoughts I have about President-elect Barack Obama.

1.) Scripture is clear about a few things regarding rulers in general, and these are a.) they are placed in power by God Himself and He is sovereign over their doings, b.) we are to respect and pray for them, and c.) we are to be grateful for a government at all, for even a bad government is usually better than none at all.

2.) I am wary of his extremely leftist ideals. Barack Obama is bar-none the most liberal senator in America, and although I am not the most conservative citizen in America, I do lean more to the right of center, and he therefore makes me nervous.

3.) I am pleased to have a black president. I'm not sure what people in your experience find offensive, but just to give you a bit of background on my language, I do not as a habit use the term African-American. I should also point out that I believe it would be silly and devisive to label myself European-American. Both are backwards-looking and ulitmately useless in the fight for unity. We are a very diverse country in respect to origins, and if we start specifying by origin, we're going to be counter-productive. I understand the need for pride, but let it be in something more transcendant than historical locations. That being said, I will not belittle the plight of blacks in America. They've had a very hard go of it, and I'm pleased to see one less thing that divides us. We will always be seperated by our skin color, but let that be as far as it goes: let it be as superficial and meaningless a division as hair color. We are all God's people, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.

4.) Senator Obama seems to me to be the kind of person people can rally around. It might be a good thing to be a truly united country. That being said, it could also be a truly terrible thing to be a country united under the wrong banner. To me, I can see this going one of two ways in the next four to eight years: a.) His extremely socialist ideals (along with the new Democratic majority in both the House and the Senate) will lead the majority of our nation toward unity on the left side of things. This would be (in my mind) terrible, but God is good. Or b.) Obama will lead in office as he did in his campaign, saying nothing and doing less. "Hope for Change" was his slogan, but I am acutely aware that "hope" is not a strategy and "change" is not a destination. If he unites the nation under warm fuzzy feelings, that might be a bit more innocuous, and I could live with that. I'd rather be among idiots than villains.

5.) I did not vote for Mr. Obama and I do not trust him, but do trust the sovereign LORD, and I will therefore pray that God will guide Mr. Obama, (and that Mr. Obama will seek the LORD's counsel, as he claims to know Him), and I will respect him and his leadership until God apponts a new man. "Some boast in chariots and some in horses, But we will boast in the name of the LORD, our God." - Psalm 20:7

Temple and Tabernacle

Here I hope to cover a large amount of progressive revelation in a small amount of space. Forgive me when I do not include your favorite nuance of corporate worship. We’ve said already that worship is the creature’s appropriate holistic response to the Creators divine and progressive revelation. It’s a relationship initiated by God. Abraham was charged with responding to God in a specific, concrete, personal way. We also mentioned that as God reveals more of Himself and His desires, we have more and more to be responsible for responding to. It’s like a parent-child relationship. As the child grows, the parent reveals more about being an adult, and this places more responsibility upon the child. We as a people of God have grown, and He has gradually shown more and more to us.

Sometimes the revelation is given as realities that are binding for all people, such as the curse placed upon humanity through Adam and Eve, or the covenant God made with Noah. Sometimes the revelation is given in great chunks that are only meant for certain people, such as the Levitical and kosher laws, meant for a certain group of people for a certain time. Sometimes the revelation is given in situations of individual conviction, such as when God told a particular King or prophet to respond to Him in a personally specific way.

Since God is unchanging and holy, His revelations cannot contradict one another. They only pull back the veil further to reveal more of the same: a God who seeks perfect community with a people who have sinned against Him. However, God Himself can fulfill some demands. This essay is meant to show that God has revealed certain parameters and elements that are integral to the assembly of His people, and that to consider any of them obsolete without His fulfillment, or outdated and irrelevant is an inappropriate response to Him (sin). We must ask ourselves what is essential according to His revelation for our corporate meeting times, and what in our current worship is idolatrous.

When Yahweh set aside a people for Himself, He revealed to them His wishes for their corporate response to Him. They were to establish a special place (He did not leave “special” any space for liberal interpretation) where He would dwell, and they would gather as one body, recount His revelation to them, offer sacrifices for their sin, and be sent out to live in harmony with God and one another. Four very specific areas to be accounted for, all of which are still demanded of us. Many will argue with me on this point, but I believe they will be wrong. I am not advocating temple worship for Christians… but then, I am. Remember that God’s revelation is progressive, and that none of it is ever revoked or expired, only continued or fulfilled. If this is true, then we should look at each of these four aspects of corporate worship and label them either continued or fulfilled.

Let’s begin with the place where God’s people gather as one body and He dwells with them. Jesus said that the earthly temple would be destroyed, and that God would dwell with them wherever they gathered in His name. This fulfills the need for the temple. Jesus pulls back the veil and reveals that God’s people are His dwelling place when they are righteous. The temple was not revoked and did not expire. The need for the temple was fulfilled when the assembly of the saints was established. It’s not that we no longer need to gather together in His name and presence, it’s that we no longer need the protection of the temple because we have His righteousness imputed upon us. He tabernacles in our praises.

The recounting of God’s revelation has not been fulfilled. In fact, it has grown as God has revealed Himself more through general and special means, and those leading should be intentional to represent it faithfully and completely. This point is not controversial, nor was the first. But the final two may be a bit more convicting.

Next was the sacrifice. When the Israelites came to the assembly, they brought personal sacrifices and they accepted their share in a corporate sacrifice. Christ’s death once and for all fulfilled the need for blood in sacrifice, but it did not fulfill the need for our participation in sacrificial worship. We still come to the dwelling place of God with hearts heavy from individual and corporate sin, and we offer our lives as living sacrifices made worthy by Christ’s ultimate dying sacrifice. We also gather as one body at the place of sacrifice and on Days of Atonement, we offer the completed work of Christ in ritual remembrance.

Finally, we are sent forth, having been changed by an encounter with the Living God (whether we feel like we did or not), charged to live in peace with God and man. God certainly has not fulfilled that requirement for us. We have got to actively pursue right relationship in order to appropriately respond to God’s revelation. Christ’s sacrifice does not fulfill our obligation to do this; it only atones for us when we fail to do so.

I still have not mentioned sermons or music. Fear not.

Hasbro has no Monopoly on Ignorance

Hasbro has released a new version of Monopoly that replaces cash money with debit cards. That's good, because we'd hate for our kids to have to incorporate intelligence into their fun. It's not like they're going to have to inherit our economy and then have no tools with which to survive because they figure there will always be someone (or thing) else to keep up with those sorts of things. The next edition will feature a google toolbar so they can look up big words like "mortgage" and "income tax," and will also include a bailout option for players who don't want to go to jail even though they mishandled their money to the point of criminal negligence. Also included will be a game-appointed attorney (of course, at no cost to the player) who will negotiate passing "GO" and the collection of the $200 even if the player is found guilty. I'm going to go read a book and cry a little.

Revelation and Response

Worship happens when a creature responds appropriately to his Creator’s revelation. God interacts with His creatures, and we have the privilege of engaging Him back. He is always revealing Himself to us in every aspect of our lives, and so whatever we do is a response to Him. Many times, we do not respond appropriately, and this is not worship. It is sin. In fact, a great way to describe sin is that it’s the times when we fail to worship God. Sometimes we defy Him, responding incorrectly or half-heartedly. Sometimes we ignore him. When we choose to respond to something other than God, such as our own desires and fears, or the pressures of the world, this is called idolatry. We’re responding to the creation instead of the Creator, and the Bible is pretty clear that God hates this, because it hurts Him and us. St. Iraneus said, “The glory of God is Man fully alive.” A life is full when it is filled with worship.

Corporate worship is a community celebration of God’s character and works. God’s character and works are a revelation of Himself to us, and our celebration, whether in sorrow or in joy or any other sentiment, depends upon what is the appropriate response to the given revelation(s). When we are reminded of His glory, we fall down and praise Him for such majesty. When we are reminded of our sin, we weep in sorrowful mourning for our own failures. When we are reminded of His redemptive grace, we joyfully adore His goodness and accept it with glad hearts. When we are reminded of His wrath, we stand in solemn awe at His just action. When we are reminded of His heart for the Nations, we reach out to them with loving-kindness. When we are reminded of His long-suffering humility, we love our neighbors as ourselves.

The Bible’s first* mention of a word we translate as “worship” can be found in Genesis 22. God has already revealed to Man that sin will require a blood sacrifice, but now he reveals that the sacrifice required will be the blood of Abraham’s precious son of promise, Isaac. Abraham sets off to respond with the appropriate amount of sorrow and obedience, and tells his servants that he and the boy will go up on the mountain to worship. As Abraham is in the midst of his appropriate response, God then reveals that he has provided a way out for Abraham (and Isaac!) by allowing a ram to take the place of the child. Abraham again responds appropriately by accepting the grace and building a monument to God’s provision with stones and with his very life.

My intent in this essay is only to show that "worship" can be reduced to a universal definition by examining it before it acquired its historical accessories, and that this definition in whole is an appropriate holistic response to divine revelation. It is incumbent upon me at this point to observe that this is concrete and universal, not abstract and esoteric. Abraham's response was (rightly) rooted in his embodiment. Not only the consent of the mind and the will of the heart, but also the conformity of action was in play here. (One could mention in great detail the wholeness of response demanded by the "Great Shema" of Deuteronomy 6). I mention this because, as my friend Seth has said, "Even a universal definition of human worship is historically-rooted. It could not be otherwise." Furthermore, worship is not a matter of understanding the the principles; it's a matter of living the life. We might otherwise be guilty of arrogant gnosticism or ignorant emotionalism.

There are many more instances of this interplay between divine revelation and holistic response in the Genesis 22 passage, but we get the idea. No band, no mood lighting, no clergy, no special time of the week. Just revelation and response – the give and take, give and take of a relationship with the Almighty God. I hope it is obvious that my intent is to show here that in the case of Abraham's worship on that day, other more familiar (to us) elements of worship were not necessary. However, much revelation compounds over time, and God has since revealed many other truths that obligate the modern worshiper to more specific concrete responses. For example, God's revelation through the book of Levitical law bound the nation of Israel to further specifics of response that were both concrete and non-negotiable. I hope to show over the course of a few essays that we as the 21st century church have both new demands imposed upon us by God's progressive revelation and some old demands completely fulfilled (never revoked!).

* One may mention that Job, and not Genesis, is the most ancient Scriptural text. Although the vocabulary of Job does not include a word we would translate as "worship," surely Job's appropriate responses to his unimaginable loss were indeed counted as worship. Likewise, when the wretch finally reaches his breaking point and questions the Almighty, the Accused spends the next couple dozen chapters vindicating Himself and judging the iniquity of Job's inappropriate response (his sin).

Worship: Foundational Principles and Fundamental Elements

Please begin this blog by watching the most recent VID_CAST. You can find it on the right hand side of the page there. It's the topmost one.

Let's cut right to the chase. I'd like to begin a conversation about corporate worship and I hope it will be very provocative. I will submit for your review two foundational principles of Christian corporate worship and then offer a few fundamental elements which spring from these. Feel free to accept, amend or reject these thoughts. I want to lay a good foundation for what's next.

Foundational Principles

Foundational Principle #1 - Revelation and Response
Worship is first and foremost the creature's response to his Creator.

Foundational Principle #2 - Corporate Celebration
Corporate worship is a communal activity that celebrates God's character and gracious acts toward mankind.

Fundamental Elements

Fundamental Element #1 - Theological Accuracy
Worship must remain faithful to Scriptural revelation and must not be vague or misleading

Fundamental Element #2 - Proper Sentiment
Worship ought to be engaged by one's whole self: heart, soul, mind, and strength in Spirit and in Truth

Fundamental Element #3 - Transcendent Relevance
Corporate worship must be universal enough to be accessible to all worshipers from every tribe and time.

Fundamental Element #4 - Creative Excellence
Corporate worship of the Creator by creative beings must reflect an attitude of the first fruits.

Have I left anything out? Did I say something heretical or silly? What do you think?

The Cosmic Sweepstakes

One of you has asked me, "If many are called, but few are chosen, then how do I know I'm saved?" Eternal insecurity is a scary thought, and the short answer is this: If you are worried about it, you're probably ok. Since the short answer still leaves room for wiggle, (which is not very secure), I'll give a long response as well.

The passage referred to is from Matthew, 22. It's a pretty haunting parable that many people probably are not aware of. Basically, a king hosts a wedding party and invites a whole bunch of people who it explicitly says do not deserve to be there. During the banquet, the king notices a man among the crowd who is dressed in rags and says to him, why aren't you in wedding clothes? He tells the guards to tie him up and throw him out, then he says, "Many are invited, but few are chosen." It seems pretty harsh upon first glance until you interpret it in light of the whole of scripture.

Elsewhere, we see that we are not merely guests at the wedding, but we are the bride. We are an unworthy bride, but He cleanses us by His blood and baptism and clothes us with his own righteousness. Remembering this, imagine that at the door of the Kingdom that day, the filthy beggar was offered a bath and some clean clothes to wear inside to honor the King, but the beggar refused, stating that he was good enough for the court without it. He was then rejected not because he had no righteousness of his own, but because he rejected the righteousness offered to him.

We are chosen when we are found worthy, just as you choose the cupcake with the most icing on it. This happens after we accept His provision for us. Yahweh does not choose arbitrarily, that is a fact of his character. (Allah is the finicky one). He must therefore choose based on merit. Since we have none, the merit is extrinsic, namely, acceptance of the provision of God. The whole of scripture testifies to the fact that men are found righteous always only when they accept the provision of God.

In our culture, we have two big hurdles to overcome in seeing the truth of this passage:

1.) We hear "Many are called, few are chosen," and we think "Many will enter, few will win." They are similar, but there are some fundamental differences that keep salvation from being a cosmic sweepstakes. First, in the parable, the invitation is opened by the King, whereas in the lottery, the beggar pays for the opportunity. Salvation is initiated by God, not by the sinner. Second, "few will win" suggests that favor will be shown by luck of the draw. "Few are chosen" goes a bit deeper than that. It suggests that there is some sort of fixed standard by which one can be favored. This standard is righteousness. In the sweepstakes, one is forced to guess what the winning numbers are, whereas in the salvation, one is allowed to ask the benefactor the right numbers and input them. One is a gamble, and the other is a sure bet. Eternally speaking, betting against the house cannot win.

2.) We sympathize with the beggar and his desire to "be accepted for who he is." After all, he can't help it, and it's probably the King's tyranny that keeps him from being able to buy good clothes in the first place. There is a romantic modern concept that suggest that people are products of their nature and nurture, and that they simply cannot help the way they are, and if you can't love them without expecting their effort to change, then you are simply a cruel, intolerant monster. That means old King should have looked at the beggar and said, "I'm no better than you, let's just all get along. I'm sorry my feudal system has been rough on you." But we forget that parables are analogies. The beggar isn't just a beggar: he is a willful sinner. And the clothes aren't just clothes: they are righteousness. In that case, the King IS by DEFINITION better than the beggar, and has every right to reject the beggar who has no desire to be clothed in a manner that honors the atmosphere of the occasion, especially when he had ample opportunity to do so. The reality is, the beggar was too proud to accept the charity of the King, and therefore did not belong in the presence of the King.

This is why I say if you're concerned about it, you're probably ok. The "probably" is not a mater of chance. It's a matter of your willingness to accept the invitation of grace in the form of clothing yourself with Christ's righteousness and thereby being worthy to be chosen to share in His eternal riches as not just a guest, but as joint-heir to the Kingdom. That's a very secure eternal position.

The False Dichotomy of Faith vs. Secularism

I've been thinking about what I believe might be a false dichotomy between "people of faith" and secularists. It seems to me that secularism is a fervently held religious belief as well. The rock-bottom assumption that the cosmos is all there is, was, or ever will be, is as unprovable as the assumption that it isn't. It seems like a matter of faith to hold to one or the other and a matter of reason to live all aspects of one's life as though that fact were reality. In fact, it would be insane not to. The problem is, these realities are mutually exclusive in a logical sense, and therefore cause conflict between parties with similar vested interests, for example those with a shared political system. I therefore believe that pure secularism would be only another form of religious oppression. That's not very American either. It seems as though we must all vote in accordance with our faith and our reason and live under the majority's opinion for any given four-year period of time.

I think it might be helpful to eliminate a few words from our vocabulary for the sake of communication, if that makes sense. We've got a lot of connotations and stigmas floating around and I don't want anyone to lose an eye.

Everyone operates out of a system of rock-bottom assumptions. No one operates apart from his own primary assumptions. He places a great deal trust in the reality of these assumptions, and acts accordingly. No man acts apart from his assumptions. For example, some men believe that others have no right to assert their own beliefs upon others. That's not a verifiable unalienable right aside from his assumption that it is. If I operate out of the assumption that we are products of evolution (also unverifiable), then I will believe that might is right, and that we have a moral imperative to the survival of the fittest. So I have every right to impose my assumptions upon you as long as I'm more fit than you to do so.

This is why America is founded upon unalienable rights endowed by a creator, because the rights must come from some authority. The Fathers believed this to be self-evident, which means what? That it was a rock-bottom, unverifiable assumption. If you choose to take that authority away because of your rock-bottom assumption that it is foolish to believe in God, then that's fine, but you'll have a hard time establishing justification for your assumption that all men are equal and have certain rights. In fact, it will be impossible without imposing another authority, which is exactly what we hope to avoid by removing God from the position. Without some sort of authority, we cannot even say that we are free from one another's tyranny. Even the belief that we should all let one another be is a rock-bottom assumption that is imposed on other people who assume that they don't have to. That's why we have jails.

Thoughts on Community

- Community as an ideal is best expressed in the relationship of the Trinity. The definition of an ideal community is persons in right relationship. There is Unity, Order, Harmony, and Fellowship within the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are of one mind. Each member plays his role perfectly. Each person is unique. Interaction is at its fullest potential.

If our community is to reflect God's community, we must be in right relationship to one another. We must be of one mind, playing our unique roles and interacting with one another to our fullest potential.

This ideal is an impossible feat to reach, but is helpful for casting a vision to work toward. The ideal community is a noun, but what we do to get there is more like a verb. This group exists to try and discover by study, conversation, and experience what we can do to attempt to reach such lofty heights.

We know that we will fall short, and we rest in the provision of our Messiah, the Lamb upon whose righteousness we rest our hope. However, we are compelled by Paul in Romans 6 not to cheapen grace by leaning on it more than we must. So we are attempting to "do community" so that we might learn how to be in perfect community with God and mankind, which is the full extent of the law and the prophets; what Israel has called "The Great Shema" (Deuteronomy 6, Matthew 22:36-40).


As we deepen our relationships, we ascend to the heights of community. This is not an unending cycle, but rather a staircase to fixed destination.

In order to interact with another person, we must have a commitment to do so. A commitment toward one thing is always in exclusion of something else. This often causes a conflict of some kind, because of an infringement upon percieved rights. For example, if I make a commitment to a poker night, this excludes my wife from spending time with me. If she has a percieved right to time with me, then we are in conflict. Peace will only occur with the surrendering of rights. Both sides must be in agreement before the conflict is resolved. Peaceful resolution of a conflict occurrs only when one or both sides surrender freely to the percieved rights of the other party. With peace comes trust. If there is no percieved threat upon my rights, I trust you not to harm me. If I trust you not to harm me, I will lower my defenses. This is called vulnerability, from the latin vulnaire (to wound). When we are vulnerable, we are able to be wounded, but we are also able to interact at a deeper level of intimacy. Intimacy creates an even deeper commitment, and we move closer toward interaction at our fullest potential. If at any point the cycle is broken, we return to conflict. Failure to peaceably resolve conflict and interact will always result in further conflict and will never deepen a relationship.

It has been suggested that two "kindred spirits" could interact at ever-deepening levels without conflict. In theory this is true. That is the nature of the ideal community, The Trinity. The nature of the open interaction, complete surrender, and infinite harmony do give Him/Them a conflictless rleationship. But they do not reach perfect interaction. They/He is/are perfect from eternality. There is therefore no ever-deepening level of love even with Him/Them. We are only deceiving ourselves if we believe we fallen men will reach our fullest potential for relationship with other fallen men without conflict. Possible? Maybe. Likely? No.

When the Lawyer asked who his neighbor was, the Teacher reversed the question and asked who he was a neighbor to. This is the first step. Community cannot be self-centered. Community is not about meeting your need to belong. It's about belonging to the needs of others.

Disorganized Thoughts on on American/Christian Dual Citizenship

In a representative democracy, it is the duty of the citizen to cast a single vote for the ruler or law which best aligns with his ideal so that the citizen's interests may be represented accurately.

A Christian is to have no interests but those of Christ.

Christs interests are based on integrity; not utility.

We must not, therefore, vote strategically or in a reactionary spirit.

We must therefore vote with integrity for people of integrity.

It seems to me that partisan voting is rarely if ever integral to our ideals. It's always either settling for the lesser of two evils or trying to keep the other guy out of office. Both are utilitarian. I am suggesting write-in voting. I realize that this will likely lead to the "axis of evil" winning if the Christians stop uniting under the "lesser evil," but Christianity is about rightousness, not power. We can't control the government by force and say we're following Christ. We must woo them by our love. When the church behaves with integrity, there will be revival in our land.

Righteousness is always ultimately pragmatic, however, pragmatism as an end is never righteous. God is sovereign, and He has soveregnly declared the way we should behave. His grace in and to this country is no excuse to sin all the more (Romans 6). It's almost never a matter of "controlling the country," but more often a case of "I couldn't bear to think that I could have helped to stop this man from getting into office with my vote." Mostly our struggle with power is more about trying to keep from feeling helpless than it is about trying to take over. We're just afraid of getting squished.

I would recommend writing in Jesus at this point. Since I don't have a firm commitment to these ideas as self-evident truths, I feel free to be flippant about them. I'll probably end up voting for the lesser evil too. But I'm not sure I'm committed to that. Still processing.

John Wooden said it this way: getting into politics is like getting into football strategy: You have to be smart enough to understand it and dumb enough to think it matters.

US Politics is an intricate system, and in order to engage it, you must buy into three presuppositions: 1.) That your vote counts, 2.) That voting is a good, 3.) That the outcome of the election has any bearing on real (read: one's private experience of) life.

1.) I don't know whether our votes matter or not. You could try to prove it to me, but it will be like the time my dad tried to explain the way a TV works. I'm too dumb to get it and I'd prefer to think of it as magic anyway.

2.) I think voting is a good. I think it's important to align oneself officially with ones opinion. I think there's integrity in putting your money on your face, because that's where your mouth is.

Because of the logical combination of the first two, it's easy to see that for me, voting on a philosophical level is more about doing the right thing than participating in effecting a cause. If something changes due to my vote, that's fine, but it's not why I do it. I'm called upon by my country to vote, and this patriotic duty is not in opposition to my spiritual duty, so I am compelled to comply.

3.) Here's where it gets tricky. Up until this point, I'd probably either not vote, or write in Jesus. These options seem absurd to you and me both for this reason: fear. It seems unreasonable to us to give up what little control we are supposed to have in this crazy powerful system. "We can stop the fatal bullet!" cries Jon Vowell, "Forget about the non-mortal wounds!" And we all rally beneath that. It's noble. However, it requires our belief that our pesonal experience will be affected.

"I couldn't bear to see that guy die, so I'll save him." It comes back to self interest.

Follow me here:

I will vote for John McCain, not because I believe in him or because I think Obama is the devil, but simply because (I'm with Jon here) he's the lesser of the two.

But I'm only there because I don't have the faith to do what I actually think is right. I won't feel noble when I'm casting my vote. I'll feel afraid not to vote. It's the thought that something COULD be different, but I don't want to be the guy who stood up for it, because I really don't believe I have any power that my government hasn't given me. If I did, I would try to use the system to beat the system.

Modern America is so fundamentally flawed, that you can't actually feel good about your vote. This is more like spending the night at your crazy Uncle Sam's house and having to choose between cold spam and soy burgers for dinner. Forget how it could be, folks. Dad's not coming to pick you up til tomorrow. Tonight, we dine in Hell.

What we need to do is vote for the lesser evil that actually has a chance at winning, all the while preparing the way for the real messiah. Obey Uncle Sam. He's not a good parent, but he's not supposed to be. He's a reminder to be in the world and not of it. To cast your vote on election days and to be crucified with Christ on every day, preparing the world for His redemption with His love. We have a Father who's coming back to get us. Let's fix our eyes on Him. Let's campaign for Him. Let's widen our focus to the big picture.

Faith and the Great Metaphysical Questions

Throughout his history, thoughful man has posed countless questions, many of which have been reasonably engaged and answered. All such questions dealt with physical realities and were thus manageable by systems of empirical examination.

Other questions have dealt with the metaphysical and were therefore beyond the scope of the scientific method. They could not even be engaged empirically, much less proved or disproved.

Yet mankind has continued to pose and wrestle with these metaphysical questions despite their refusal to be mastered, because he senses their deep importance. He cannot ask the physical questions, much less answer them until he has assumed solutions for the metaphysical questions. He may not have even consciously assumed these answers, but he always has them firmly locked into place before he answers any others. They are foundational to all other query.

A man cannot prove that there is or isn't merit in discussing the metaphysical, but he must decide. This is the first question, and it is a metaphysical one. He must therefore step out in faith on the issue, since it can't be proved. He is free to change his vote at any time, but this will greatly effect how he reasons. This, in fact, proves man's condition as beings of great faith. All men have faith either that the metaphysical is worth exploring or that it is not, but the very act of deciding cannot be influenced by empiricism in any way, for science deals only with the physical and cannot speak even to the existence of anything non-physical. Therefore it is a matter of faith. A faith which he must reason. Reason which is founded upon faith.

If he answers yes to the primary metaphysical question, he must then answer the seven great metaphysical questions. If he answers no, then the answers to all seven are already assumed as a matter of faith in the nonexistence of the metaphysical. Regardless, the answers to the following seven questions have always been a matter of faith to all men, and he will at any given moment hold faithfully and reasonably to an assumed answer regarding each. They are:

1.) What is prime reality?
That is, what is the one thing upon which all other existence depends?

2.) What is the nature of external reality?
That is, what is the essential makeup of all non-prime reality?

3.) What is a human being?
That is, what is intrinsically foundational to humanity?

4.) What is death?
That is, what are the implications of ceasing to live?

5.) What is knowledge?
That is, can we know anything and how and what can we know?

6.) What are good and evil?
That is, what is the standard for morality?

7.) What is the purpose of human history?
That is, does humanity have a narrative and/or a destiny?

postscript - An eighth question has been championed, and I see no reason why not to at least mention it: What is beauty? That is, does pleasure have a proper standard?