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An Authentic Witness

I think the story of the "Woman at the Well" (John 4:1-42) gives us a picture of an authentic witness. The woman is, on some level, anticipating the coming of a messiah and Jesus claims to be that messiah. The woman is impressed by the things Jesus is able to tell her about herself and goes back to town saying, "Could this be the Christ?" (John 4:29)

The way she phrases that question seems to indicate that she is not entirely convinced. Nonetheless, her "evangelism" is effective. The result of this whole interchange is recorded in verse 42:

They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."

She was able to set them on the path toward personal faith by simply telling them what she knew. She didn't need to have a perfect life or a perfect faith, neither of which exist in my opinion! She wasn't even sure she totally believed what she was experiencing, but she was compelled to relate her experience to others.

How encouraging to those of us who don't have it all figured out! We need not be discouraged by our lack of faith or understanding. Christians often exude a sense of unerring confidence in the "absolute" truths they have learned about morality, spirituality, and the final destiny of human souls (to name a few topics). I think this may often detract from the authenticity of their "story."

Jesus Grew?

And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. (Luke 2:52)

This verse seems to challenge some of the basic conceptions people tend to have of Jesus. The fact that he grew in stature is no big deal. We all imagine him growing just like a normal human being. But growing in wisdom? Isn't God supposed to know everything? Isn't Jesus fully divine?

Some people seem to think of Jesus as having all of the same attributes as God. But was he omnipresent? No, I don't think so! Was he omniscient? The passage above seems to argue against that. After all, how can you grow in wisdom if you already know everything?

I submit that Jesus was fully human and, just like any other human, had to grow, learn, and rely on God for everything. He even says that he can do nothing by himself, but only what he "sees the Father doing." (John 5:19) As Jesus went around healing people, I suggest that he did so by the power of God, not by any internal source of power.

We haven't gotten to that last sentence in the original passage I quoted, though. It actually says that Jesus grew in favor with God. How does God grow in favor with God?

The Presence of God

Moses said to the LORD, "You have been telling me, 'Lead these people,' but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, 'I know you by name and you have found favor with me.' If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.

The LORD replied, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.

Then Moses said to him, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?

And the LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name." (Exodus 33:12-17)

Valerie and I have made a new commitment to living in the presence of God this year. This is a subject that intrigues me. Assuming that God, can make himself known in any fashion he chooses, why has he taken the path that he has? Why has he chosen to work through a specific people group descended from Abraham? Why did he choose to manifest his presence through the person of Jesus? Why does he continue to work through Christians the way he does?

Perhaps these questions are unanswerable, but I would be interested to hear anyone's thoughts.

Cherry Picking

I have been debating a little with John W. Loftus of Debunking Christianity. He is a former Christian who converted to atheism. He has labeled me a cherry picker because I don't simply apply everything the Bible seems to say about morals directly to my life. In other words, I pick and choose what I want to believe (although I wouldn't phrase it that way).

Dave Rattigan has a good response to this kind of accusation in the FAQ section of his website, Leaving Fundamentalism:

...the insinuation behind that phrase just picking and choosing is that there's something arbitrary and capricious about it, that it's somehow wrong and, moreover, that there actually exists a person or group of persons somewhere in the universe who DON'T pick and choose what to believe.

He goes on to point out ways that even fundamentalists pick and choose what they believe about the Bible and ends with the following:

Picking and choosing in and of itself is not a crime. We ALL have to do it. It's called weighing things up and making the decision we think is right. Ultimately, it's called life.

Well said!

Love Always Hopes

[Love]...always hopes. (1 Corinthians 13:7)

I'm going to treat this phrase briefly. As Christians, we place our hope in God's promise to work everything out in the end:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:1-5)

I quote that passage because I think love doesn't always make sense to us. Love causes us to do things that do not always produce the results we might like to see. Love always hopes, though, because we know that we are obeying God as we seek to love others. We love others, trusting that God will bless our efforts in his own time and for his own purposes.

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Links to the rest if this series: Love is a Commandment, Love is the Purpose, Love is Not a Merit Badge, Love is Patient, Love is Kind, Love is Not Envious, Love is Not Arrogant, Love is Not Always Right, Love is Not Irritable, Love is Not Resentful, Love Loves Truth, Love Bears All Things, Love Believes All Things, Love Always Hopes

Absolutely Wrong

This is a follow up to my post entitled "Absolutely True." I'm still open to discussing absolute truth as a general concept, but I would now like to focus in on moral absolutism. The wikipedia defines moral absolutism as "the belief that there are absolute standards against which moral questions can be judged, and that certain actions are right or wrong, devoid of the context of the act."

Let's talk about lying for the purpose of this discussion. For now, I'm going to define "lying" as "an inaccurate or false statement." (see dictionary.com) It seems to me that there are three ways we can view lying:

1. Making a false statement is always wrong, regardless of the situation.
2. Making a false statement is not wrong if it is done for a higher good.
3. Lying is always wrong, but sometimes making a false statement is not lying.

Love Believes All Things

[Love]...believes all things. (1 Corinthians 13:7)

How trusting are we of those we are called to love? I'm sure we all agree that God doesn't want us to be gullible. He doesn't want us to walk around with an unthinking naiveté. Nevertheless, I'm not so sure he approves of the suspicious attitude that has become a part of Protestant culture. We distrust anything that sounds a little different from the way we were taught. We look askance at ideas or customs that don't originate in our Christian microcosm.

I think love looks for opportunities to trust the ideas and actions of others. Followers of Christ ought to be looking for ways to build bridges instead of burning them. I don't think Paul is literally suggesting that we become radical pluralists. In a globalized world, however, we can't ignore the plurality of views out there and neither can we dismiss them offhand just because they don't fit neatly into our existing world view.

So where do we draw the line? I think we could debate plenty about parameters, but maybe it would be easier if we just agree to follow the Jesus Creed and trust that our sovereign God will lead us as we seek to be a little more trusting of those around us.

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Links to the rest if this series: Love is a Commandment, Love is the Purpose, Love is Not a Merit Badge, Love is Patient, Love is Kind, Love is Not Envious, Love is Not Arrogant, Love is Not Always Right, Love is Not Irritable, Love is Not Resentful, Love Loves Truth, Love Bears All Things, Love Believes All Things, Love Always Hopes

Love Bears All Things

[Love] bears all things. (1 Corinthians 13:7, NRSV)

No, that doesn't mean love gets naked, although that is sometimes the case. I like the NLT translation of this phrase: "Love never gives up." The Greek word is stego, which can mean:

1. "to protect or keep by covering, to preserve."
   
2. "to cover over with silence"
3. "by covering to keep off something which threatens, to bear up against, hold out against, and so endure, bear, forbear"

Most translations say something about love bearing all things. The NIV, however, says love "always protects." Perhaps we can make use of all of these translations to form a well-rounded view of this facet of love.

Are we called to "protect" or "preserve" people or ideologies that we don't agree with? I think there are limits to what we can and should "tolerate." Should we have tolerance for intolerance, for example? Apparently, philosopher John Rawls thinks we should:

Rawls concludes that a just society must be tolerant, therefore the intolerant must be tolerated for otherwise the society would then be intolerant and so unjust. However Rawls qualifies this by insisting that society and its social institutions have a reasonable right of self-preservation that supersedes the principle of tolerance. Hence, the intolerant must be tolerated but only insofar as they do not endanger the tolerant society and its institutions. (from the wikipedia)

Some Things Are Just Stupid

The following is from an editorial review of Be Intolerant: Because Some Things Are Just Stupid by Ryan Dobson:

"Whatever" is now the password into civilized youth culture. Alarming numbers of Christians eighteen to twenty-five years old believe that there is no such thing as absolute truth. Yet, Ryan Dobson proclaims, we can't even function if we believe that everything is relative. In his first book, the impassioned youth speaker explains God's establishment of absolutes, using relevant examples to awaken Christians to the world's desperate hunger for absolute truth -- and the church's duty to proclaim it.

Ryan, questioning absolute truth does not make everything relative! This is the kind of false dichotomy that is misleading a lot of Christians today. It seems to me that both absolutism and relativism are false. We have to be careful about completely accepting any human-made philosophical view, whether it's modernism, postmodernism, or antidisestablishmentarianism. (Click here for a fun list of other "isms.") I think we need to learn what we can from philosophy and combine that with faith and praxis.

As for the title of Mr. Dobson's book, this is the kind of thing that make Christians look bad...and for no good reason. The Bible tells us that the gospel will offend people.^† That doesn't mean we are called to a mission of offensiveness, which is what he and others seem to believe. Dictionary.com defines "tolerance" as "a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own." It seems to me that there are views we should not permit. Nonetheless, I think that tolerance is a good policy to follow, generally speaking. We should "err on the side of grace" as they say. We should also do everything we can to try to understand another person's point of view.

I freely admit that I have not read Ryan's book so go ahead and correct me if you know more about it. In the meantime, I'll enjoy being able to tag my post with the word "antidisestablishmentarianism!"

^† For example, see 1 Cor. 1:23.

Torture is Wrong

Torture violates the basic dignity of the human person that all religions hold dear. It degrades everyone involved -- policy-makers, perpetrators and victims. It contradicts our nation's most cherished ideals. Any policies that permit torture and inhumane treatment are shocking and morally intolerable.

Torture and inhumane treatment have long been banned by U.S. treaty obligations, and are punishable by criminal statute. Recent developments, however, have created new uncertainties. By reaffirming the ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment as well as torture, the McCain amendment, now signed into law, is a step in the right direction. Yet its implementation remains unclear.             

The President's signing statement, which he issued when he signed the McCain Amendment into law, implies that the President does not believe he is bound by the amendment in his role as commander in chief. The possibility remains open that inhumane methods of interrogation will continue.

Furthermore, in a troubling development, for the first time in our nation's history, legislation has now been signed into law that effectively permits evidence obtained by torture to be used in a court of law. The military tribunals that are trying some terrorist suspects are now expressly permitted to consider information obtained under coercive interrogation techniques, including degrading and inhumane techniques and torture.             

We urge Congress and the President to remove all ambiguities by prohibiting:

• Exemptions from the human rights standards of international law for any arm of our government.
• The practice of extraordinary rendition, whereby suspects are apprehended and flown to countries that use torture as a means of interrogation.
• Any disconnection of "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" from the ban against "torture" so as to permit inhumane interrogation.
• The existence of secret U.S. prisons around the world.
• Any denial of Red Cross access to detainees held by our government overseas.      

We also call for an independent investigation of the severe human rights abuses at U.S. installations like Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.      

Nothing less is at stake in the torture abuse crisis than the soul of our nation. What does it signify if torture is condemned in word but allowed in deed? Let America abolish torture now -- without exceptions.

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Click here for the source of this statement put out by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. Click here for a list of well-known people of faith who have signed the statement. Click here for information about the demonstration/vigil taking place tomorrow morning (10/17/06).

The following was written by a Rev. Kermit D. Johnson, a retired U.S. Army Chaplain:

"What we must face squarely is this: whenever we torture or mistreat prisoners, we are capitulating morally to the enemy-in fact, adopting the terrorist ethic that the end justifies the means." (from "Inhuman behavior: A chaplain's view of torture," The Christian Century, 4/18/06.)