Dialogue on God’s Hair Color

I was recently having a discussion with a friend about God and he objected, “But what about God being a man? Surely you don’t think he’s sitting on some throne up in the sky, do you?” The following is inspired by a real conversation, but as I have the personal memory of a goldfish, I’m going to kinda have to make up most of it. And in attempting to remember a real dialogue I’ll probably end up like Eric Cartman) and/or Plato in making my position sound totally awesome and my discussant a total fool. But this is not reality, and my apologies to my real-life discussant. I might try this style more often, especially as I have other real life events to inspire them.

So as I was saying, my friend asked me “But what about God being a man? Surely you don’t think he’s some bearded man sitting on a throne up in the sky, do you?”

I thought about it for a minute, noting how my discussant intentionally tried to make it sound as ridiculous an idea as possible. And I said with confidence, “Yes. As a matter of fact, I do.”

And then there was a wonderful silence. I’m beginning to see why Jesus said shocking things all the time. It really bothered me at one point. I used to think, “Why don’t you just answer them straight? Really, Jesus? I could have given a clearer answer in line with Christian Orthodoxy than you just did.” And perhaps I could have. But what I’m beginning to realize is that it’s not all about true information. Presentation matters.

After the silence, he asked a real question. Or rather, he asked a question whose answer he was going to pay attention to: “Why?”

I asked him, “Do you think the idea of God is something easy or hard to understand?”

“It’s very hard. Maybe even impossible.”

“Harder than physics?”

“Much harder.”

“I agree,” I said. “When we try to understand physics, we have to use symbols and metaphors. Gravity works like a bowling ball resting on a rubber sheet; a marble will ‘fall’ into its divot. Relativity can be understood by imagining twin astronauts. And so on.”

“OK. But what does that have to do with God?”

“Because,” I said, “If we think God is harder to understand than physics, then wouldn’t it be reasonable to try to understand what we can of Him using similar tools?”

“Sure.”

“So could I say, ‘Imagine God has a white beard’?”

“Yes, but he or she or it doesn’t. It’s above that.”

“And gravity isn’t a rubber sheet. I said, ‘imagine’.”

“OK. God has a white beard.”

“What does a white beard mean?”

“Male. Unshaven.”

“Think literary. What attributes might an author be communicating if he gives a character a white beard, as opposed to, say, a black beard, or a clean chin?”

“Age. Maybe wisdom.”

“Good,” I said, “So the visual image communicates something about Him.”

“And that’s another thing. Why do you keep saying ‘Him’. The concept is above such crude biological concepts. God is not a man.”

“Isn’t He?” I asked. “Does manhood communicate anything? Would the image be different if it were a woman sitting on the throne?”

“Well, I suppose.”

“What if it were not a man or a woman, but energy. Would that image be more or less relatable?”

“Less.”

“So,” I said, “The image of God as a white-haired old man sitting on a throne says to the reader, ‘God is like a wise old king,’ which we can imagine, even if God’s true nature is unimaginable.”

“I envision God genderless. Why does God have to be a man?”

“He doesn’t have to be anything.” I said, “The hero of a story could have black hair or brown hair. It’s a story. The writer may give him black hair to go along with his mysterious nature, or brown hair to match his boots and ground him. God doesn’t have to be white-haired. But in Daniel 7, He is. It’s less useful to complain, “Why does he have to be white-haired?” and more useful to ask, “Why is he white-haired?” Perhaps we need to think of God less like grown-ups arguing theology and more like kids reading a story. And a kid reading that God is a man might think, ‘God is a man like Dad! He must be strong and smart and brave, and good at keeping the bad guys away and making sure there’s no monsters under the bed.’ In fact, on this attribute, God was not just pictured as a man, but took on the flesh of a first-century Jewish man.”

“But it seems so provincial! How can God just pick one race? Isn’t he more universal?”

“It’s a suit. We can’t see God in heaven, so he ‘clothes’ Himself with humanity. He puts on a suit so that we can better understand him, so that we can talk to Him face-to-face.”

“But why can’t it be another color?”

“Which would you prefer?”

“I don’t know. Don’t you think it’s a little arbitrary?”

“Definitely,” I said. “But He just as well might have picked another color suit and you could justly ask why He hadn’t put on the one He did. Keeping on the suit analogy, if He chose to mix all dyes, it would be a black suit; if He left it undyed, it would be a white suit. Even if we could understand “every color” or “no color,” black and white are both still colors. Perhaps He could’ve picked a transparent suit, but then we’re back where we started: an incomprehensible, invisible God. He’s gotta wear something. And He happened to wear the First-Century-Jewish-Man-In-Palestine suit.”

“So you’re saying that we can learn something from a first century Jewish man in Palestine?”

“Yes. Yes I do.”

Clean and Unclean - Reflections on Kosher (Part I)

Cow and Chicken. Both clean.

Lessons We Can Learn From Clean Animals

I was asked by a friend why God called some animal’s clean and others unclean. Why? What’s the difference between beef and pork? At the time, I hadn’t really thought about it, and so had no good answer.

I know this is a subject that has been debated and speculated on by people for a long, long time. But I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm to add my own speculations onto the pile. Why speculate? Well, that’s a matter of worldview. From a conservative Jewish perspective, it doesn’t matter. Commands are given to obey, not to question or understand. The Modern perspective is that these are silly rules given by a silly religious leader and have no deeper meaning. But my perspective is neither; I think I might have a Medieval perspective: that there is deep meaning in everything, especially Scripture.

Leviticus describes (and Deuteronomy repeats) the rules for Kosher. Observant Jews, to this day, observe these very old laws. And indeed: if one knows the what of a Divine command but not the why, obedience is clearly called for. But, as it says in Proverbs, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; it is the glory of kings to search out a matter.”  So here are the rules and my speculations.

Rule Number One: You can eat animals that both A) Have split hooves B) Chew the cud.  Leviticus is explicit about animals needing to meet both criteria. This includes cows, sheep and goats; it excludes pigs, rabbits and reptiles.

Rule Number Two: You can eat animals from rivers and seas that have scales (e.g. most fish).

Rule Number Three: You can eat all birds (except for 20 explicitly listed).

Rule Number Four: You can eat insects if they fly and have long, jointed legs (e.g. Grasshoppers).

The first hint I found for finding some meaning in this was in Lev 11:41-43. It talks a lot about the “creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” Though I don’t think Leviticus has the overly-aggressive and not-at-all-suave guy with bad pick-up lines in view here, the same disgust is suggested. The phrase seemed a bit redundant, and redundancy generally is a flag for meaning or importance. Why is it important that the thing ‘creepeth upon the earth’. It may suggest that this was the problem with those kinds of creatures: they were too close to the earth. Perhaps what is in view symbolically or mystically here is a connection with the earth. The only insects that are Kosher are those which fly and have some special feature of its feet.

Does this hypothesis pan out? Consider the other classes of creatures. The birds is the only “everything except” category. Birds by nature have a light connection with the earth; they travel in the skies. The one in the Hebrew mind that didn’t, happened to be on the list (the ostrich). Rule Number One talks about the footwear of the cattle: only those that had hooves could be eaten; only those that had some keratin insulation from the earth were clean. It seems that there is some repetition in this theme: holiness demands that a creature be not too close to the earth. And this is perfectly consistent with Jewish and Christian Theology. We should not put our trust in the world; we should not cling to material things or the customs and practices of the world around us. We should have our hope in God, and for the Christians, our eyes on His Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven. In fact, we even put on bumper stickers and wear really cool branded shirts that tell people that we are “Not Of This World.”

---> On to Part II

Venipuncture and the Essence of Love – Conclusion

Synthesis

Perhaps the two definitions are not different. Maybe we just are bad judges at what ‘benefit’ is. Indeed, our modern working definitions of ‘relationship’ seem to give us an average of one year of pleasure before it’s used up and we need to move on (slightly longer in ‘marriage’).

Is it really “more blessed to give than to receive”? That is, are we happier when we give to others, or when we get? In a materialistic world, this statement is sheer insanity. Anyone who has truly given something knows the truth of this statement. Even Derek Zoolander knows this is true, “The other day I was thinking about volunteering to help teach underprivileged children to learn how to read. And just thinking about it was the most rewarding experience I've ever had.”

Maybe the best marriage is one around giving. And that means that it doesn’t matter what the other person is doing. If either party is getting more pleasure out of giving than getting, their happiness is independent of the other person. If you get when you give, and you get when you get (instead of just getting when you get), there is no reason not to give. It’s like an easy game theory problem:

On Sacrifice Theory

	(Husband) Give	(Husband) Don’t Give
(Wife) Give	+2/+2	0/+1
(Wife) Don’t Give	+1/0	0/0

On Benefit Theory

	(Husband) Give	(Husband) Don’t Give
(Wife) Give	+1/+1	+1/-1
(Wife) Don’t Give	-1/+1	-1/-1

The jump from this situation to a political system is not that long. An employer and employee:

	(Employer) Pay Well	(Employer) Don’t Pay Well
(Employee) Work Hard	+2/+2	0/+1
(Employee) Don’t Work Hard	+1/0	0/0

Why doesn’t this happen in relationship or the workplace? Because we’re operating under the benefit theory. We think the way we get happiness is getting stuff. Like trying to drive a car on the highway in reverse, we’re doing it wrong. The car has nothing wrong with it; there is just ignorance that can easily be repaired with knowledge.

Conclusion

Jesus says, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” This, if it requires anything, requires sacrifice. When asked to expound on this, Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan finds a Jew robbed and beaten, and gives him oil and wine, lets him ride on his own donkey, and then pays for his stay at a first-century hospital (the inn). This is a story of sacrifice. Sacrifice is the essence of love.

If this is true, then we should seek to love and make love abound in every aspect of life. It seems to me that God has arranged the world to permit us to sacrifice for each other. I think that we should order our relationships, our careers and our society after the same pattern. If the essence of love is sacrifice, then we have a lot of work to do in our own lives and in the world.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Venipuncture and the Essence of Love – Miscellaneous Implications

Politics

I think most modern people (or at least most of my peers) operate from a Utilitarian framework: the greatest good for the greatest many. It makes The Good into something at least conceptually measurable, appealing to our science instincts. But fundamentally, I think the reason so many of my peers believe in it is because they hold the second definition of love: to benefit maximally. About a third of my generation thinks Socialism is a better economic system than Capitalism. In a Socialist system, benefits (health care, housing, etc.) are universal. It is the State that sacrifices, not the People. And (assuming Socialism worked) this would clearly be the optimal solution. It is a society with the greatest benefit-love. However, with benefit maximized, opportunities for real sacrifice to neighbors are minimized. To maximize sacrifice-love, there needs to be more suffering available to bear, and people need to have more freedom to bear it.

I think I have finally discovered the root of my support for small government. A country with a small government demands that people sacrifice-love one another. It is a dangerous place, and a place exactly as beautiful as the people who reside in it. A big government benefit-loves its people. It is a safe place, and a place that is neither very beautiful nor very ugly.

Medicine

Doctors avoid suffering. We are taught to turn off our emotions because it hurts. We’ll ‘burn out’ if we empathize with patients. A benefit-love for our patients is curing them; no empathy is necessary. If we do not suffer for our patients, then our job is simply a job; we have shown no sacrifice-love. A friend of mine in nursing was too close to a patient in the psychiatry emergency room. The charge nurse told her to keep her distance and to protect herself; she advised my friend to treat the patients like “rabid dogs.” You can benefit-love a rabid dog through cure; you cannot sacrifice-love one.

Problem of Evil

Why is there suffering? This is a profoundly important question that I can only give superficial treatment to here; I recommend that you look at the many other great resources on it (Job from the Bible asks this; contemporary philosopher William Lane Craig gives a good talk on it; Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor from the Brothers Karamazov also discusses this question). How can God permit suffering? Let us ask an easier question: how can a father permit his child to suffer (say, by needlestick)? He, if he is good, must have some morally justifiable reason for it (like immunization). God, if He is good, must have some morally justifiable reason for it. Since the evaluation of this question requires a full accounting of all people in all time, this is a question we are woefully ill-equipped to answer. This is a point of human ignorance; we cannot draw any logical conclusion from it. We don’t have a complete fossil record and never will but it does not follow that Evolution did not occur; it is valid to fill in the gaps with inference. We can bridge gaps in knowledge by anchoring on things we do know (this is called in science a ‘theory’ and in religion ‘faith’).

One of the theories is that the morally justifiable reason God allows suffering is freewill. God may permit suffering because only by it can humanity have true freewill. Only in a world of suffering can God show His sacrifice-love for us, and only in a world of suffering can humans truly sacrifice-love each other.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Freewill and Fate in Photos

How can the sovereignty of God and Man coexist? How can God be omniscient and man retain freewill?

In focus: the Sovereignty of God

In focus: the Sovereignty of Man

Venipuncture and the Essence of Love – Relationships

In my last post, I talked about how Christian love was, at its essence, sacrificial. This is in sharp contrast to the common understanding of love which seems to be, at its essence, for the benefit of the other. If love is as Jesus defined it, then it changes everything. The first thing it changes is what is for most people where they will experience the deepest love: the romantic relationship.

This Christian view on love turns relationship on its head, or at least it turns what we’ve been calling relationship on its head (I feel like I’m late to the party on this one; St. Paul seemed to already understand this 2,000 years ago). We Americans believe that relationships (that is, sexual relationships, both “boyfriend/girlfriend” and modern “marriage”) are about love, and love is about pleasure. Both parties get peace/happiness/pleasure by entering the relationship, and so long as that peace/happiness/pleasure endures, so does the relationship. This theory of relationship is supported by data collected by the dating site MyCupid that shows that people of my generation have an average of about 1 new sexual partner per year from the time they’re 18.

On the American definition of love, Biblical passages on marriage like Ephesians 5 sound terrible: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord… Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Eph 5:22,25). Why should the wife have to submit when the husband only has to love?

But what if love was not pleasure? What does a marriage entered into under Christian terms look like? It is not about pleasure (or at least not directly), it’s about suffering and sacrifice. Suffering and sacrifice are not things that must be endured for the love. They are the love. Today, suffering is a red flag, it’s a sign that we are in the wrong relationship; we try to minimize our own suffering. Christians would rather forget about the Godly marriage of Hosea who was commanded to marry a prostitute named Gomer, and stay married to her while she stayed a prostitute. For that matter, we want to forget about Christ, who did the same thing except we, the Church, are the prostitute.

On Christ’s definition of love, the Ephesians passage takes on an entirely different meaning: women have to serve men; men really have to serve women. CS Lewis explains, “The husband who gets this verse is the one whose marriage most feels like a crucifixion…This verse is most embodied in the husband whose wife receives most and gives the least.”

Then how do we pick our partners? Could we maximize suffering by picking the least compatible person possible, a person who hated us? Would that lead to happiness?

To answer that question, I think I need the council of St. Ignatius. Christians in the first and second century died violent deaths with such joy that it was inexplicable to the world. This witness was so dramatic that it became a major factor in the conversion of the brainy Justin Martyr (whose given last name gives some clue as to the fate he himself would later ‘suffer’). People were legitimately asking, “If you like death and martyrdom so much, why don’t you actively seek it out, or commit suicide?” Ignatius, on his way to his own martyrdom, wrote that it is something that must be borne, but not sought. As a warning, he tells the story of another Christian who volunteered for martyrdom, but apostatized at the moment of truth. He denied Christ; he chickened out. So we should not seek martyrdom, neither in the lions' den nor in the bedroom.

So the question remains. How do we pick our partners? Well, how does Christ pick the Church? It seems arbitrary, following no pattern that we can understand. We, the Church, certainly aren’t intrinsically beautiful; we have nothing to offer, neither dowry nor wealth. Contrary to all reason, Jesus chooses us nonetheless. What does that sound like? Could that be anything but romance?

Surely all of our desires can honor God when used properly, even (perhaps especially) romance. Romantic feelings seem to follow no rules, pairing up people that really have no rational business with each other. In a culture without arranged marriages, I think this is as good a pairing rule as any. The important part is not who you pick, but how willing you are to sacrifice for the person you’ve picked.

Sacrificial love completely transforms relationship. It’s no longer about maximizing your own benefit, but your own sacrifice to your partner. If this is love, it does not need to be bi-directional; one partner can always give and never receive, and still have love. But of course, the most loving relationship is one where both parties are sacrificing completely to each other. How often would we cheat on each other if our eyes were perpetually fixed on sacrifice instead of pleasure? How many arguments would be averted? How many tears of sadness prevented? How many more tears of joy would we shed? How happy we would be if we stopped obsessing so much about pleasure, and thought more about love, that is, about sacrifice!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Venipuncture and the Essence of Love – Introduction

[This is a working "paper." I’m not sure all this (or the connected posts) is right, and would really love feedback on it]

Today we were practicing drawing blood on each other (everybody’s favorite day in medical school). My partner (who shall remain nameless), had trouble hitting a vein, and so I encouraged them to try again. And again. I now have 13 holes in my skin.

The person felt terrible. Part of it was pride (not being rock star doctors after 11 months of medical school instruction is infuriating for most of us here at Stanford). But part of it, and I would venture to say most of it, was because of the pain that the person caused me. I said that I was happy to be of service. And I really meant it. I was legitimately happier after the session; I was in a significantly more pleasant mood having served the person in this way (and, indirectly, a patient who would not have to get poked). The pain was significant, but the pleasure in service was far greater. But why? What theory of pleasure/pain was I working under? I’m no masochist; pain did not directly become pleasure. I searched for something encouraging to say. I said, “It’s an important part of my religion to love my neighbor as myself, and there aren’t too many opportunities to serve my classmates.” I’m not sure it helped much.

Later in the day, I thought about what I said. Why was it that I connected love with service, and service with pain? I thought of Jesus’ words: “No greater love hath a man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (Jhn 15:13). Christ was no hypocrite; He gave up His life for us day by day in Palestine, and then literally, dying on the cross. But why is that the greatest love? Why isn’t it, “No greater love hath a man than this, that he benefit his friends maximally”? Why was suffering so connected to the Christian definition of love? This is a really important question that I do not have a good answer for yet but will be praying and thinking about in the days, weeks and probably years to come.

The why is still a mystery to me. But the what is clear: love as Christ defines and demonstrates it, is sacrifice. But if that is true, it changes everything. Everyone agrees with “love thy neighbour as thyself,” but the statement has entirely different meanings if love is sacrifice or if love is benefit. We all seek love, and to a lesser extent, we seek to love in relationships and in society. Jesus’ flip of the definition of love threatens to change everything that we thought we knew. Over the next few posts, I’ll discuss some of these implications.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

On Evangelicals’ Danger and Hope

When Evangelical churches consider giving (they are the only churches which I have first-hand experience with), their first impulse is to maximize salvations. They want to work in places that are “unreached.” Then they look for missionary organizations to win souls. Some of them will go one step further, and support explicitly Christian organizations to serve the poor, but only so long as they do it in Christ’s name. Never would they give to a ‘secular’ charity (for how would the people hear the Gospel, or know from whence the goodness comes)?

Do not misunderstand what I am about to say. I believe in missions, and in evangelism. Of any single action, it is still, in my mind, the most valuable; it is a deed with the highest honor. But there are other parts, essential parts, of Christianity which have been eclipsed by our blind pursuit of this highest honor. Any virtue or impulse may be corrupted if it is sought at the cost of all others. As C.S. Lewis points out on the dangers of focusing purely on the love of humanity, “If you leave out justice you will find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials ‘for the sake of humanity,’ and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man.” So, I think, if we hyper-focus on missions and evangelism, we will become a cruel and loveless church.

One commandment of God which is almost completely ignored by us today is charity for our brethren in Christ. Paul tells us, “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all [men], especially unto them who are of the household of faith” (Gal 6:10) and the author of Hebrews reminds us, “For God [is] not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister” (Hbr 6:10).

We do a mediocre job locally with the poor in general with food drives and homeless shelters. But we do an appalling job of providing for poor brethren abroad. We know generally about poverty and how we are to provide for the poor. But we forget that we have a special obligation to poor Christians.

But who takes collections for poor believers today? How high a priority in the modern Church are poor abroad? We often see poverty work only as a means to the end of evangelism. How many church dollars go to some few thousands of pagans in the Pacific Islands, while millions of our brothers starve in Africa? We send missionaries to the “10/40 window” because there are few Christians there. But how many of us really care about the plight of our brothers in that same window? How many sermons are preached on the plight of the brethren in that window? I have not heard one. We are letting our brothers starve so that we can first win new converts. This ought not be so. We ought to first take care of our own family , and then seek to serve others.

And were we not commanded to? Who are the sheep in Jesus’ Matthew 25 parable? Was it those who were powerful missionaries? Were the goats sent to hell for their lack of evangelism? No. It was for a lack of charity to “the least of these my brethren” (Mat 25:40). Those who saw Christ’s brethren in prison or naked or hungry and did nothing were sent to hell. And who are Christ’s brethren? He tells us: “he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!” (Mat 12:49).

And where are the least? Where are the hungry, poor, imprisoned Christians? They are in the developing world. The centroid of Christianity is moving back again to the south and east, where there is still terrible poverty, disease and death. There is again a need amongst our brethren to the south and east. It is not now in Jerusalem, but in Africa and Asia.

Remember also Paul’s warning, “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Ti 5:8). John also questions the faith of those who fail this duty, “But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels [of compassion] from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” (1Jo 3:17). We Evangelicals struggle with hypocrisy, with doctrine, with patience and lust. But there is no place where we are closer to hell than in our apathy about the poverty of our brothers abroad.

We care more for the material condition of the unsaved than our own family. After coming to Kenya, I’ve often been asked about the missionary opportunities and never about the poor condition of the brethren. And I was not offered help to relieve their condition, but instead, Bibles. Bibles are good in themselves, and so are missions. But the fact that the condition of our brothers in Kenya is not even thought of is damning. In the present and manifest distress, the fact that church global missions budgets are often an hundredfold higher than global poverty budgets is damning. We must repent.

Providing for our own family is of utmost concern. Of what other duty which if we neglect it, are we promised hell (Mat 25:46), called worse than infidels (1Ti 5:8), said we abide in death (1Jo 3:14) or asked how the love of God could abide in us (1Jo 3:18)? What other duty was so important to distract Paul, the missionary’s missionary, from missions (Rom 15:26, 1Cr 16:3, 2Cr 8:2)?

But consider the wonderful opportunity God has arranged for us. For where we are poor, our brothers are rich; and where we are rich, they are poor. We should remember: we in the West were made rich in money but poor in spirit. Consider the power of the Holy Spirit, spreading Christianity like a wildfire across China, India and the rest of the developed world. Missionaries, evangelists and prophets are being raised up in multitudes by the Spirit there. And what of us in the West? Though we have a heritage rich in Missions and Evangelism in the First and Second Great Awakenings, now it seems to be God’s will that the fire be cooled.

But in the place of that fiery passion, God has blessed us instead with the riches of this world. We are the most productive people ever to have lived. We are far richer than the Romans, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Arabs, the Byzantines and the Britons. We have money, business, ingenuity, organization and technology. We are better equipped than any other people in the history of the world to end the desperation of poverty, an affliction persistent since the Fall of Man. We are the first generation in the history of the world with the ability to actually do it.

Missions is a higher calling indeed (1Cr 12:28), but not one that we are particularly good at. I came to Kenya thinking there was some opportunity for missions. I soon realized that I had exchanged an excellent mission field for a poor one. Though God has given me gifts in evangelism, there were fewer opportunities in a rural village in Kenya than in the ivy halls of Stanford. Christianity is stronger in Kenya than it is anywhere I have seen in the US, and I found myself especially ill-equipped to evangelize, particularly when compared to my fiery brothers here.

While not given particular gifts in evangelism, we as a culture have powerful and unprecedented gifts in “healings, helps, governments” (1Co 12:28); let us use these to their utmost, while ever coveting the greater gifts of our brothers in the developing world. We have a greater ability to give than any people at any other time in the history of the world. One in our middle class has a greater ability to give than even kings and merchants of old. So let us give in abundance and “with simplicity” (Rom 12:8).

And let us never forget the other edge of the sword of opportunity; it cuts both ways. “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required” (Luke 12:48). We will not be held guiltless if we squander the greatest opportunity for generosity in the history of the world. And we will surely draw close to hell if we close our hearts to our brothers.

Let this generation of Evangelicals be remembered as our great forbears in Britain were. Two centuries ago, William Wilberforce and his fellows ended the slave trade in Britain and will be forever remembered for it, both on earth and in heaven. Let Evangelicals of this generation be remembered not as those whose greedy hearts were cold, but as those who set the captives of poverty free, those who brought food and shelter forever to billions. Let us act like the Philadelphians, the city of love for the brethren, a Church that keeps God’s word to provide for our Christian brothers and for the poor. And then we can receive Christ’ promise, “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, [which is] new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and [I will write upon him] my new name” (Rev 3:12).

Of Alliances and Kingdom Building

We are not saved by works alone. But the Kingdom is not built by faith alone. And it is not only built by Christians. Certainly God uses all for his purposes. Even Satan himself will serve God’s purpose, as will his instruments like the Pharaoh of Exodus; even vessels for destruction have their place in the Kingdom (Rom 9:22).

There are many men who have seen God, whose work will survive them. The mathematician who sees beautiful Truths of God but fails to worship Him will indeed pass away. His postulates will not. And there are many men who love God, but whose work is headed for destruction. The Christian who builds a corporation which oppresses the poor may reach heaven, but as one escaping a fire (1 Cor 3:15).

Truly, we are commanded to use “mammon of unrighteousness” to achieve God’s ends (Luke 16:9). I once heard a missionary speaking on medical missions, encouraging the use of secular grants over church donations, “Why use God’s money for what Satan will pay for?”And if we are to use the fuel of the Enemy, why not also his vehicles? Would not Christ also commend us for our shrewdness in that regard?

This is war. Our mission: to bring about the Kingdom in every way to every place. And if Poverty is one foe standing in our way, can we not coordinate our efforts with its fellow foes? If Poverty is entrenched in a non-Chrisitan region, call it Sodom, can we not support those fighting it, whatever their alignment? Even if this does nothing to fight another of our enemies, Faithlessness, does this not advance the cause of Christ nonetheless?

But it is doubtful to me that these Enemies of the Kingdom are not aligned and strengthened by one another. Let us return to Sodom. Its citizens have never seen compassion before, but the coming of a secular organization shows it to them. Will they not be drawn to know from whence that compassion comes? And will not their inability to answer (for few secular people have any idea why they do good) create an intense yearning for Truth? Would not this Secular compassion till the spiritual soil of Sodom, allowing missionaries to sow where they had not tilled?

Does not “every good gift…[come] down from the Father of lights” (Jam 1:17)? Does compassion have any other source but Christ? And if it is from Christ, will not even secular compassion “draw all men unto” to its source (Jhn 12:32)?

But even assuming we could know that Sodom would never repent, would fighting Poverty there be in vain? I think not. All of Christ’s charity failed to win converts, for by the end of his ministry, “all forsook him, and fled” (Mark 14:50). I would think it blasphemy to call any work of God futile. I think His charity will live on eternally even if its objects do not. Of course, it is the greatest thing for both to live on. But the hard-hearted cannot sabotage the reward of the charitable. There is some element of the charity itself which must be eternal.

Is it wise for Christians to draw such a hard line in their giving? I think not. I think we shall be rebuked for a lack of shrewdness if we continue along our present course. When effective organizations who serve the poor better than Christian ones are ignored for their secularism, will we not be judged for the poor who went hungry because of our foolishness? We should aim to serve the poor by the best means presented to us.

We should remember that arrows into the heart of Poverty are no less lethal because they are shot by a secular bow. And if a secular bowman has the shot, should we deny him arrows?

Judging Evil

I’ve recently had a number of conversations about evil men and their evil deeds. As I’ve listened to the judgments cast on these men, I found myself silently disagreeing. Not with the badness of the men, but on the judgment of them. So I’ve had to reflect on why I disagreed.

Firstly, I think I disagree because of my view on what evil is. Evil committed by men is a mis-ordering of goods. Success in business is a very good thing; but you are greedy when you overemphasis on this success. You do indeed have great value as a human being; but you are guilty of being prideful when you value yourself more highly than you should. I believe every sin or evil deed is like that.

Men do what is right in their own eyes. Nobody does evil simply for the sake of doing evil. We can pick out unrealistic bad guys easily by their pure desire to do evil. Even sadists don’t do harm for the sake of harm; they do harm for the sake of pleasure, which, by itself, is a good thing. A person may do wrong knowing it is wrong, but it is because of some other good thing that is overvalued. An adulterer knows that adultery is wrong, but counts the pleasure greater (or gratified desires, or rebellion, or relieved boredom) than the value of lost faithfulness.

When considering bad people, I realized that the greatest evils don’t come from selfishness, but from foolishness. It comes from men who do not well think and pray through their motivations and actions. It came from bad philosophy (“love of wisdom”; philosophy in the Platonic sense). Nazis wanted a good thing: a strong Germany. Some of it was misplaced priorities (a strong Germany was more important than a strong France). But the most vile part of it was strong and good ambitions mixed with very bad philosophy. In this case, Social Darwinism and Anti-Semitism inspired the Holocaust and good German ambitions were driven to very evil ends.

Similarly with Colonialism, it was originally motivated by a desire for richness for friends, family members and countrymen. Later, it morphed into badly-executed altruism. Kipling’s infamous poem, “White Man’s Burden,” relates this altruistic desire: “Take up the White Man’s Burden/ Send forth the best ye breed--/Go bind your sons to exile/To serve your captives' need.” But in the case of the Colonialists, even those with the good ambition “To serve [their] captives’ need,” were thwarted by racism (i.e. viewing the colonized as “captives”), and the result has been the Pandoric post-colonial world. It is their fault that I get asked a hundred thousand times by children in Kenya, using the only English phrase they know, “Give me money.”

As a result, I think it’s possible that men who have good hearts do harmful things. I think there were many benevolent men who were also colonizers. Some good men who destroyed continents may only be guilty of foolishness, if indeed they acted by benevolence. In fact, I myself may be one of them; men may look back in a century on development workers and show the terrors that were made possibly by our work. But I believe I will be judged good; my motivations are benevolent, though it may turn out that I am guilty of some foolishness.

So what does that mean for “evil men”? I face “evil men” on a daily basis. But how different are these men from me? How often do I mis-prioritize Goods? And how much of my goodness was just a historical and social accident? I was raised in a good time and by a good family. Would these men have been the way they are if they had my advantages? Moreover, is what I’m doing even Good in the long run? These questions cannot be answered by mortal minds. And I suppose this is why we are told “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”

An old Christian-ism is when watching and evil person to say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” No person is special. No one is immune from the risks of sin and evil. And we cannot judge one another because we are all guilty of sin. Though sins do have different gravities, we as sinners do not have different categories. I am in exactly the same moral situation as the “worst of sinners;” even the best of sinners is still a sinner. All of us mis-prioritize.

I can (and should) look at actions and call them evil or good. But I cannot be certain, so I should not judge another; the proclamation of damnation and salvation is not my domain. We certainly need to make judgments on actions; we need to aspire to the good and fight the bad as best we are able. But for the purposes of ranking humans above or below myself, I can see neither the heart which produces an action nor the action’s ultimate outcome. I cannot look into the future to show what will come of his action. I cannot look at a man and presume to know his heart. Even if I could, I think I would be horrified by the lack of diversity in shades of black.

Note: I think I am totally ripping off C.S. Lewis with this essay. His ideas have so inspired my own I cannot identify which were originally planted by him.

"Lest they be forgiven"

Mar 4:10 And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable. 11 And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all [these] things are done in parables: 12 That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and [their] sins should be forgiven them.

Lest? What do you mean “Lest…their sins should be forgiven them”? Doesn’t He want their sins to be forgiven. Jesus seems to be saying something very not-PC in Mark: that He doesn’t make parables clear for the purpose of people not believing in Him. The blow is softened in Luke’s account (so most Christians just skip over Mark’s “lest” and go on to a more comfortable Luke).

For those that do exposit this verse, it is generally taken to mean that Jesus is creating an insider group, separating those who would believe from those who would not. This has been taken as a verse in support of a Calvinist view of the world where those who are inside were predestined to be there and that’s the way God wants it; parables may even be a way of limiting the accountability of those who are going to be damned anyways. And though Calvinism is always tough to swallow, expositionally it’s usually a safe bet (and the side of the argument I usually find myself on).

Today in my Bible study, we went back and looked at where Jesus was quoting from:

Isa 6:9 And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. 10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

Pretty much the same thing (once you pass it through the Septuagint). First note the context: this is the first message given to Isaiah, immediately after his commissioning.[1] So the context makes this into a pretty important message. And what’s the message? Israel will not listen. But Isaiah isn’t satisfied with his commission. He asks God, “Lord, how long?” (Isa 6:11)[2]. And God tells him, “Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant…” and then goes on to describe exile and a remnant.

When did that happen? From the writing of Isaiah to the present, the desolation of the cities of Israel was either by Nebuchadnezzar (586BCE) or by Vespasian (70CE … :P Just fooling. Anno Domini 70 [3]). But if you look at Jesus’ words, He seems to be applying God’s words to the present situation; He seems to be claiming His parables are the fulfillment of the first part (“lest they see…and hear”). It would follow that the prophecy of desolation is Vespasian’s.

Look closely at the Isaiah passage. The word that caught my attention was: “until”. The implication of ‘until’ is that this blindness is only temporary. Where do we hear about “blindness until…”? A BLB search yields one result:

Rom 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. 26 And so all Israel shall be saved…

In this part of Romans, Paul is talking about Israel’s role in God’s plan. Here he describes how Israel’s disbelief benefits the Gentiles: “…through their fall salvation [is come] unto the Gentiles…” (Rom 11:11). In other words, if Israel did not fall, the Gentiles would not have had the chance for salvation. If the Jews would have accepted Jesus as King, they would have set up His throne in Jerusalem and kicked off the Millennium in 32AD; His crown would not have been of thorns and the fealty paid by the Romans would not have been in jest. But Eternity would have been empty save for a few million Jews, peppered with Gentiles like Melchizedek and Rahab.

Why doesn’t Jesus want them to be forgiven in Mark 4? Because if the Jews to whom he preached believed, then multitudes of Gentiles would not be saved. It wasn’t that Jesus didn’t want the Jews to believe in Him; He didn’t want them to believe in him yet. By keeping the Kingdom of God a secret, by encoding it in parables and telling only His closest disciples, Christ was preparing the way for His own crucifixion. By keeping His identity a secret from those people who he loved most, by allowing his beloved ones to suffer from blindness, he made salvation possible for billions. His secrecy made possible a world where He would pay for the sins of the world, and a world where those few disciples to whom he told these secrets would then go out and preach Salvation to all tribes, tongues, peoples and nations.

What sounds like an elitist Jew speaking secrets to an inner circle, actually is a daring and heroic plan to save the world.

[1] In my book, Isaiah in this scene wins the “Best possible direct response to God” award: When God asks in His throne room (filled with recently-described super angels screaming to each other "Holy, Holy, Holy") “Whom shall I send?” Isaiah has the balls (faith) to shout “Here am I; send me.”

[2]This, by the way, is also pretty insightful/ballsy
God: “I’m going to crush them.”
Isaiah: “Yeah I know you’re saying that, but, come on, they’re your people. I know you won’t forever. So, how ‘bout it? When are you going to give up and bless them again like you always do?”

[3] I think I’m going to start saying the full translated phrase from now on. “When were you born?” “In the year of our Lord 1985.”

The Core of Christianity

[For Christians...and interested Jews]
I was considering “the Gospel”. I considered the question in isolation. I wanted to find out how the Bible defined the Gospel without ulterior motives or plans to write this. After reading through the a dozen key verses that talk about ‘good news,’ I settled on 3 core truths (with 2 additional sub-points) about the Gospel. After an exhaustive reading of verses that use “Gospel,” I decided that I needed to add two more. And that the 2 sub-points were worthy of promotion to ‘core truth’ status. So I ended up with 7 core truths that seem common to definitions (and passages about) the Gospel (even though I’m prone to trying to make things fit patterns like that, this one was certainly not consciously designed). I found four verses which I believe are the only ‘definitional’ verses on the Gospel (that is, those which say something like, “The Gospel is…”) and based my list of 7 core doctrines on these: 1Ch 16:23-5, Isa 52:7-9, Rom 1:16-17, 1Cr 15:1-9. (See previous entry)

Independently, I’ve been considering what is the core of the message of God? What cannot be taken out of Christianity and it still be Christianity? I was having a very interesting conversation with a friend on Paul’s strategy for planting churches: very sloppy. They didn’t have perfect doctrine by the time he left. He had to work it out from a distance years later. What, then, were the churches he founded based on?

As God usually does, it seems these independent thoughts didn’t stay that way. I had never really thought of the “good news” as being central, which is silly when you think about the core texts being called ‘Gospels’. Perhaps by trying to define “Gospel,” I stumbled across the non-negotiables. Everyone seems to have their own list of things you need to believe/do to be saved. So here’s mine:

1. God is great.
2. Yahweh is Salvation (translates to “Jesus”).
3. We will live by faith.
4. God loves Israel and will be faithful.
5. God loves the Gentiles, too.
6. The scriptures confirm the above.
7. We should declare #1-6

Conspicuously present is ‘Israel;’ conspicuously absent is ‘obedience’ (both of which are good cult litmus tests. “Israel’s not Israel, we’re Israel!” and “Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t enough for salvation!” are two dead giveaways... though this is a high sensitivity and low specificity test). The Christology is not as developed as in most Christian statements of faith, but the cross-scriptural message is the same: Yahweh is Salvation. Whether you lived late enough to know that God meant that literally (that some dude would take on that name and be the very provision by which God would bring about salvation), or like Abraham, you just believed in the fact without knowing the mechanism. I’ve come to the conclusion that “The Gospel,” could have been preached by Jacob, Moses, David, Isaiah, John (or his remnant disciples in Acts), Jesus (pre-crucifixion) or Paul (post-resurrection). The message has never changed; we just have details added.

Like I said, I didn’t set out to come up with a list need-to-believes. But this looks about right. The core doctrines of Christianity are all here, albeit with some shifts in emphasis (compared to what a seminary student would produce).

Perhaps these represent the core of the faith. Are these elements truly the central ones? In my next entry, I plan to look at sermons by Paul, Peter and Jesus to see if these seven elements are indeed common to their preaching.

Photography as Prophecy

Photography often feels like a hunt. I am always armed and will quickly pull my camera out and leap into a place where I can get a clean shot of my quarry. Sometimes it’s a bird on the wing. Sometimes it’s a sun that’s falling. Sometimes I’m driving home at seventy miles an hour and there happens to be the most beautiful scene ever on the left side of the road.

I remember once in the middle of conversation seeing a hawk or falcon (please tell me if you can ID the bird) begin to dive near me. I literally ran so I could see the valley into which it dove, drew my camera, and took my footing. Holding the camera like a pistol, steadying my right hand with my left, I tracked the bird, held my breath, squeezed the trigger and fired. It was a perfect shot.

Another time I was a distance from a beautiful field that would perfectly catch the sunset, if only I could get there in time. I was walking fast, but the sun was setting faster. I started running, being slowed by beautiful obstacles that would not permit me to pass without photographing them. The batteries of my camera died. Like a soldier reloading under heavy fire, I quickly dropped out the old batteries and reloaded new ones. I made it to the field just in time to catch the setting sun a beautiful grassy field.

What is the mission of a photographer? To capture beauty. It’s a simple yet profound task. The object itself has been created by God directly or secondarily through human hands; the talent of the photographer is to see it.

I think its primary goal, capturing beauty, has much the same purpose as prophecy. Photography, like all art, is a portal to eternity. As the prophets who shared their glimpses of heaven causing us to yearn for its glory, I aim to make visible that which is invisible to most. I have no ambitions to pass Isaiah, but I would like to share whatever of heaven that can be shared.

In “The Problem of Pain” C.S. Lewis describes his view of Heaven. Have you ever “…stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have been looking for all your life? All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it…but if it should really become manifest …you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say ‘Here at last is the thing I was made for.’”


A great photograph is only ever a shadow of the Truth; it is to the real thing as a two-dimensional black shadow is to the three-dimensional object that cast it. I took the picture above on the I-5 on the north side of the grapevine. It may have been the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen, and stirred within me a yearning and homesickness for a place like it, a place I have never been but is my home.

I believe that the landscape was the rim of an eclipse. We’re in the shadow of the sun, its bland and natural light blocking the glory of heaven. It is complete, except in the few places and times where we glimpse the edge; in the photo above, snow, grass, shadow and light converge to offer a momentary flicker of the glory that is coming, a prelude to a song that will soon be sung. It can’t come soon enough!

Isa 49:13 Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the LORD hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.

The Body and Cell Biology of Christ

1Cr 12:12 “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also [is] Christ.”

The Body of Christ is an analogy which may be far deeper than I originally gave it credit for. I have now studied basic cell biology a second time and have realized that this metaphor could be extended a bit. There is a hint here of something deeper. In this entry I'll describe a bit about biology in simple terms and show that there may be far more behind the body of Christ than Paul had time to write about in 1 Corinthians.

We know that all parts of the body come from a single fertilized egg, one set of DNA. Every cell in your body has a complete and almost perfect copy of the original DNA of the original fertilized egg. As the body grows, different parts of the genome are expressed or ‘turned on.’ As the body has need, the cells differentiate and become different kinds of cells. Early on, these cells become precursors. One precursor may become a skin cell or a hair cell, but does not become a nerve cell. Parts of the DNA are turned on or off to make a skin precursor different from a nerve precursor. Much of this switch-flipping is due to context; the environment of a precursor cell helps determine what it will become. More steps occur and more switches are turned in the DNA until the cells finally become a normal body cell like a skin cell or nerve cell. All cells have different roles and characteristics. Some are rapidly dividing like skin, others are slow like parts of the eye. Some are very strong like muscles, others are soft like ears. Even within a single tissue (the intestine), there is a wide variety of cells. There are some to lubricate, some to digest, some to secrete, some to fight infection. The incredible thing we have recently discovered is that under the proper conditions, the skin cell has all the information to become a nerve cell.

This is like the Church. The original seed was Christ; the DNA was the Word. That original message has been faithfully passed down to each and every member (cell) of His body. Throughout the growth of the Church, different teachers (precursor cells) have led different types of churches (normal body cells). The churches Paul planted were probably very different from the ones Peter planted in nature and character, though unified by the message (DNA), as nerves are different from skin. The kind of Christian that is produced by any local church is highly dependent on the environment. A Christian who comes to faith in a persecuted church may be far stronger than one from suburbia, as muscles are stronger than earlobes and become what they are by the context of their developing cells. The churches themselves have variety as the tissues do; an American church is not an African church as a patch of skin is not an intestine. Also the individual members of a church have vastly different talents and interests; some do accounting and some do preaching, as some cells do secreting and some do absorbing. The main point is that every single Christian is unified in the central message of the faith: the Gospel. In a similar way, every cell in a body is unified in that it has basically the exact same copy as every other cell; they, like Christians, are unified in the central message.

Normally cells behave very altruistically and will sacrifice themselves or will limit their individual growth for the good of the whole body. If the original DNA message is perverted, a cell may change its behavior. If it doesn’t sacrifice itself for the body, or if it grows faster than it ought to, it begins to grow. It becomes a tumor and drains away nutrients from the body. If it remains in its proper place, it is only an annoyance; if the perverted message spreads (if the cancer metastasizes) it may affect other parts of the body and lead to death.

This is like pride. A single man (or angel) may grow prideful and believe his role is more important than it is. As he waxes great, he may draw away others with him. He is annoying if he stays in his place, but if he leaves his place and his doctrine spread, it endangers the entire church and not just the man's neighborhood.

Maintaining the faithfulness of the original DNA message is critical to the survival of a person. There is a great amount of energy spent to keep the original message true. When it is copied, the machine that copies the DNA proofreads. After it has been copied, other machines come along and check for errors. Some even check to see if there is evidence of tampering or damage and will cause the entire cell to destroy itself with its DNA to prevent it from being copied again. Like the copying of the Bible and keeping true doctrine is essential for the success of the Church, the fidelity of the DNA is essential to the proper functioning of the body.

The same is true of the Word. Historically at least, Hebrew scholars checked and rechecked their work. When errors were suspected, they would burn the entire parchment. Reformers and apologists starting in the first century fought for pure doctrine (Rev 2:2) and opposed any changes to the original message. The maintenance of the Gospel and the Bible has been an incredible miracle and the reason why we still have a healthy Church today.