Category: Faith

Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing

How do we faithfully follow Jesus in a divided world?

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My daily Bible reading plan this morning began with this simple question:

How do you faithfully follow Jesus in a divided world?

(See the YouVersion plan called Fighting for Unity in a Divided World)

Judging by my social media feed, this question is poignantly apropos. It’s not just “people in the world” I see at odds with each other. I see many people posting memes under the banner of Christ, getting their lobbing verbal grenade’s at “the people in the world” and fellow Christians, alike.

I confess I have difficulty not being blunt, and for that I ask for your grace when I say that the spectacle saddens me. Humans have always lived in a world dominated by rising and falling empires, but Jesus came preaching a kingdom not of this world. Almost 2000 years after Jesus died and rose again to emphasize the Good News he proclaimed, we still fly our empire banners alongside Christ.

It wasn’t always like that, though. For almost three centuries after Jesus died on the cross at the hands of the Roman Empire, his followers proclaimed the Gospel without any influence or power in the world. His followers were mocked, derided, and marginalized, and they suffered cycles of persecution culminating in the Great Persecution.

Beginning in 303, Emperor Diocletian, who established a tetrarchy with Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius (the father of Constantine), issued a series of edicts demanding that Christians comply with traditional (pagan) religious practices. (See Wikipedia) Diocletian presaged the Great Persecution when he took power in 284, purging the army of Christians and surrounding himself with public opponents to Christianity. He led an “activist government” and promoted himself as “restorer of past Roman glory”. (Ibid.) (Making Rome great again?)

Diocletian finally ordered “a general persecution” on February 23, 303. The reign of persecution was short-lived (unless you endured it, I suppose). Constantius, the father of Constantine, restored legal equality for Christians in Gaul in 306, and Maxentius usurped Maximian’s control in Italy and North Africa in the same year with a promise of religious toleration. When Licinius ousted Maximinius in 313, the persecution was formally ended.

The political ebbs and tides of the time (with implications for the church) are reminiscent of our political shifts from right to left to right in recent years. Perhaps, little has changed in that way, yet the change that followed in 313 was unprecedented, and this change set the course of the Church on a path it had never before traversed.

Eusebius, the Christian historian, wrote as a contemporary of Constantine with glowing approval of the events that changed the course of Christianity forever. Eusebius is the person who preserved the details of Constantine’s personal story of conversion to Christianity.

As the story was told by Constantine, he had a vision in 312 shortly before an imminent battle with a challenger to the throne of the Roman Empire, Maxentius, whose army outnumbered Constantine’s. Constantine saw in the sky a giant cross with the inscription, “In this sign conquer!” The vision was followed by a dream that evening in which Jesus purportedly came to him and told him to conquer in his name. Thereafter, Constantine established the cross as the standard for his army and the banner under which the Roman armies marched to battle and conquered in the name of Christ, the lamb of God who died that we might live.

The words of John Dickson have been echoing in my mind since I listened to Episode No. 21 of his Undeceptions podcast.

In the podcast (titled Post Christian) featuring the Australian journalist, Greg Sheridan. John Dickson commented on the approval by Eusebius of Constantine’s use of the cross as a symbol of conquering on behalf of the Roman Empire this way:

“A people used to mockery and social exclusion – and worse – were now invited into the very center of power. And perhaps most bizarrely, the Christian sign of humble self-sacrifice – a cross – was now the formal path – the very symbol – of the Roman war machine. It is so hard to get my head around when I consider what Jesus said about the cross – his cross – and its social implications.”

Juxtaposed to the image of Roman armies conquering under the sign of the cross in the name of Jesus, Dickson recalled the story of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who asked Jesus asking to seat them on the right and the left of Jesus when Jesus rose to power. These brothers, like many First Century Jews, expected a conquering Messiah. They interpreted the prophets to predict a Jewish Messiah “who would lift Israel above Rome and crush the enemies of God.”

Jesus gave them a response they didn’t expect and likely didn’t understand at the time:

“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”

Mark 10:38

The other disciples became indignant with James and John thinking, perhaps, they they deserved glory and recognition also. They, like many before and after them, may have viewed religion as a path to power and influence, and they may have been annoyed at the audacity of James and John out of jealousy. At this, Jesus brought them together and set them straight.

“You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Mark 10:41-45
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God Doesn’t Leave Us Where We Are

God has plans for you.

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I wrote some time ago on the subject that God meets us where we are. That blog article has been among the most read articles on this site since I wrote it. It was heartfelt, part of my own journey of discovery, and I think it resonates with the longing and angst that seems always resident in the human heart. Certainly always in mine.

God stands at the door to our hearts knocking. He doesn’t break the door down, and He won’t continue to knock if we ignore Him. He doesn’t overpower us, and He doesn’t seek to compel us against our will.

Yet, He desires us so much that He left His glory behind to become one of us, to enter into our human, historical space, and to offer Himself up for us – to redeem us – and provide a way for us to connect with Him. He took on human form, and He offered Himself up in a human body to demonstrate His love for us. Amazing!

No one can say that God is not invested in our redemption and in our good. No one can show more love or commitment to another person than to lay down his own life for another, and God did that for us.

Yet, He is unwilling to violate our will to coerce us into relationship with Him or to require us to submit to Him – even if it is for our good. He desires a loving relationship with us. He loves us like a parent loves a child because He “gave birth” to us (knitting us together in our mothers’ wombs (Psalm 139)). His love is unwavering even if we ignore Him and go our own way.

Thus, God meets us where we are. We can go nowhere that God is not present and able to meet us – when we are ready to meet Him.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

psalm 139:7-8

God meets us where we are when we are ready and willing to meet Him. He was always there, but we are not always ready or willing. When we get to that “place”, though, God is ever ready to meet us.

Know, however, that “meeting” the God who is always there is not an end; it is just a beginning. It is the beginning of a relationship with your creator. It is just the beginning of God’s good intentions for you.

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord….”

Jeremiah 29:11-14a

God’s intentions for you are good – to prosper you and not to arm you. We have trouble sometimes trusting God’s goodness, but this is the essence of faith: for “whoever comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who diligently search for him.” (Hebrews 11:6) His promise for us is so good it is beyond our ability even to imagine! (1 Corinthians 2:9)

Yet, Jesus warns us to count the cost. (Luke 14:28) Why? What cost?

These are important questions that we should ask. There is a catch – a cost – that we need to be aware of: God may meet us where we are, but He doesn’t intend to leave us there.

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To Obey Is Better Than Sacrifice

What is the obedience God desires from us?

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I became a follower of Jesus in 1979, though I was a wild, untamed stallion when I was first confronted with the Lordship of Christ and verbally submitted to him. I wandered down my own paths in the year that followed, leading me to a breaking point and more complete surrender. (A cycle I have unfortunately repeated more than once.)

Over the following two years, I was about as surrendered to God as I have been my whole life. I was all in – or as all in as I was capable of being at that time, perhaps. During that time, I became a big fan of Keith Green. I even saw him in concert in Des Moines Iowa in 1981 or 1982. He died in a place crash within a year or two after that, and his impact and memory has faded.

When I saw him in concert, though, his radical Christian commitment had been a huge impact on me, and that impact carried with me beyond his death. Thus, my daily reading today recalls to my mind these lyrics by Keith Green: 

To obey is better than sacrifice
I want more than Sundays and Wednesday nights
If you can't come to me every day 
Then don't bother coming at all

Keith Green was a musical child prodigy who was radically saved by Jesus. He used his great musical talent and platform to become a prophet of sorts to young Christians at the time who wanted an authentic faith.

I was very drawn to a monastic, cloistered life at that age that Keith Green represented, like a modern Essene. The truth is that I had long been drawn to that kind of thing going back to the book, My Side of the Mountain, that I read in grade school (about a boy who leaves his parents to hollow out a summer home in the trunk of dead tree in the Catskills).

That book seeded in me a longing for something authentic and pure. The idea took root in me that I could not find “it” in the bustle of the world. I needed to escape to solitude, self-reflection, and devotion to a simple life.

In a poignant moment in my senior year in college, I faced up to that longing and desire that ran deep in me, and I made a conscious decision to follow Jesus into the messy clamor of human society. Jesus often escaped to the mountains and the wilderness to be alone with God, but he always returned to the highways, and byways, and the public squares where people live.

Still, the Keith Green spirit of uncompromised obedience to Christ and Christ alone left an imprint on me. His prophetic insistence on radical commitment carried me forward in those early years of my journey with Christ.

Now, I find myself some 40+ years down a road that has taken many twists and turns. That road has taken me through long and winding wilderness areas that were darker than I care to dwell on. It has taken me to the other side of those dark times into the light of a new day, more weary and (hopefully) wiser for the experience. I am still following Jesus as best as I can, but I have a slightly different view of Keith Green’s words today. I hope I can give this the nuance it deserves.

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Perspective, The Universe, and God

Perspective is critically important for finite creatures such as ourselves because we view everything from “where we sit”.

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My thoughts are inspired by a Daily Galaxy article today, Astronaut’s ‘Lightbulb Moment’ in Space Reveals Humanity’s Biggest ‘Lie’s. Ignoring the obvious clickbait character of the title, I read the article, which is about the importance of perspective. A less sexy summary of the article might go like this: “Seeing the Earth from the vantage point of space provides a different perspective that should lead to a change in priorities.”

Astronaut’s ‘Lightbulb Moment’ in Space Reveals Humanity’s Biggest ‘Lie’ – © The Daily Galaxy –Great Discoveries Channel

The photo associated with the article illustrates the idea of perspective: that an astronaut viewing the earth from space, seeing the earth from the perspective of distance, hits home in a way that few of us have experienced. This is a perspective few of us have the privilege of attaining. We can imagine what it is like to view the earth from this perspective, but actually viewing the earth from this perspective is more impactful than imagining it.

I can only speculate on this, as I have not experienced it. Even viewing the astronaut’s perspective in a photo, though, hits home in a different way than simply imagining it. This is because our perspective (where we sit in relation to a thing) matters.

Perspective is critically important for finite creatures such as ourselves because we view everything from “where we sit”. We necessarily have a limited perspective. Our perspectives are limited by our location in space/time, geography, and position.

Our perspectives are also limited by our sociology, culture, education, worldview, personal experiences and a host of other physical and metaphysical factors. Many of these factors are external to us (like sociology, culture, and education). Many of these factors are more internal to us, like worldview, experience, and individual psyches (for lack of a better descriptor).

Our perspective can “shift”, as the article states, as we change “location”, experience new things, and view things from a different “angle”. Thus, a change in vantage point provides a potential change in perspective – a change in how we view the world and prioritize things.

“Walking a mile in another’s shoes” speaks to the kind of shift we experience when we gain a different vantage point. Walking a mile in another’s shoes speaks to the impact of experiencing a difference of perspective, and not just considering it abstractly.

Ronald Garan, the astronaut identified in the article, “was struck by the stunning beauty and fragility of Earth’s thin atmosphere” as he viewed the Earth from the distance of space. The reality of the earth’s beauty and fragility is nothing new, but the actual experience of viewing the earth from such a distance hit him in a more visceral way than simply knowing these things intellectually.

Tethered to the small oasis of a space station on the edge of the infinitely vast regions of a dark, cold, and apparently lifeless universe, Garan was struck by the thinness of the Earth’s atmosphere that harbors all the living beings on its surface. Experiencing the small and vulnerable bubble we call Earth from the yawning chasm of space, Garan gained new appreciation of the need for humans to prioritize care and stewardship of this highly privileged planet.

Perspective and its impact on us is not just a matter of physical location. Another person sitting immediately next to Garan with the same view of Earth might have “missed” what Garan “saw” because perspective is more than just physical location.

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Myth, Seasons, and the Resurrection of Jesus

Should the claim that Christianity is similar to prior, pagan mythology concern us?

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The god of the sea and oceans Neptune (Poseidon).

Popular trends arise in culturally contingent ways, and those trends often dominate the public mind for a season. Thus, the idea that Christianity borrowed from prior pagan mythology gained notoriety with the rise of New Atheism. The Zeitgeist: The Movie (2007) is a poster child for this popular trend in thinking.

The Zeitgeist movie forces the narrative, ignoring glaring dissimilarities, and manufacturing similarities that don’t really exist. It ignores (or isn’t familiar with) the relevant academic scholarship, but it has been watched well over one million times. We might say that the Zeitgeist movie has become legendary in a truly mythic sense itself.

I will go out on a limb, nevertheless, to say that Christians have shown far too much angst over this trend of claiming that Christianity is similar to prior pagan mythology. There are critical differences, and they are significant, but there are some similarities also. Do the similarities pose a problem for Christianity?

The short answer is, no. In fact, if truth is truth and reality is reality, ancient, pagan attempts at explaining that reality are likely to hit on some metaphysical truth. If they didn’t, I might begin wonder about the nature of reality and our ability to recognize and understand it.

Mythic literature as a genre is an attempt to provide some explanation and understanding of basic realities and the ebb and flow of life. I am reminded of these things as I sit outside on an unseasonably warm day in November with a view of trees bared of their multicolored leaves that have been collected by my earnest neighbors in piles lining the suburban streets for pickup.

Fall is ebbing into the dark night of winter. The subtle coolness in the breeze portends (what seems to me now) a distant spring. I am braced for what comes next as I enjoy what is likely to be the lest vestige of warmer days for longer than I care to think about.

My hope for the spring, however far off it seems in my present mood, is rooted in my experience of the certainty of the seasons. I know my hope is not fanciful, even as I brace (all too knowingly) for the cold, bleak trudge ahead.

It seems completely natural that ancient mythology captures this duality in stories that have religious significance. These experiences are common to man. We remind ourselves of the hope of spring as we gaze in wonderment at fall trees in the throes of seasonal death and the chill onset of winter. It reminds us of our own life and death sagas, even now in all our modern comforts.

Our modern comforts allow us to be a bit more disconnected and circumspect, perhaps, than our ancient forbearers. Those comforts and great advances in scientific knowledge allow us to be intellectual about these things. Ancient pagans lived literally at the mercy of the seasons, and all the things they didn’t know played like gods on the stage of their fraught imagination.

Modern people chalk seasonal changes up to natural cycles that just happen. We believe humans chased all the gods off long ago. The ownership we have asserted in our knowledge of the way the world works gives us an illusion of control that I surmise is not all that much different than the ancients, who sought some ownership and control of this world through the mediators of gods they thought they could appease.

Pagans found solace in the seasons as we do. Myth is rooted in collective experience, and it is driven by an impulse to understand and import control into our experience. We also have a natural inclination to seek meaning. We might call this impulse a “religious” one.

Though we have the chased the gods off, we still have a religious impulse. Though we no longer believe in many gods, and we no longer venerate ancient myths with more than a curious read, the idea of one, Creator God God persists, and it is not explained away by modern science and knowledge. The Bible, though it has ancient origins, stands up to our modern scrutiny in ways that pagan myth does not.

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