The Internet Monk Archives

God of storms, seas, floods and earthquakes: Some thoughts on the Tragedy

[I would encourage everyone reading this post to stop right here, go to Samaritan’s Purse or the charity of your choice, and give to relieve and rebuilt the affected nations. Then we can do a bit of thinking.]

UPDATE: Here’s how I fit all of this into an actual sermon at my church.

I have some thoughts. Nothing formal or overly organized. These thoughts may or may not be helpful to those of you who might be dialoging with skeptics about the tsunami and God’s relation to such events. I was particularly thinking of those who equate this event with God’s judgement, or relate it to the fallenness of creation. My thoughts may seem silly, but that is how my mind works sometimes.
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Donald Miller pulls me out of the pit: A review of “Blue Like Jazz” and “Searching for God Knows What”

I can still hear Miss Morris, my senior English teacher, saying it: “Too many “I’s. Too many “me’s.” We were writing essays, and she was simply correcting us with one of the cardinal rules of good essay writing: the essay was about the thesis statement, not about “I,” “me,” or “my.” The reader didn’t need to be confronted with the subjective wanderings of the writer’s mind. The reader can see the writer’s name on the cover. He/She knows to whom these thoughts belong. Miss Morris believed all the roads that brought you to your conclusions were distracting to readers who only wanted to know the content of the essay.

Christian essayist Donald Miller was definitely absent the day these points were made. Miss Morris would not have been pleased with Miller’s “new realism” essays, where every page is an exploration of subjective experience, interpretation, thoughts, feelings and opinions.

I recently finished reading Miller’s two most recent books, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality, and the just released Searching for God’s Knows What. “Jazz” is a meandering version of Miller’s own spiritual journey, with little respect for chronology or evangelical mythology, prefering, instead, to explore how Christian spirituality (never Christianity) is relevant and real. (Thanks to Kent Runge for the recommendation)

“Searching” is an extended reflection on the gospel itself; a meditation that seeks to put traditional gospel presentations into retirement with an appeal to a relational dynamic best told in stories, art and conversation. Miller writes both apologetically to the outsider, and prophetically to the believer, taking on some of the central challenges to the integrity of the gospel in a time of ascendent conservative evangelicalism.
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Does the Story Matter?

The other day, we were talking about Jesus’ command to “judge not,” and I said this in a post about how I have learned to think about judging others.

Connected to this is the humility that needs to accompany all claims of knowledge of other persons. Boy oh boy oh boy have I learned this at OBI. I may know the behavior, but I don’t know the story, or the journey. Every day I ask God to keep me humble in what I say about a student’s behavior, because I had a pretty normal childhood, and many of these kids haven’t had the first normal day yet. So when I “judge”- and I have to, as do we all here- I try to keep in mind that I see very very little of the big picture.

A commenter posted the following response.

QUOTE: “I may know the behavior, but I don’t know the story, or the journey.”

The story and the journey do not matter. Sin is sin. Saul had a story and journey behind his consulting the medium at Endor. Uzzah had a story and journey behind reaching out to hold up the ark. Ananias and Sapphira had a story and journey behind lying about the money they had given.

The scourge of our age is that no one takes responsibility for their sin. There’s always a story and always a reason and always some other thing that shifts the blame.

But when God says “don’t,” you don’t. End of story (and journey, too.) That’s our problem–we just can’t leave it at that. Relativism and the postmodern mindset has instilled in this generation the idea that motives count more than truth. That’s been wrong since The Garden and will continue to be wrong.

Now, if you noticed that I never said the actions in question weren’t wrong, you are a good and reasonable reader. If you noticed that I never suggested excusing anyone for things done wrong, you are also a good and calm person. I commend you.
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Praise the Lord! He paid off my credit card! Again!

Presumption. Actually, the sin of presumption. I want to write about it, but I’m afraid that either I don’t know what I am talking about or I am going to make hundreds of sweet, wonderful Christian people start praying that I get a fever and die.

Oh well….what is life if we don’t live dangerously. I think presumption is rapidly rising on the list of common evangelical sins. But since you may have never used the word in your life, you probably can’t figure out why it bothers me.

First of all, what is presumption anyway? Let’s visit those experts at cataloging sin….the fathers of the Roman Catholic Church. And there is a good start in the “Summa.” Aquinas says that presumption is a sin, because it presumes on the mercy of God. He calls it a sin of “excessive hope.”

I answer that, As stated above …with regard to despair, every appetitive movement that is conformed to a false intellect, is evil in itself and sinful. Now presumption is an appetitive movement, since it denotes an inordinate hope. Moreover it is conformed to a false intellect, just as despair is: for just as it is false that God does not pardon the repentant, or that He does not turn sinners to repentance, so is it false that He grants forgiveness to those who persevere in their sins, and that He gives glory to those who cease from good works: and it is to this estimate that the movement of presumption is conformed.

My problem in talking about presumption is that most of what is written about it concerns persevering in sin, presuming on the forgiveness of God. But Aquinas mentions the kind of presumption that interests me: the kind that abandons what is good and right, in the hope that God will “give glory,” i.e. reward, anyway.
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A Theology of Everything

This is a story that happened where I work, so I need to tell you some things before we can go on.

Our school has thirty minutes of chapel scheduled into every school day. It’s been like that for one hundred and six years, and nothing is more distinctive about our school than our daily chapel service. One of my responsibilities is to oversee that chapel service and to preach in it frequently. After 12+ years, I feel some stewardship of that time, and I think I understand its purpose.

Normally, chapel is a short, simple, worship service. We sing, pray, someone preaches. But there are other things we do in chapel. We present awards. We recognize various kinds of excellence in athletics, academics and fine arts. We have creative ministries days. We have guest speakers and musicians. We are flexible in what we do, because our school is very diverse and many things happen on the campus in a week that we may want to talk about as a school family. So while we are mostly a worship-oriented chapel, we can be anything the school day demands, from convocation, to entertainment, to school business.
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Steve Mcfarland: The Internet Monk Interview

Friends are among the greatest gifts in life. Steve Mcfarland has been my friend for 4 decades and I am a richer man for it. He’s also an eloquent voice for the issue of Christians in public schools and a person who has invested his entire adult life in being an influence for Christ in the public square. He’s the Director of the Family Resource Center at the Owensboro Middle School in Owensboro, Kentucky, a position he has held for 13 years. He is the husband of Lisa and the dad of Heather and Justin. He has a degree in Social Work from Kentucky Wesleyan College. He’s a deacon a Bellvue Baptist Church. Before coming to the public schools, he worked with the Boys and Girls Club of Owensboro. He also has a fine singing voice, and once raised pigeons. He teaches a mean Dave Ramsey seminar (and he’s cheaper.) His only flaw is his devotion to the Pittsburgh Pirates, which is more irrational than being a Reds fan.

I sent him the questions, and he wrote the answers. Thanks for your time, Steve.
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“Lo, How a Rose:” Experiencing The Power of Beauty

It was Christmas of 1968. I was a seventh grader at Estes Junior High School. School was a huge part of my world. My father was beginning down the road to depression. I was an only child, and my life wasn’t full of the activities of a typical middle school boy today. My dad didn’t want me to play sports, so I came home every day and watched television, or played with my friends up the street. Looking back, there was a simplicity and goodness to my life, and there was also, right in the center, an emptiness.

My parents were uneducated and unsophisticated “country” people. Mom had grown up on farms in rural western Kentucky. Dad was an eastern Kentucky mountain boy who wound up making his way to the oil fields of western Kentucky where, after a painful divorce, he met and married my mother. We had a good family in many ways and a broken one in others, but it was completely devoid of anything you would call beauty; artistic beauty. There was no music. There were only a few cheap wall decorations. There were almost no books. Because I was an only child, I was treated as special, but I wasn’t introduced to the world of beauty. My parents knew the beauty of nature, but they lived in a city. They knew the beauty of family, and shared that with me. But what they knew of the beauty of music was the sound of folk music in the hollers and on the porches of farmhouses, and I was not there.
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Abandoning the Public Square….again

They are at it again. Their goal is simple: to get all children in the SBC out of public schools. To impose the teaching of creationism and Dobson-version approaches to moral issues on the entire SBC. Families can’t make the public school choice and be “good Christians.” Christians can’t minister in the public schools or send their kids to good ones. Churches can’t support all three options. There is no vision for education in America, just a vision for the withdrawal of Christian kids and the abandonment of the public square.

No issue has animated my intellectual journey more these past few months than this one. Let me tell you an experience, of which I could share many, that is typical of what I am feeling these days.

For two years now I have been spending Friday nights in the fall at high school football games. I am not a huge football fan in general, but I love the high school game and atmosphere. What I really love is the community I see on display. We attend a lot of games in Jackson, Ky, following the Breathitt County Bobcats. The whole town is there. The athletes are on the field, as well as a lot on non athletes who have worked hard just to be part of the team. (There is one kid so fat that they’ve made a special jersey for him. I can only imagine what committment that young man has shown to be on that team. I salute him.) The band kids play their hearts out. The community fills the stands. It’s wonderful. It’s not sheltered, there is a mix of people, and everyone is having a good time. I wish with all my heart my son could be on that field on in the band or just part of it.

Saturday we were at the state championships for AA football. We sat with the Owensboro Catholic fans. 3,000 of them. All ages and types, but cheering for the Aces. Across the way, Belfry fans from Pond Creek in Pike County. They were great. Tremendous spirit in the stands, great football on the field. Proud parents and grandparents. Lots of laughter. Life was good.

We have a bunch of Southern Baptists and other evangelicals saying that because the public schools don’t teach all their values, this community experience of education in the public square is not worthy of our support in any way. These people are saying- now get this- that it would be better to- under the banner of education- desert the public square in our communities in every way possible. Withdraw into homes, churches and schools of our own. These are the hostile dark ages, and the only viable Christian choice is to get out. What I see every Friday night is evil, because Christian pastors and parents can’t control every aspect of it as we can in our own homes and schools. So America, and our lives, would be better if those stadiums were closed, those lights were out, those teams were defunct, those stands were empty, that band was silent, and so on. Things would be better if we were either at church, or taking care of our own families.

If this is the way we are going, I am getting off the train. Something is wrong. Very, very, very wrong. How is it that these Southern Baptists can ONLY see the teaching of evolution and homosexuality and nothing else? How is it that all the other things that make the public square and the communities we live in worth supporting are invisible, and we must respond in fear?

If you have read my stuff, then you know that I am in favor of supporting every option of education, but I am certainly in favor of Christians being in that public square and making a positive difference. Call me worldly, but it feels good to be part of what I experience on Friday nights. Where am I wrong?

UPDATE: For those of you who are going to write me and say I am overboard, I have a quote for you, with my own boldfacing.

“A lot of conservatives are realizing they dont care much for the effect. It’s time to end all government involvement with the schools, at the state and local and federal levels.”

Policy leaders supporting the movement to abolish public education include U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Republican; Conservative Caucus President Howard Phillips; Ron Robinson, president of the conservative Young America’s Foundation; Lew Rockwell, president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute; and various senior analysts at conservative think tanks like the Hoover Institution.

“I think our movement is now as big as a zygote but not quite a fetus:’ said Marshall Fritz, president of the California-based Alliance for the Separation of School and State. “We don’t want vouchers; we want the whole system abolished.”

From the Exodus Mandate site, quoting a Washington Times article. Maybe we should call this the “let 42 million kids find their own schools” movement. Social irresponsibility of a high order. Thank God I can see what is wrong in my community, state and nation and still conceive of a solution other than shutting down the public schools.

Wonder if these experts ever thought of examining the public schools that work and see how it happens? How can more privitization help the public schools? How can the business community get involved? How can failing schools be put to rest and successful schools become a trend? What do private schools have to teach public schools? Who is sponsoring that conference? C’mon people. We can do better than “abolishing public education” and sentencing tens of millions of kids to the educational dumpster.

Christian Intolerance: We’ve been outed! What now?

But if we’re going to follow the Bible perfectly, we’re not finished yet. In the Old Testament, the punishment for homosexual acts is death. So let’s round up every gay person who has acted on their innate homosexual feelings and start administering lethal injection. While we’re at it, why don’t we also throw in anyone who has engaged in adultery, prostitution, disdain of parents (yes, death for getting into a fight with your mother or father) and profaning the Sabbath.

In the Old Testament, Moses, by God’s instruction, had an old man put to death for carrying a heavy burden on the Sabbath. Well, since it’s in the Bible, let’s round up every person in the world who has ever carried something heavy on Saturday, since Sunday is not the actual Sabbath, and have them executed.

Do you see where I’m going with this? If we imposed every Biblical precept on all people, we’d end up executing at least 99 percent of the world’s population. I’d be dead, Holbus would be dead, and you, reading this Viewpoint right now, would probably be dead, too.

The climax of hypocrisy in Holbus’ viewpoint is revealed when she emphasizes the importance of love, while the only thing she has successfully demonstrated is how to hate. This has been the case for many of the Viewpoints authors over the past semester, and I’m sick of it. I’m tired of the self-righteousness and the closed-mindedness. I’m tired of the lack of tolerance and the lack of compassion. I’m tired of the hypocrisy and I’m tired of the hate. It needs to end now.

The above quote is a student response to a letter written by a Marquette university student, noting her weariness at the highly visible nature of the gay rights movement on the campus. Since Marquette presents itself as a Catholic University offering a values based education, the original student writer thought it appropriate to question why something the church teaches is wrong- homosexual behavior- would be highly and visibly promoted on campus.
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Bisexual Logic and Gay Determinism: Does the rhetoric match the reality?

The release of the movie Kinsey and the continuing growth of bisexuality as a visible and publicized aspect of culture presents a very interesting dilemma for the gay rights movement. Are they sure they want us to listen to the bisexual community?

For years, I have done a unit on homosexuality and Christianity in my Bible classes. I’ve done a lot to show the logic of the argument that gays are “born that way.” The resort to determinism is the avenue to victim status and the resulting sympathetic rush to establish rights based on sexual preference.

But this is not always helpful logic. Clearly, all homosexuals are not born that way. Significant numbers of lesbians particularly attest to their intentional or temporary choice to be lesbian or bisexual. (Think Anne Hache’s “straight, gay, straight” journey.) My years of working at a boarding school reinforce my belief that when put into a same-sex environment, same-sex experimentation will result with both genders, and this has nothing to do with being “born that way.” It is more the case that “necessity is the mother of invention.” The same behavior is produced by trauma or persuasion to experiment, or other causes that are not determined by genetics.

Surely gay rights advocates know that all that homosexuality in prison is hardly about being “born that way?”

Which means that as revolted as we might be by Kinsey’s research methods, he wasn’t entirely wrong. Kinsey said that human sexual attraction and behavior exist on a line with homesexuality on one extreme and heterosexuality on the other. (We could draw the same line with other factors as well.) Kinsey said that throughout human life, our sexual behavior varies along this line in response to a number of factors. I completely agree. I find that curious teenagers or liberated types or those who have been molested or people with particular circumtances are quite likely to engage in homosexual behavior at some time or another.

And it doesn’t make them “homosexuals” who were “born that way.”

Just for the record, I absolutely accept the possibility of being born with a strong attraction toward the same sex. While I believe the case hasn’t been flawlessly made, I can say that such an assertion is consistent with the Christian view of a post-fall world. I believe we are all born with a potentially “movable” sexual orientation, but we all start out somewhere along the line. How does this effect behavior….and the morality of that behavior? Well, behavior is a mixture of rational and irrational factors, determinism and freedom. Morality isn’t a question of predesposition, but of God, creation and revelation. When homosexual advocates say it is all about biological determinism, they are not considering all the facts….or all those who engage in homosexual behavior at some time.

It is interesting that “Being” a homosexual is one of the more deterministic social quests in our culture. What is the logic of telling a 14 year old boy who has experimented with homosexuality that he “must” be “born that way?” We’ve known for years that same sex experimentation is common, but gay advocates will have that young person in a support group, a special school and whatever else will reenforce the message that any same sex act means the person is a homosexual. Does this really make sense? I see a number of young people who identify themselves as gay simply because they immediately enter a victim group and receive attention for themselves. Do gay advocates have the honesty to admit that human beings aren’t quite as predetermined as they want us to believe?