Here’s a new essay: Miracles and Other Stuff
“We get no help from ‘sewing-circle’ Christians… Do you realize how bad it is? Do you realize where we are in the culture and what it’s going to take to turn that around? It’s not going to be soft. It’s not going to be nice. It’s not going to be delicate. And you trying to soften everything and trying to make the truth soft and comfortable for ladies is actually hurting the message.” —Rachel Wilson
St John of the Cross wrote: “Learn to understand more by not understanding than by understanding.” I think the saint was trying to tell us that we need to approach the God-stuff with a proper sense of scale. We need to deal with divine things from within the scope of our own limitations. In other words, we make a mistake when we think we’ve got the whole mystery of God reduced down to our own understanding. We sometimes forget that God is so much bigger than our conception of him. And we sometimes resist the idea that the ways of God are enigmatic, even for us (see Isaiah 55:8-9). In the face of this, perhaps humility is the only proper corrective.
The 11th chapter of Hebrews is all about the heroes of the Old Testament and what they had to endure for their faith. The beginning of the 12th chapter sums it all up by comparing the world to an arena in which we have to compete for the faith. It goes on to say that all those heroes from the past are watching to see whether we Christians will compete with endurance and courage. That’s quite a sobering metaphor, wouldn’t you say?
Please reflect on this metaphor if you’re still one of those Christians who thinks that the most important thing is to be “nice”. And if you choose to ignore the metaphor because it makes you feel uncomfortable, then at least don’t disparage those tough Christians who are brave enough to enter the arena and compete for the prize. But if you’re not even willing to do that, then you should probably avoid reading Ephesians 6:10-17. I mean, that passage will probably ruin your whole day.
You are aware that the United States of America was never a pure democracy, right? No, really. Look it up.
Dear Christians: No, God isn’t “on your side”, unless by that you mean that God will give you the grace and mercy to help you grow, to develop, to be faithful. In our lives (yours and mine) we are engaged in an ongoing effort to place ourselves on God’s side—that is, to cooperate with God as he forms us into disciples of Jesus Christ. As an experienced Christian, I can tell you that’s the way it works in real life. Claiming to be “saved” is one thing. Becoming a disciple is something else. Discipleship is a voluntary process that unfolds over time. It doesn’t happen in an instant, no matter what they might be teaching at your church. A beginning is just that. It’s how we end that matters.
So the question you and I have to answer is not: “Am I ‘saved’?” No, the really important question is: “Am I on God’s side?” And if we dare to answer yes, we need to be careful. In the life of faith, an uncritical certainty about such things is just a sign of arrogance.
“Christianity is the one religion that we are allowed to disparage.” —Joe Rogan