Well, we’re off to the Colorado Rockies for two weeks this morning. The goal of climbing my first “Fourteener” is in sight. As some of you may remember, we had to postpone this a year because of my health situation at the time. As of now, there will be four of us challenging the mountain. Or, I should say, two mountains. We’ll just have to see. They are close by one another, two of the 52 peaks in Colorado that are over 14,000 feet high. They are often referred to as a pair: Grays and Torreys. We hope to be fairly acclimated to the altitude by the time we make the trek, early the week following next. While Diane will be doing all of the prep hikes, some of which will be taxing (maybe to 12,000 feet), she is not planning on tackling the fourteeners. One of the strategies is to leave extremely early in the morning because we have to get up and down before the daily thunderstorms strike midday. Of course, we hope the weather cooperates.

The first picture is taken from lower on the trail in July and the second picture, of both peaks, is taken from pretty high up, in late spring. What a blessing that we have the chance to do this! Prayers always appreciated!

Early in his new book, The Road to Character (on loan from my friend Gary), NYT columnist and media pundit, David Brooks, uses resumes and eulogies to help us focus on our values.

I really like this approach and have actually thought a good deal about it in recent years.

His premise is that we spend far more time and energy considering hypothetical (or real) resumes than we do considering the kind of retrospective we’d hope would be shared upon our death.

By resumes, he means the list of accomplishments and skill sets that define us and give us value and worth. This refers to far more than just the professional. By eulogy, he means the central qualities that define who we are and what our life actually meant.

I know I have written on this before, both directly and indirectly. But I think it deserves repeated attention.

In more esoteric fashion, this is the difference between a state of doing vs. a state of being. In Christian tradition, it’s in the ballpark of the distinction between sisters Martha and Mary.

Whether or not we actually want someone or a group to memorialize us after we die, wouldn’t it be an interesting exercise to consider the key points we’d hope would be mentioned? This would include a description of our character, with examples. The nature of our relationships. The things we believed had ultimate value. The one or two things when mentioned would unify the audience and result in everyone nodding their heads in agreement. Things that would be carried forever in the hearts of others, not just in their heads.

As my friend Ken would say, this exercise defines a vision going forward, a pathway in a certain direction. It is not just a retrospective, it is a picture of the present and the future.

In a practical sense, what if we shared the outline with a very close friend or spouse? What if we opened ourselves up and said here is what I’d like, give me your honest opinion? And, can you help me live more fully into the values I hold so dear?

To be honest, though, this kind of thing can be scary. Many of us know all too well of our failings. (I feel bad for the ones who don’t.)

Offhand, I don’t know the eulogy for John Newton, the notorious slave ship captain who met God and championed abolition, later penning my favorite hymn, Amazing Grace. But, I’d hazard it was a good one. I’m sure it had its references to his remarkable accomplishments (including mentoring and motivating the great William Wilberforce) but I’d also hope it described a man whose pride was dashed and who rose up in love.

I’ll leave this short piece there. Are we building resumes or euologies? Do we know our true purpose? If not, maybe we should really think about it. Of all the possible values that define our behavior and the behavior of others, which ones stand out as the ones we hold most dear? How would people who know us define our character? And, if we find ourselves falling short of being the kind of person we’d like to be, what can we do about it? Because, of course, it’s not too late to get to work on that eulogy.

As I was finishing the last post, I reflected that the topic of heaven rarely comes up in discussion, even at church. And, that’s kind of surprising. One would think that, at least in most churches, it would be a regular theme. But it’s not, other than a kind of acknowledgment that it exists and some casual toss off that believers hold the admission ticket. I don’t think I’ve ever been around a conversation in casual settings about heaven. My quick conclusion to all of this is that the topic is so convoluted, most people don’t know where to begin. Granted, the empirical evidence is rather scanty which makes things difficult. On the other hand, the consequences of it being true or not are certainly significant. Which, to me, tips the scales towards being worthy of thought and discussion.

With this post, I’d like to go a bit deeper. But, first, we need to get a few things out of the way.

At the risk of being repetitive, we need to remember that some people (including readers of these reflections) are either resistant to a belief in a personal God or are open to the possibility but not yet convinced. When we raise the idea that there is a creative force outside of our own human reality, a whole lot changes. If we are all merely particles and chemistry, governed by the laws of physics, then there can be no external creative force. Which makes the idea of heaven impossible. So, I need to move beyond that, here, and jump to the assumption that there is supernatural creative force.

(I encourage everyone to watch one or both of Tim Keller’s talks to his audiences at Google, linked several posts ago. Whether you tend to agree with him, disagree, or just don’t know, his reasoning is not easily dismissed.)

And, to review further, I’ve chosen four categories by which we can lump those mainstream beliefs on where we are in an afterlife. (1) Immersion of the human limited-self into the One True-Self, (2) A pleasant location automatically including all dead humans in some form or other, (3) A pleasant location including those dead humans who have earned admission and, (4) A pleasant location including those dead humans who have received admission via grace. The latter two possibilities have to answer what happens to dead humans who don’t receive admission.

What we can call eastern religions (Hinduism and Buddhism in their many forms, among others) and New Age religions (I’m not going there right now) tend to fall into either or both of the first two. The three great monotheistic religions generally fall into the latter two although there’s some bleed over into the second one on a smaller scale. (Please forgive the gross generalities. I know that there are many variations on these categories.)

While everyone is welcome to his or her opinion and free to justify that opinion on whatever basis they choose, I’ve already stated that I fall into the fourth camp. I find it the only alternative that makes sense. Of course, as a Jesus follower, I draw a lot of my reasoning from his very clear teaching; teaching that I find highly reasonable and consistent with reality. In the west, I have a lot of company. To a point.

You see, I believe in a personal God (meaning a God who knows me and with whom I can have an actual relationship). I believe that God existed before time and space (which is a very difficult thing to comprehend) and that he is the source of all we know that exists. In other words, he is the Creator. Also, as difficult as this is to comprehend, I believe that things didn’t work out the way he’d hoped (this has to do with the nature of Free Will and Love) and that mankind’s main problem (theologically referred to as the Fall) has to do with our unwillingness to let God be God and behave accordingly. I believe Jesus intervened in order to Redeem us from this sad state of affairs and that, ultimately, creation will be Restored to it’s originally intended form. (I recognize that the atheist or skeptic will probably find all of this off-putting. I know I did.) This constitutes the four fundamental pillars of the Christian story of reality: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration. In a very general sense, this means that God had a beautiful plan that went awry because he inserted free will into the situation and we made/make poor choices. Jesus arrived to save creation, that will eventually be restored. If you grasp that, you’re on your way to becoming a true theologian!

And, so I believe that this thing we now call heaven is actually the place of restored creation. It is not some ethereal state where we are disembodied spirits. It is not some place where we twiddle our thumbs through eternity. It is a place of indescribable beauty and vibrancy. It is a place where all that is good and possible in God’s perfect creation comes to life. I believe it is a place (or places) where to be made in the “image” of God is completely manifest. No, we are not God, nor shall we seek to be as that’s been the central problem. There will be no room for that in heaven.

With a good deal to support this contention, I believe we will (ultimately) have new bodies that are only vaguely similar to the ones we have now. We must remember that to be made in the image of God means that we will continue with our innate nature to be creative, ourselves. I think about this and I can’t get all that far because, honestly, I am so limited by the constraints of this world. I believe the greatest joy we’ve ever experienced will be as a speck against the least of the joys in that heavenly place. In similar fashion (and drawing from C.S. Lewis), all of fear, anger, spite, grief and the corruption we know will be infinitesimally small as against the reality of that place. We will know God fully and gladly and, as such, rejoice.

Of course, this raises far more questions than answers but that doesn’t diminish the strength of the argument that this scenario, indeed, is the correct one. No, it does not prove it but I will set it up against all others as the most probable. Others are free to present their alternatives and I will gladly listen. “I don’t know,” is an honest answer but not sufficient when it comes to trying to poke holes in things presented by others. The honest approach is to try to figure out what it actually is that we believe and why. From there, consider what questions are raised and what possible solutions are the most probable.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have had brief glimpses of heaven, maybe three or four all told. Just wisps, mind you, but completely stunning nonetheless. The skeptic would say that these were just mind games, altered states as a projection of some deep need or desire. It is hard to argue against that logic, especially with someone who does not believe in God or a place like heaven. Pretty close to a dead end. Except, in none of those experiences was I seeking such transcendence. They arrived unbidden but, in retrospect, perfectly timed. I would have been hard pressed to conjure up the full context of why, how, and what happened. I have shared those experiences with others and they serve to give me a small window into an eternal reality that awaits. I have all sorts of images in my mind of what it could be like. Now, that would be an interesting discussion!

As much as this kind of thinking can be enticing, we need to call attention to two important things.

One is the notion of justice and the other is the nature of choice.

If God cares about us, then justice is real. He cannot be a loving God without being a just God. No loving parent exercises parenthood without exercising justice. To love is to “will the good of another.” (Dallas Willard) To will the good of another means to assist with movement away from bad. Of course, there can be no good without non-good, if we insist on splitting hairs. And, there can be no justice without a discerning and acting judgment. Yes, actions have consequences both in this life and the next one. (Try living in a reality that doesn’t believe this for even the tiniest bit if time.) As the one prayer taught by Jesus says, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Unless you’re thinking of a different kind of God, his will is to be loving and just. This has implications for heaven that we’ve already touched upon.

I said before that I believe that there is a heaven and it is accessible only through grace. Of course, good works are a natural expression from one who has received grace. The key to grace, simply, is surrender upon the recognition that we are not capable of achieving the thing without help. The loving response to such surrender is grace, especially if it involves a contrite heart that admits frailty and is genuinely remorseful. A truly loving parent cannot respond differently. This admission cannot be perfunctory but deep and raw and without conditions. Grace is the great equalizer, a truly astonishing feature of the overarching reality. It levels the scales of justice. Without grace, justice can only be achieved through other means, which is just another way of saying the imposition of corrective or punitive measures. We know this to be true. While we (or God) are perfectly free to dispense grace without receiving surrender and repentance, certainly these actions are closely tied together. A hardened heart, proud and lacking in contrition, indicates a desire to continue the broken relationship. God’s grace is freely available but in the final telling, we are the ones to unlock and open the door when he comes knocking.

And that brings us from the notion of justice to the nature of choice. After all, we are free to choose.

For the longest time, I resisted choice because that meant I had to give up autonomy and plant my flag somewhere. I felt no compulsion to try to arrive at actual conclusions. Sort of like, “what happens, happens.” This, of course, is a choice. Another way to put it, is that in the kind of passive effort to avoid choosing, we are avoiding dealing with reality. We can tell ourselves that there are just too many options. Too many variables that plain make it impossible to be sure. There is certainly a ring of truth in that. However, when you think about it, there’s not a whole lot to life that we can be absolutely, unequivocally, sure about. Life is, instead, about comparing probabilities and we do this constantly, especially when the stakes are high (note how we opt for insurance, some of which we will never use).

All of this brings us back to Jesus, that enigma to many. If he did not exist or if he was terribly misguided … or if he was purposefully deceitful … or if he was completely misunderstood … or if there was a deep conspiracy by his ragtag group of followers who mourned his passing, then he can readily be dismissed. But, if he is to be believed after we take the time to investigate his life and what he said, then therein lies the dilemma. Again, it’s all about choices. Jesus flatly says that not all will have eternal life (with him). Many people, in a sense, will choose another alternative and he says we are free to choose.

I believe heaven is heaven because of who created it and who resides there. To me, its probability best matches the facts of life and reality as I see them. Eternal life there is not a fait accompli. Love is a choice as is salvation. That undoubtedly rubs the modern sensibility wrong. And part of the reason for that is the current moral relativism that sees ultimate justice as inconsistent with individual rights through a lens that worships equality (equivalence) in all things.

I have been admonished, “By what right do you have to tell me that my beliefs are wrong?” My answer is, “By the same right that you have to tell me I shouldn’t say that.”

We can’t all be right. Yes, I believe we are eternal beings and that there is a life after this one. I believe that the thing we call “heaven” is real and attainable, although not by everyone. I believe that an eternity apart from that heaven would be hellish and we have a small glimpse of what that might be like by looking around us all of the time.

I do not choose to follow Jesus because he promises me heaven. When I made that choice, such a possibility was far from my mind. I chose to follow him for many other reasons but not that one. When, an instant after I made my choice, the gates of heaven opened up for me to glimpse, I discovered the connection. Not all who make that choice, receive that impression. However, all who make that choice will experience the real deal. The essence of reality lies in the balance of Love, Grace, Truth and Justice, in other words, God. We now know what God is like, what he values, what he teaches and what he requires. After all, we have Jesus. Heaven is what awaits us when we accept that reality. I purposefully will not get into many of the finer points of all of this, now … such as what happens to people who’ve never heard of Jesus or is hell for real?

Although this is getting to be quite long, I need to circle back to one of the main questions asked by both believers and skeptics. And that is, when and on what basis is the decision made for admission to this eternal paradise? Many Christians stand firmly on the belief that the opportunity for surrender is open until death. Then the door closes. Others see it differently, believing that God in his loving nature is all for second chances. In other words, death might be followed by some other process by which admission may ultimately be granted. This is a big sticky point and is one reason some people are turned off by the common Christian teaching. They argue that this isn’t “fair.” While I affirm the point, I must object that neither life nor reality are fair. And, neither is God. He’s not about fairness. He’s about love and justice.

I wish I was more wise in the way of things and I humbly admit that I don’t know exactly how all of this works. Instead, I look for all sorts of clues on which to hang my hat. I’ll bluntly state my thinking on this issue, here, and I appreciate that some will find it unattractive.

I subscribe to the truth contained in several verses that “every knee shall bow.” The writers are referring to our relationship with God, as he exists through Jesus. I read this both figuratively and literally. In the first sense, it is the recognition that we are not in charge and that we are completely humbled by God. To have a different posture is to deny the reality of who he is and who we are and that means that heaven is not a place for us. We are presented with a different door to walk through, whatever that might be. In the second sense, it is the realization that we will come face to face with God (Jesus) and that we will have an opportunity to actually demonstrate our realization. To some of us, that happens in this life. I believe that all will have that opportunity. In my picture of this, it’s possible that there will be a moment after death when Jesus asks something to the effect, “Do you recognize me and want to live with me at the center of your eternal existence?” As I mentioned, many Christians will say that the shelf life of this question expires with our last breath. I’m not so sure. I’m far more sure of the question than the timing.

In conclusion, I’ve tried to lay out my thinking on the subject of heaven in these past two posts. With what I know, I believe them to be accurate, although only in a limited sense. I encourage everyone to examine the topic and come up with your own set of beliefs, including the values and details that support those beliefs. Perhaps you believe that there is no God or that the essence of God is other than Love, Grace, Truth and Justice. Do our choices in this life matter when it comes to the next one? I guess we’ll find out.

Now, here’s a topic to get our attention. After all, the vast majority of people in our culture believe in it. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of people everywhere believe in it, albeit in different ways. A relatively small minority of people think it’s just fantasy and wish fulfillment. What do you believe?

In the broadest sense, most of the eastern faith systems do not really see heaven as a place like those portrayed in the three great monotheistic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The former view reality through a different lens than these three, with the ultimate afterlife being a kind of merging with the One, sort of like a drop of water splashed into the ocean. We get there through a succession of earthly lives, wherein we are trying to break free of the karma that separates us from this ideal conclusion. One of the ways we do this is through a process loosely called Self Realization, whereby our individual selves give way to the true and greater Self. While a gross exaggeration and simplistic portrayal (that some of my eastern friends will probably find unsatisfying), I don’t believe I’m that far off the mark. After all, I’ve both studied and practiced eastern faiths.

Those of us in the west and, increasingly, in Third World cultures align more to the viewpoint that heaven is a place where some form of us may actually go after we die. It’s to this that I speak now.

We’ve all heard plenty about heaven. First of all, we can agree it’s supposed to be a nice place. After that, things begin to fall apart.

In my mind things fall apart for two main reasons. We have different ideas of what kind of place it actually is and we have different views on who actually gets to go there.

(Remember, I’m not going to get into eastern views such as those held by traditional Hindus and Buddhists, nor am I going to spend anytime here considering the atheist/naturist views that there’s absolutely no such thing. For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll look at what heaven might be like and the possible prerequisites for admission.)

So, once again, the vast majority of people with whom we come into contact believe in some form of heaven. They may or may not have given much thought about who gets to go there and how.

Let’s start off with some of the current popular imagery. We have all of the accounts of “near death” experiences where people see a welcoming light. Some of these people testify that they are greeted by loved ones. We have books and movies about people (especially about children but also adults) who share that they spent time in heaven but were brought back to this earthly life for one reason or another. Almost universally, they say this jolt back was entirely difficult and uncomfortable.

Of course, we have the classic Pearly Gates, manned by St. Peter acting as chief customs agent with the power to grant admission or turn away the undeserving. Presumably, beyond those Pearly Gates, we will have Streets Paved with Gold. I’ve sometimes wondered if there are shops on those streets and what forms of transportation will make use of them. Maybe it’s like Main Street at Disneyland: The Happiest Place on Earth.

I don’t really know anyone who thinks we’ll sit around on clouds playing harps but I do know that there’s a lot of confusion about what people will be doing who actually go there. As most people who think about heaven think it’s a permanent location … as in eternity which is very long indeed … conjecture can come to a pretty screeching halt. After all, who wants to do anything or nothing for all of eternity?? This can be a very destabilizing thought and a pretty quick turnoff to thinking about it much more.

We have good friends who, I understand, regularly engage in séances, speaking with deceased loved ones through a medium. I’m not sure of where my friends believe these people are but I know they are comforted when communicating with them. I love and respect them but I’m not inclined to participate in this kind of thing for a variety of reasons.

I think we can go on for awhile, recalling images and ideas, but I’d like to hit the pause button and go off for a bit in another direction.

I’d like to start with the question of why heaven should exist in the first place. Since a whole lot of people believe it does in some form or other, regardless of their views about God, I think it’s interesting to consider the point of it. I know people who believe it’s just where you go when you die. Like it’s automatic. You live your life here and then you go there. It’s just like this life: You show up at birth, live, die and go to heaven. No particular reason one way of the other. A variant of this is kind of an east/west hybrid where heaven is our permanent home but occasionally our number comes up or we choose to become human for a spell, returning back when that life is complete. This may be a one-time gig or a revolving door. Either way, the whole thing just is. Enough said.

If you’ve been reading how I think, you know that I like to cut away at the layers to find what lies underneath. I have to wonder who or what would have set up such a system and for what purpose? What’s the objective? After all, it is a system, which by definition has to have a rationale.

If heaven is a good place and there is a reason for it to exist, then what’s the reason to have a good place?

Most people, but not all, think heaven is for people who were good on earth. In other words, most people, but not all, think Adolf Hitler has not set up home there next door to his Holocaust victims and they’re all enjoying heavenly schnitzel while joyfully listening to Beethoven sonatas played by former SS murderers. Sorry for the graphic imagery but I’m trying to make a point. Having said that, however, there are a number of people who believe that all people will get to spend eternity in heaven (theologically, this is called Universalism). It just might take them longer to get there; hence one reason for purgatory, that cosmic holding tank.

In other words in this line of thinking, the main purpose of heaven is to serve as a reward for good behavior or (for the Universalists) the final destination after you’ve finally been forgiven for bad behavior and have come around after who knows how long?

The question for us, then, is do we think that heaven is just a place where all people go when they die, with no distinction based upon earthly behavior and choices, or do we think that entry to heaven is based upon some kind of metric, including being good? I, for one, think this is worth pondering. (And we think our daily choices are challenging!)

If you are somewhat or extremely repelled by the thought that the worst and most evil people who had no remorse could end up next to the very best of humanity then you probably line up with the majority group that says there are conditions for entry.

And, that gets very interesting. Because once we find ourselves leaning towards the “conditions for entry” camp, we have to think about what those conditions are. There’s no honest way to avoid it. Sorry.

Which brings me to what I consider to be three possible broad sets of conditions. (1) God is so loving and forgiving that none of the choices we make in life matter when it come to entry to heaven and eternal life. In other words, God’s loving nature is all that matters and we’re all in because that’s what he wants. Or, if you don’t really believe in God but believe in heaven, then this is just the way the system was set up, however that might be. (2) We need to earn our way in by some metric. The key here is “earn.” Typically this means to be a good person and do good things, whatever that may mean. In this format, there’s a kind of cosmic ledger and God (or whomever is doing the judging) analyzes our credit and debit statements on a regular basis. Two points in the plus column and one point in the minus column and so forth. How those points are considered and what the passing grade is, is a neat set of questions. I have heard all sorts of reasoning on this. One of the summaries I hear is, “since I’m basically a good person, I’m hopeful I’ll get in.” There are strains of this in both Christianity and New Age beliefs. I wonder what scale we’re measured on. It would be nice to know. Or, on the contrary, it might be terrifying to know. After all, with God knowing every single one of our thoughts and deeds during the course of our entire life (he being God, of course), which of us wants that videotape evidence played in front of us?

That leaves (3). Now #3 is interesting and it happens to be the one I believe, having run into brick walls considering #s 1&2. This one, in a sense, is a hybrid of 1 and 2. Like both of them, it involves an active agent setting conditions, however loose or strict. It involves a loving and forgiving God who cares for us unconditionally. But, it also involves choice and the recognition that there is justice in a reality that houses both good and evil. And, that choice is the single metric. Simple and clean. Not easy, mind you, but simple and clean. There is no “earning,” because there is nothing we can do to earn God’s love and a place in what we might call heaven. He already loves each of us, even the worst of our kind. No, instead, we need to simply recognize that we’ll never make it on the merits … the bar is just way too high. Holy is holy after all (unless you don’t believe in holiness, just niceness, then what does that make God?) Instead, we need a gift and the gift is grace, where grace is the one thing that gets us from where we are across the finish line. So, grace is the key. I’ve written about grace before and a whole lot of people a whole lot smarter than me have much better ways to talk about it. But, it’s really that simple. Well, simple, yes. Easy, no. In fact, much simpler than trying to keep track of the cosmic ledger which most people either avoid or do so in a way that drives them batty and turns them into being very judgmental, especially of others. It’s a simple choice with simple conditions. But, a choice it is (that free will thing) and conditions, there are. You can probably guess if you don’t already know. You see, grace is a gift freely given but there is a cost. Not to us, thankfully, with respect to this subject. But one of the conditions involves the nature of the cost.

So, if you haven’t give up on this yet, I think we’re left with five possibilities to choose from. (1) There is no such thing as and afterlife or heaven. The whole thing is foolishness when you get right to it. (2) The afterlife is something most akin to that portrayed in the eastern faiths … a cosmic oneness with which we will hopefully one day merge if we follow the rules. (3) There actually is a really nice place we can call heaven where we will go after we die. Everyone will be there. (4) There actually is a really nice place we can call heaven where we may go after we die if we are good enough. Some of us will be there. We may or may not want to think about who and where the others will be. And, (5) There actually is a really nice place we can call heaven where we may go after we die and it has nothing to do with us being good enough but about receiving the grace by which we qualify. The key is who receives the grace and how and why it is offered.

I will refrain here from detailing my specific thinking with respect to this last consideration, although I am largely convinced of its authenticity for many reasons.

Regardless, we have two options with respect to all of this. We can choose, first, to just let the chips fall where they may. “Above my pay grade,” so to speak. It’s just too complicated and “we can never know for certain, anyway.” Or, second, we can actually think about it, ask questions and make appropriate decisions. The choice is ours. Maybe the stakes are very low and maybe they are very high. Paraphrasing the famous 17^th century French physicist/mathematician/philosopher Blaise Pascal (remembered here for his Pascal’s Wager), “place your bets ladies and gentlemen.”

I think I’ll stop here for now. This may be continued.

About 40 years ago, I read a new book entitled, The 100, listing in order (with full explanation) the top 100 most influential people in history. I liked the author’s challenge and connected with it in a number of ways. After all, the daring fellow had to be able to argue that #86 (Vasco de Gama) was just slightly more influential than #87 (Cyrus the Great). In other words, it made the reader think through what “influence” really means, as well as learning more about the significance of these historical figures. Full Disclosure: I didn’t recognize all of the names, although I did pretty well. Maybe 90 (but history was my field.) 🙂

The thing that struck me the most at the time was that he didn’t place Jesus at the very top. He reserved that spot for Mohammad, which I found curious. #2 went to Isaac Newton before slotting Jesus as #3. In his explanation, he directed us to #6, St. Paul, and said that Christianity as a religion was the most influential of the world’s faiths but that was largely attributed to the life and mission of the apostle Paul as well as Jesus. In other words, they split the ticket. This precipitated other lists and when I just checked, Time Magazine has Jesus as #1, Napoleon #2 and Mohammed #3. Interestingly, Time follows those with Shakespeare, Lincoln, Washington, Hitler, Aristotle, Alexander (the Great) and Jefferson. Just goes to show how there’s no perfect system.

So, I bring this up partly as fun trivia but also as a lead in to a topic I write about all of the time. I just felt called this morning to continue.

As I’ve mentioned before, all sorts of people consider Jesus in all sorts of ways, while plenty of people do not consider him at all … or even have any idea who he may have been.

As of 2017, people identifying as Christian in the world number 2.3 billion, or approximately 31% of the total world population of over 7 billion. That presumes at least one third of the world believes Jesus is significant. But that means two thirds of the world either doesn’t know of him at all or has heard of him but believe he doesn’t make the first tier. Another way of putting this is that a whole lot of people think he is God, a whole lot of other people think he is a great prophet or one of many incarnated holy men, a whole lot of people think he was a great teacher, a whole lot of people don’t pay him any attention, an untold number of people think he’s a fraud who never existed and more than a few think he’s a swear word.

So, this raises two questions in my mind: One, did he actually exist and, two, if he did exist, who was he and how is he significant? As I’ve mentioned a number of times, some form of these two questions rattled me for many, many years.

With respect to the first question, there are very, very few people who think about these things who believe that there was no such person as the historical Jesus. There can be all sorts of debate about who and what he was but it’s pretty outlandish to argue he never existed. Legitimately, historians use all sorts of means to determine if this or that person existed or whether an event actually occurred. Interestingly, there is not much debate about whether there was a Julius Caesar, who purportedly lived between 100 and 44 BC, in the century before Jesus. Or a Nero, who purportedly lived between 37 and 68 AD, just following the lifespan of Jesus, who purportedly lived between 4 BC and approximately 30 AD. All of these famous men left track records and legacies that hold up to intense scrutiny. For obvious reasons, the life of Jesus if far more enigmatic, given his claims and the claims of those who chose to believe him. I find it interesting that in the west, the very small minority of people who think he was a figment of some collective imagination don’t apply the same reasoning when it comes to Mohammed or the Buddha. I may be wildly wrong about this but I have to wonder if it’s due to the nature of the threat level. Jesus presents quite a threatening figure. I’m serious. It’s easier to just make him go away.

For the longest time, I placed him in the category of holy man and great teacher. I had read enough history to be convinced he actually did exist but, having not grown up in a Christian house or having any real exposure to the Christian worldview, I was really uninformed about the true nature of his teachings and claims, nor the teachings and claims of his followers. I was far better informed about the role of the broader Christian church throughout its two millennia of existence. And that history was enough proof to me that the whole thing was rather corrupt. It was really very easy to get lost in the various heresies (viewpoints outside of the mainstream), abuses of power, wars of conquest, persecutions galore, more divisions than one could count and so on. Interestingly, I never attributed any of this to being the fault of the historical Jesus. You’ve never had to convince me that mankind fails the purity test.

So, I read Gandhi and King, Dostoyevsky (his Crime and Punishment is in my top five books of all time and is, essentially, Christian), Hugo (Les Miserables, also in top five books and, essentially Christian), the great western Enlightenment philosophers (who so impacted our nation’s founding fathers) and so many others who either pointed directly at Jesus or drew from his teachings in one way or another. In my 20s, I read most of the New Testament and found it interesting and helpful to organize my perspective on the world and all that it contains. And, so, I formed my view of Jesus and he sat nicely on a shelf as a very influential person who probably had some connection with a God, whoever or whatever that meant. Certainly, Jesus got social justice right and that was preeminent in my mind.

Boy, did I miss the mark.

In the recent past, I’ve had a couple of long conversations with someone who I’d definitely put in the “searching” category, although his spiritual searching is really secondary to his focus on his professional work, which is certainly more common than not. He is exceptionally bright and well informed on many topics, including religion. He has found my journey of the past dozen years interesting, even intriguing and puzzling. We have talks about the nature of truth and all of that. Anyway, in these recent conversations, he has shared that he believes, in his way, the Christian story. For instance, he said he could really identify with the persons of the Trinity portrayed in the bestseller book, The Shack. He said he has read and knows the Bible, including the four Gospels. When gently asked what he recalls from the Gospels, he said the Sermon on the Mount, which he said is at the heart of the faith. He had no real recollection of any other parts of the New Testament accounts and letters, other than a broad framework. He sees himself as flawed with little chance of changing but hopes God will eventually forgive him.

I share this not to be critical but to illustrate that this was I to a large degree. I used to make of Jesus what I wanted to make of him. Kind of like selecting the pieces that fit into my view of reality and that supported what I thought was important. The Sermon on the Mount (which, I might argue, is probably the most recognizable piece of Jesus’ teaching) may also be the most misunderstood. Perhaps I’ll write more on that at some point. Ultimately, I determined, this was fundamentally dishonest. I needed to investigate for myself, without layering in biases based on culture, era and all of that. Many “seekers” don’t like to do that because it’s very hard. It means dispensing with a whole lot of assumptions in order to peel away the layers. It’s, in fact, quite risky.

Of course, when it comes to Jesus, there is no corner on the market of tying him up in a neat little package. Both faithful followers and non-believers do it all of the time. Who is he, really? Is he the champion of the poor and disenfranchised? A first century social justice warrior? An itinerant rabbi? A failed Messiah like so many others in Israel’s tortured history? One of the great ethical teachers in all of history? A man with some radical ideas who married Mary Magdalene (which really means Mary from the Galilean town of Magdala) and established a lineage? Or, is he the Alpha and Omega, the Word before time, the second person of a Trinitarian God who is Love and Grace and Truth and Justice made flesh? Take your pick.

There is a solution. One can pick up the New Testament with a sense of resolve, starting with the four Gospels, and read it with an open mind. To imagine the “what if” it’s true? See if it passes the litmus test. Is it possible the reality he describes and lives is, in fact, the real deal? Thomas Jefferson, who belonged to a school of thought called Deism (they believed in a distant and largely disinterested God) famously sliced and diced the Gospels, cutting away swaths that he just didn’t like, which is an interesting approach. Sort of like those censors in the movies blacking out huge chunks deemed inappropriate to share. In other words, Jesus was reformatted in the image of the brilliant but arrogant Jefferson. When I abandoned this approach in order to give the accounts the benefit of doubt, thereby opening up my mind to alternatives, I discovered the extraordinary. Certainly, I struggled to interpret more than a few passages and that continues unabated. But both the depths and clarity to most of it simply blew my mind. When you’ve actually lived with and around love and grace, humility and honesty, good and evil and the nature of justice, brokenness, forgiveness and redemption, beauty, awe and wonder, suffering and hope, you have a sense of what it means to live in reality as a human being. Jesus speaks to all of these in a way that must cut to our most innermost selves. There can be no neat drive-bys, cherry-picking bits and pieces that comfortably reinforce our homegrown views. This is a messy and unsettling business.

But, oh, the rewards! Pick up the Book of Mark, which is basically a “give me the facts and nothing but the facts, ma’am” account of Jesus’ life and ministry: Who he really was and why he lived and died. (This gospel is really Peter’s account as told to Mark.) Or pick up the Book of John, with its powerful imagery that is almost like an Impressionist painting, connecting bits and pieces together in a tapestry of color. Read the Book of Luke that contains my favorite passage which, to me, is a summation of everything else. Luke actually wrote two books, the second being the Book of Acts which is the fascinating account of the early church and is rich in so many ways. Or pick up the Book of Matthew, the Jewish tax collector/sinner/disciple who writes of Jesus to a Jewish audience. All of these would be good starting points. But the key is to reflect on what is being shared. Does this sound like it is just moral teaching? Does it sound like it’s the ravings of a madman? Does it sound like a group of people just sat around and made this deep and intricate stuff up? Does it sound like that same group of people would make up a story about a failed Messiah, for which many would gladly give up their lives? Perhaps, you might say. Or, you could say, I wonder if it’s all true?

Well, that last post took me to something I’ve been wanting to write about for awhile. And, no, it has nothing to do with Dan Brown’s bestseller of the same title. (As an aside, I was captivated when I read it after it first came out. Not so, now.)

In a circuitous manner, what started yesterday as a reflection on yearning as a common strain of our existence but ended up as a consideration of whether we are, indeed, alone … now takes me off on a different tangent.

I left off with the statement that I don’t believe we’re actually alone. We are, in fact, surrounded by supernatural beings.

Now that’s not anything suitable for normal dinner table conversation.

Let’s imagine: “Hey, we’re enjoying this dinner. Very fine food indeed. Do you think there are a bunch of supernatural beings actually present here tonight? You know, looking and listening in?” Nope. Never been in that discussion and can’t imagine that’s anywhere near the .01% of topics in the U.S. these days.

But, what if it’s true? Because if it is, that would be pretty remarkable and, just maybe, worth considering during our awake time.

Let’s take a look.

Just like space aliens, angels and demons capture the public imagination in many creative ways. Of course, there are a lot of movies highlighting these creatures. John Travolta played the archangel, Michael, in the movie by that name. More on archangels in a moment. Perhaps the most famous movie demon did not have a name in my recollection but caused a whole lot of trouble in The Exorcist. Those two are the first that came to my mind but there are many more. Angels and demons crop up all over the place. I’m sure you can think of some others. Then there are angelic figures on Christmas trees and lots of little devils running around on Halloween. We even have mud flaps on trucks or decals on the back of vehicles with two provocative women, one angelic and the other devilish.

Of course, in essence, this is just one way of symbolizing the nature of good and evil.

Well, I can amend that to say good and bad because everyone believes in good but not everyone believes in evil.

Then there’s the common, childlike picture, of heaven. Cherubic beings with wings, on clouds strumming harps.

Some people say that a child who dies at an early age becomes an angel in heaven.

I know at least one person who believes in angels but can’t come to grips that there is a God.

More than a few people believe there are “guardian” angels assigned to each of us or at least some of us.

Of course, the fringe on the other side of the spectrum likes to cozy up to demons in their worship of the number one demon. I’m not sure what most of them think about angels or God for that matter. Probably pretty divided on that, understandably.

It would be very rational to chalk all of this up to anthropomorphism (attributing human characteristics to non humans), for instance, animals or gods. Anthropomorphism is big industry in myth and fantasy, long a way of expressing natural human inclinations.

Of course, many an anthropologist might suggest that anthropomorphism reaches its apogee when humans make up God.

Finally, there are many who believe in God and heaven who can’t reconcile angels and demons, especially demons. Yes, so it goes, there is probably a God and heaven is a place (as yet not really understood by mortals) where good people (or all people) go after death. Don’t really know if we’ll run across any angels there. Certainly no devils.

In other words, we’re all over the map. From the whole concept is completely ridiculous like dragon lore to maybe there’s something to it but I’m either not sure or am not inclined to think about it to, yeah, I believe in angels and/or demons but haven’t put the pieces together to, yep, they’re here and they mean business.

For the purpose of argument, let’s look at door number four: They’re the real deal. This brings me back to the dinner table and a frank conversation.

The three great monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all recognize the existence of these creatures. These three are also called the Abrahamic religions because of their common ancestry in the biblical figure of Abraham. In these traditions, the story is pretty similar and will seem utterly fantastic on the order of Zeus and Apollo to the non-believer.

At some point, God created angels to help carry out his will. God’s will being good, after all, makes them agents of good. In this reality, all angels were/are not equal. In the scriptures, there are many types of angels mentioned, the three most well known being Archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim. Four archangels (the highest order) even have names: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Lucifer. Needless to say, the last one is the chief “fallen” angel. In the story, Lucifer (the most profound narcissist in all of creation) challenges God, thinking that he, Lucifer, can replace God. After all, he’s beautiful and powerful and wants the whole enchilada. (Sound familiar?) What ensued was a cosmic civil war with one third of the gazillion angels lining up with the poser and the other two thirds backing the home team. Of course, God and his legions win and the fallen angels are booted out and left to follow their leader, who is also popularly known as Satan (the Devil). For whatever reason, these vanquished angels are left to exist and as they live under the influence of the anti-God, they take on the character of evil and become demons or devils.

With humans entering the picture (the why of which is another story), the battle continues but is largely played out over who gets to exert the greater influence on us, God’s special creations. And this is where the rubber hits the road.

One of the best portraits of this battle is with the little C.S. Lewis allegory, The Screwtape Letters. Perhaps you’ve either heard of it or read it. Not everyone loves it as I do but I encourage you to check it out at the library or somehow get ahold of it. It isn’t a long read but neatly captures the conflict, with we humans smack in the middle of this cosmic tug-of-war. My other favorite portrait is a much more contemporary book written by Shaunti Feldahn, entitled The Veritas Conflict. This latter one stays with me over ten years after I first read it.

These two books paint the same picture. There are, in fact, supernatural beings present here and now in our space. We just can’t normally see them, although once in awhile they may make an appearance. They try to influence us to good or evil. The angels serve to protect us and influence is to good but are not all powerful. The demons serve to steer us away from God and to the belief that we deserve to be at the center of things but, like angels, they are not all powerful. After all, God gave us free will (another complex topic). In other words, the battle rages on. Whose voice do we listen to? There’s more to the story than we think.

And, there’s a whole lot more to the big story than there’s room for here. Lewis famously said that with Jesus’ entry into this world and all that he did, the war for the eternal souls of humans has been preordained. The forces of evil will lose. Unfortunately, there are still battles to be fought and there will be casualties. Some souls will be lost. He likened it to the state of affairs after D Day. The Germans were bound to lose eventually but not without taking many down with them.

Which brings us back to the beginning.

One of the main reasons why I couldn’t come to grips with there really being a personal God, especially one as defined by Christianity, was the problem of evil. I knew there was evil and I knew that there was a supernatural reality (I’d experienced it on more than one occasion) but I couldn’t fully resolve why a loving God allowed evil to exist. Although it’s still a complex issue, for me the tumblers clicked into place and it all made sense. During those years wrestling with my conclusions of a supernatural but not having full context, I was pretty dismissive of the whole angels and demons thing. I had read Screwtape Letters in my 20s and liked it, just as I’d ready the Narnia series as a teen and then again in my 20s and liked it. But, that didn’t mean I bought into the whole angels and demons reality as just described.

Now, if I were to be asked at the dinner table what I believed about the whole thing I would answer honestly. “As difficult as it must be for the modern scientific and rational mind to conclude, yes, I believe in angels and demons and the cosmic battle. Yes, I believe they are right here in this room flitting and hovering about. No, I don’t fully understand all of it but their existence is the only answer that fits the facts.” At which point, my dinner table companions will probably have all sorts of thoughts, including I’m certifiable and “he drank the kool-aid. What a shame.”

There are a lot of reasons why I believe in the existence of angels and demons. Of the many, one is the account of a very reasonable friend of mine who saw a demon and it wasn’t an apparition. She not only saw it but felt the cold darkness of its presence. She is either a lunatic or a liar or just seriously misguided. Given the other parts of that particular story, it made sense. I’d like to say I’ve spoken with a trustworthy person who has seen an angel but I haven’t. However, I heard them sing when I was transported momentarily into that other dimension in my first experience of the supernatural as a teen. Hallucinations? Possibly. But, at least in my case, that explanation doesn’t fit the facts.

Fantasy? Wish-fulfillment? Myth? Reality? I’ve drawn my conclusions. What are yours?

 

 

 

 

Yes, you read that title correctly.

Now this may not be your average reflection but it’s where I ended up going this afternoon. Three of us had a wonderful long hike up and down Mt. Woodson beginning at daybreak, after which I made a good breakfast and took a nap. With nothing else on the calendar (somewhat of a rarity these days) and with Diane out and about, I had some free time.

I was sitting in quiet, gazing out the window at some butterflies, hummingbirds and various bugs flitting about in our garden, thinking about what people who believe in God and people who do not believe in God have in common. Certainly, there’s a lot.

One of the things that struck me is not new and that is nearly all people yearn. Well, I should say that all people yearn at least during some point in their lives and many people yearn all the way through. Then, I thought, “What is it that people (whether believers or not) yearn for?” Is there some commonality there?

While I could be wrong on this, it seems nearly everyone yearns not to be alone. I mean really alone. We gravitate to community in some form. Even the curmudgeonly or antisocial amongst us would probably admit that being stuck alone on a desert island permanently would not be desirable. Of course, there will always be exceptions but it’s a rare person who doesn’t want company of some kind or another.

One of the ways I reflect upon this particular yearning is when I read about the search, even obsessively so in some quarters, for extraterrestrial life. I like to read the science publications on a pretty regular basis and there are some really good (not Enquirer Magazine stuff) postulations on whether or not we’re all there is.

Now, I reflect upon this in two ways. First, I’m intrigued with the raw science. In other words, what are scientists and those who support them actually doing and what are they discovering? The second, is the why. What’s the big deal, anyway?

The raw science is rather interesting. Many of us may be at least somewhat familiar with the big project labeled SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). It was the backdrop for famous popular astronomer Carl Sagan’s blockbuster book, Contact, and the movie by the same name starring Jodi Foster. A whole lot of very big linked antenna arrays and telescopes connected via computers scanning all corners of the universe, seeking any sign that we’re not alone. In essence, they’re looking for some pattern that is inconsistent with the normal background “noise” and would indicate a manufactured source. So far, nothing.

Another effort is to try to peer more closely for things called “exoplanets,” which are planets of various sizes that orbit other stars. With increasingly sophisticated telescopes, we are now discovering hundreds, even thousands of these, after the first discovery in 1988. Scientists are particularly keen on locating these worlds that exist in just the right kind of orbit that might, in theory, support life. We all recognize so far that Earth is the only such planet in our solar system that really hits the sweet spot. (As an aside, scientists are still trying to see if there are any life signatures on any of our other solar companions … Mars, anyone? Planetary moons, anyone?)

Then there is the math of the thing. It’s really rather impressive. When I first began considering these things, the conventional wisdom was that there are a few billion galaxies. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is a pretty decent size structure and I initially learned that we have a few billion stars. Well, technology is an impressive thing. We’ve ticked up the number considerably. One of the latest counts puts us at two trillion (a trillion is a thousand times a billion) galaxies in the universe, with our own galaxy home to something like 200 billion stars. For the uninitiated, that’s a whole lot of zeros that have to make any human pause to clear one’s wits.

In this line of thinking, there just HAS to be extraterrestrial life because of the plain odds of the whole thing. And, at the risk of blowing more minds, there are those scientists (astronomers, cosmologists, theoretical astrophysicists) who posit a thing called the “multiverse” concept that there are untold number of other universes besides our own. Come on now, the thinking goes, even a seemingly accidental confluence of forces that started life on our planet has to be replicated somewhere else. The numbers demand it.

So goes the thinking. I find all of this very intriguing and it’s fun to read science fiction, go to a Star Wars movie or consider any of hundreds of other fictional guesses at what it would be like to come face to face with an alien (non earth human). People make a whole lot of money teasing us with these things.

All of which brings me to the question of why this is such a big deal. Is it just curiosity or is it something more?

Aside from there being a huge market in the alien business, the issue certainly just captures the popular imagination. Now, I haven’t done any kind of informal poll and I haven’t read anything in the Psych literature about what’s behind an interest in knowing if we’re alone. But, I can hazard a guess and it’s in line with the thinking that started this ramble.

I imagine a lot of people want to believe we’re not a singular accident. For if we were, when you think about it, that’s a whole lot of lifeless space out there. Trillions of galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars and who knows how many planets and other stuff. And no life? Just particles and chemicals and the like?

The desert island deal on steroids.

Now, the people who have no problem ascribing to the scenario that “we are born, we kill and devour, we procreate and we die,” probably don’t worry about this much. But there are other people (usually who have children or who have deep affection for our species) that like to think there are life-supporting worlds out there. Worlds that could be our lifeboat if we devour our own planet via a variety of methods or worlds that might be home to other life forms, some of which might even be sentient and, hopefully, friendly. (As opposed to sentient and bent upon dominating, destroying or eating us.)

So, why is this of interest to think about and why does it have anything to do with God?

Well, I believe that our yearning is hard wired and part of that hard wiring is the need to not be alone. Now one could well argue that this yearning (if it indeed is a thing) can occur via evolutionary biology or God-made creation or both. I believe that most people would be unhappy if they were to learn that not just they (who will die anyway) but all of humanity will be snuffed out in either the near or far future and there is really nothing else alive out there at all. I mean, think about it. That’s all, folks. With no life, there can be no meaning, as life is your basic prerequisite for meaning. And, if that’s the true state of affairs even before such an endgame, then that raises the question of whether there was ever any meaning in the first place.

In this vein, I think part of the search for extraterrestrial life and life-supporting worlds is an attempt to make the universe make more sense. Which is why some would say people construct gods or a God in order to do the same thing. See, believers and non-believers are sometimes not that far apart.

On several occasions, I have been asked by both believers and non-believers what it would do to my Christian lens if we were to discover extraterrestrial life. It’s actually a great question.

I’ll answer it this way. First, I believe the overarching Christian story is the only complete story of reality that makes full rational sense. I have said this before. After many decades of looking at reality through dozens of different lenses and analyzing many of them in careful detail, I’m left with this one. Again, I find it the only logical explanation, something that will confound my atheist friends who have respect for my intellect. They are not left with many explanations for such a statement. Really, there are only three. Either I’m delusional and incapable of fully reasoning or I’m not delusional but have truly not reasoned my way through all of the evidence they have or I’m right.

So, let’s get that out of the way. Depending upon your thinking, you can evaluate my position accordingly. J

Which brings me back to the great question. If I believe the Christian story is the only possible explanation that makes sense (l want to set aside the many deviations from orthodoxy … something that will bridle some. I do this not to avoid them as I’d be happy to engage them in dialogue but because I don’t have room here to weave them in), then I am confronted with the question of whether the discovery of extraterrestrial life and the Christian explanation are mutually exclusive. In other words, poof goes the house of cards.

Well, just as Christianity nicely survived the knowledge that Galileo provided regarding which body is at the center of things, I believe it would have no trouble surviving the knowledge that we are not the only living things out there. Now, maybe some Christians would have trouble with this but I don’t.

God has been proven to me to exist beyond a reasonable doubt. Which means I’m either delusional, weak of mind, or correct. If God is who I believe he is, then his plans are not my plans and I’m way below his pay grade in understanding all of the ins and outs. Just because I can’t see things with his clarity does not mean I can’t see things clearly. A singularly incarnated God in the human context doesn’t preclude, in my mind, God’s ability or intent to broaden the playing field. Now, it raises some legitimate questions, especially with respect to biblical theology, but I don’t see any deal killers.

As I bring this thing to a close, I’ll offer two other quick thoughts, the first of which might be surprising. And it is this. Actually, I don’t really care that much. I care a lot about a lot of things but I don’t really care or worry about this particular issue. It’s more of a curiosity thing rather than a defining thing for me. My yearnings to not be alone are very satisfied here on earth in this life.

The second thought is that I believe there are all manner of beings out there, especially of the supernatural variety. I believe their numbers are massive as are the potentially inhabitable worlds and dimensions that occupy them. In other words, my reality is a very busy place indeed and we humans are just a piece, albeit a critical piece, of it. So, in fact, I’m a big fan of extraterrestrials, just not the kind pictured in the modern and popular imagination. Thank God.

In the end, most of us yearn and most of us yearn for very similar things. Not being alone is one of them. I’m really glad I’m not. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

On occasion, I used to play a little academic mind game with some of my advanced history and political science students. I asked them to choose three people from history to invite to dinner. They would explain why they chose those three people and then to consider the nature of the conversation. Of course, although I did not share my own choices with them, I have considered my lists.

Along those lines, I sometimes make a quip about my hope to be invited to a particular heavenly lunch in the next life. As intimidating as this one lunch would be, I’d be seated at a table with C.S. Lewis, Dallas Willard, and Tim Keller. Of course, as it would be in the next life, presumably I wouldn’t be extremely intimidated. While I have learned so much from wise men and women, these three stand out especially.

C.S Lewis is considered by some to have been the most influential Christian in the 20th century. While a brilliant man and gifted scholar, he also made seemingly complex theories available to common people. His famous Narnia series used allegory to touch both children and adults. I have read the seven books in this series three times. His Mere Christianity is arguably the best rationale why the Christian faith makes sense. As an aside, he had an impish quality and regularly met in pubs to smoke a pipe, have a drink and share ideas with a small group of men, including his good friend J.R. Tolkien of Lord of the Rings fame. I have maybe seven or eight Lewis books on my shelf and I can’t read a lot these days without finding reference to one or more of them.

Dallas Willard is more difficult to explain. While not as widely known as C.S. Lewis, he still had an enormous impact on Christianity in the latter part of the 20th century and early part of the 21st. Like Lewis, he was a gifted academic and some of his specialized work is best appreciated by the serious student or professional. However, I have listened to hours of his lectures and read a number of his books. I will say that his magnum opus (masterpiece), The Divine Conspiracy, is the most profound book I’ve ever read. When I first tried this very lengthy book, I couldn’t manage it. It wasn’t the writing that was difficult. It was that seemingly every paragraph contained such depth that I had a tough time absorbing it. When, six months or so later, I picked it up again, it felt almost as light as air. The truths just washed over me to the point I would even laugh at the beauty of it all. (Diane would hear me laughing, with some curiosity.)  No single book has had such an impact which is a lot for me to say because I’d have no trouble coming up with a top ten list! He died of cancer not that long ago but not before I was able to hear him speak on a visit to San Diego, for which I am immensely grateful.

Then, there’s Tim Keller. I hope he doesn’t die soon. Keller has been frequently described as a contemporary C.S. Lewis. For obvious reasons. I could read and listen to Keller forever. He thinks and speaks clearly, is humble with a sense of humor, and can draw from such an immense reservoir of knowledge and wisdom that I am just amazed. He can take the common and make it profound. He sees with such vividness where I may only glimpse bits and pieces. Like Lewis, his mission is to live in current culture and to try to communicate Christian truths to both believer and skeptic, honoring both. I would love to just have an hour or two of his time. He has written many wonderful books. The Prodigal God is perhaps the best depiction of the character of God I know.

While Keller has written and spoken widely, two of his more recent works collectively are in the same vein as Mere Christianity, just updated for contemporary audiences, most of whom have no idea who C.S. Lewis was. They are the first-published, The Reason for God, and the more recently published prequel, Making Sense of God.

Which brings me to the main reason for this post. I recently read that Keller had spoken on two separate occasions to audiences at the Google headquarters. I was heartened to hear that Google regularly brings in speakers that represent a wide array of viewpoints on any number of topics … making those speakers available to Google employees. I found it fascinating that Keller spoke on Christianity in the heart of Silicon Valley (coincidentally exactly where I grew up) which is known for its intense secularism. I found it even more fascinating on how he was received.

Whether you are a Christian or someone who is searching, perhaps you’d find the time to watch one or both of these. Thank you for listening. Brad

 

Mofid Wasef is a friend of mine, for which I am eternally grateful. Mofid is also one of the most remarkable persons I’ve ever met in my life. In fact, I’m sure that most people who know him well would say the same thing, the knowledge of which will surely make him shake and bow his head. I’m hard pressed to know another person who naturally elicits that kind of response all of the time. Mofid would be the very first to admit his flaws. But, he’s not the only one shaking his head. I know others who know him, his story, and how he lives his life and they shake their head in wonder. Who is he and how does he do it? To follow his life in any given week is to see someone tireless in service to others, never complaining, but always bringing joy and comfort.

One of the most remarkable things about this man, who is the object of wonder, is that he never (and I mean never) calls attention to himself or anything he does. He is not just dismissive of compliments, he immediately diverts such attention in order to offer credit elsewhere. Every single time. Mofid makes me recognize that humanity has a chance.

This past Wednesday morning, in the hour that some of us spent with him, he made the simple statement that persecution is a blessing. Yes, persecution is a blessing.

Not, persecution is bad or wrong. Not, persecution is something we should strive to avoid. Not, persecution makes us stronger. No. Persecution is a blessing.

Now, it might be easy to let that one sort of roll over us and after a moment of thought, go on to the next thing. But, this is not of the stripe of “Bad stuff happens … move on.” In fact, this is quite a different animal and if it’s a really substantive thing, then we should be called to pay attention. I’ll argue that Mofid’s simple statement is at the core of what it means to follow Jesus and to claim identity as a Christian. Which is just another example of just how absurd this whole Christianity thing really is.

In a piece I wrote a couple of months ago, entitled Christianity is Absurd, I cited some recent examples of how several Christian communities responded to mass shootings and terror attacks. How their response was counter-intuitive in light of the suffering their families and communities endured. How they demonstrated a Gospel reaction to attack. They become a curiosity …  and then the world moves on and returns to reality. Or so it thinks.

Certainly, Mofid and his family and his many relations, in his home country of Egypt and in and around the village where he grew up, know persecution. I doubt anyone I’ve ever met nor anyone most of us have ever met have come close to knowing such persecution.

My simple dictionary says persecution is “ill treatment or hostility, especially related to beliefs.” It is “persistent annoyance or harassment.” Well, ok but let’s be honest, there are degrees of persecution as there are in hostility. Certainly, persecution for religious beliefs is a staple of history with no system innocent of its practice.

And, most of us are aware that a few of the faithful even seek martyrdom, the opportunity to die for one’s belief, or (more selfishly) obtain sympathy or admiration. But, this is not the same. Seeking death as an expression of faith is not the point Mofid was making. Nor is it the example of his life and the core of his belief.

No. The radical thought here is that we are being blessed while persecuted. In other words, persecution, as absurd is this may seem, is a gift.

But, a blessing is even more than a gift in the context we’re speaking about. It’s a thing that makes us more into the kind of person God wants us to be.

Not long before Jesus went to his death, he sat his disciples down and painted the picture for them about what they would face. It was not a rosy picture. (I just have to recall one of the facts supporting the reality of the Christian story and that is what possible motive would people have to start a religion that follows a dead and powerless god, the following of which continually led to their persecution, powerlessness and death?) This is no Prosperity gospel that is a current rage in some quarters (believe and you will be given material abundance through God’s favor), nor is it the Genie in the Bottle gospel that belief will result in the granting of one’s desires. No, this was part of the Good News that, though they would (not might, but would) be persecuted, hounded and even killed for their beliefs, they would be blessed.

Fundamentally, life isn’t safe. We can erect barriers and surround ourselves with wealth and comfort but that doesn’t make us safe. We become ill. We stumble. Make mistakes. Witness as loved ones suffer. Safety, like happiness, can be fleeting and the reaching for it a cause of some futility. In fact, Jesus certainly taught that neither safety nor happiness is the point. Truth and love. Justice, grace, forgiveness and redemption. Those are the point.

To be harassed, intimidated or even condemned for these ideals and living the life they ordain is to be blessed. No, the objective is not to seek these forces out … to seek martyrdom or to endure persecution because of some reward. That is backward thinking. The blessing is not the objective. The objective is to live a Gospel life and let the chips fall. And, then to realize that, if and when persecution arrives as a result, the blessings flow.

So, what is this blessing that arrives unbidden? It may be the gratitude from another person who has somehow benefited from our sacrifice, who has been pulled from some misery as the result of an act of love that required more than a little risk. The blessing can appear as a sense of joy or deep connection. The heart just knows. Or it can manifest as hope … the knowledge that these present circumstances are temporary and pale in light of a greater reality. This kind of knowledge has been known to flow into our pores to the point that it serves as an armor … not of a physical sort whereby the blows do not land on our flesh … but of a spiritual sort whereby their force is ameliorated, reduced and made far less consequential.

In this sense, the blessing is the powerful recognition that we belong to God, that he loves us and will care for us throughout eternity.

The danger, of course, is that we let this kind of thing go to our heads and believe that we are the truly righteous ones. Interestingly, this misappropriation of the Gospel has now been adapted into the story promulgated by secular culture: Each of us is fully righteous and woe to those who do not recognize that! No, God alone is fully righteous and we need to constantly hold up the mirror in order to check any sense of privilege at the door.

One woman questioned Mofid about the precautions he would be taking while traveling to Egypt this summer for a pastors conference. The group was warned not to take buses because of the potential for them to be attacked. After all, that is now becoming a regular occurrence, with the slaughter of people in Mofid’s village the incredibly painful reminder of how fragile life is for those who follow Jesus in certain parts of the world. Mofid calmly shrugged off the well-placed concern as he would swatting a fly. He was not dismissive, honoring the thought, but he reoriented it in context. It was something to be aware of but it was nothing more than a temporary distraction.

Listening to this kind of exchange, my friend Gary reflected afterwards that we American Christians should maybe feel guilty because we do not face these regular threats to our existence due to our faith. I get his point but I might put it a little differently, to which I’m sure he would agree. I would say that our faith suffers because we insulate ourselves from the quality of surrender to God that is required by people living those kinds of lives. The Gospel was born under the boot of severe oppression by both political and religious leaders. It was nurtured and flourished early on in environments very similar to what Mofid’s people face every day. The beauty and clarity of the central tenets of the faith are inextricably linked with suffering, not of earthly triumph.

We are called to keep our lamps lit, which means to be both true and vigilant. That light, regardless of circumstances, is a beacon to both offer and receive blessings. I pray that my own lamp, as poorly fueled as it often is, can shine brightly enough … and with God’s help it will. And, no level of persecution, no matter how extreme, can diminish a fraction of that kind of glow. Thank you, Mofid and others like you who remind us of what is true and good. Amen.

Anyone who reads these long soliloquies (which occasionally resort to the use of strange words) or who knows me, knows how I speak a lot about choices. As in, picking this over that or going in one direction or another. Life is flush with choices. I think few of us actually spend much time considering how many or how significant our choices actually are. Most are probably subconscious or instinctual, requiring little reflection. While some are major, far fewer rise to the level of existential … as in impacting our lives at the most fundamental level.

A central thread in these blog posts is whether or not to choose belief in the Christian story. Of course, it is only one story of many that purport to explain all of reality. Living in the modern or post-modern era with ready-made access to the multitude of cultures and belief systems, it’s kind of like standing in line at the local smorgasbord or grand buffet. Where to begin? Which among so many options do I want choose? After all, I only have so much room to imbibe. In the end, we may sample a wide array of foods, each in small quantities. Or, we can pass on most, instead concentrating on a select few.

Of course, I believe that any honest person will recognize that we make existential choices either through default or intention. Something must govern the forces by which we live our lives. Such an honest person will also recognize that, realistically, the options are relatively few. Put simply, there’s nothing all that new under the sun when it comes to this kind of thing. Sure, there are many nuances, some large and some small, but basically it’s not too difficult to list the options.

In that sense, all of us believe. We may spend a ton of time considering those beliefs or we may not. But, all of us believe. We have to believe in something or else we can’t function. The atheist must believe there is no theos (Greek for God), no supreme deity that is of a super(Latin for above or beyond)natural reality. A true atheist is definitely a true believer! The agnostic is one who can’t commit to either belief in the supernatural or belief that the supernatural is not real. (The “a” in agnostic or atheist is the negation and the “gnostic” comes from the Greek gnostos meaning “known.”) In other words, the agnostic believes that he/she just can’t know what is ultimately true about reality. This, of course, is a strong belief.

While having no monopoly on the concept, many Christians call themselves, “Believers.” I imagine Moslems are very similar. When I was well-parked outside of the Christian worldview, I was largely unaware of this distinction. I don’t suspect the term is used constantly within Christian settings, although it is certainly a feature in some. It refers to those who buy into the standard orthodoxy of the triune God, as well as Christ’s role and our role in the whole scheme of things. (As an aside, in my anti-authoritarian years, of which I still maintain some elements, “orthodoxy” had a bad name. It sort of connoted that I was incapable of making up my own mind. I’ve since relaxed my stance on that quite a bit.)

If I haven’t bored you yet with all of this, I’m just about getting to the reason I’m writing today. I’ve entitled this piece, “To Believe or Not. To Follow or Not.” Up to this point, I’ve tried to briefly make the case that we all believe and all follow, whether we know it or not. So, in that sense, the title is somewhat senseless. However, I want to now focus specifically on what we can generally call Christianity, whether you buy into that framework or not.

Fascinatingly, Jesus continues to be highly popular while (at least in the West), Christianity may not be so. These days, you just don’t get many people saying, “Oh, that Jesus. What a jerk. I can’t stand his principles. His teaching is a bunch of bunk. He’s just crazy. Or inept.” Etc… On the other hand, in many circles … especially in academia, much of the media and (in the U.S.) on the coasts and urban centers, “Christianity” doesn’t elicit a whole lot of positive reaction. Instead, the reaction might range from bland indifference or lack of exposure to abject repulsion. While I don’t want to go into all of the reasons for that here, suffice to say that some of that is well-deserved. And, some of it clearly is not.

Despite one set of trends away from the Christian mindset in America, there are other trends that move in the opposite direction. And, one of those trends is at the basis of this piece.

And it is this: By all measures, what is turning people away from Christianity (aside from the scandals and cultural forces that reject objective truth) is the fact that many people crave more than mere belief. They crave substance … the shapes and hues that bring vitality to their beliefs. After all, if belief is the attempt to be all things to all people, then it is of no substance at all. And, Christianity in America is working hard in some respects to be all things to all people. You can be some things to all people or you can be all things to some people but you can’t have it both ways. Think about it.

A lot of people believe that Jesus was/is a good guy. That his teachings (the selective pieces of which they are aware) reflect sound ideals. In keeping with that perspective, other good people like Gandhi and King cited Jesus’ example as foundational to their life’s work. Many of these people reject the traditional “church-going” model for how they apply those beliefs.

Another significant group of people profess belief in a particular subset brand of Christianity like Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, Methodism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Pentacostalism, and so forth. The majority of these people dedicate some portion of their regular lives to church attendance (be it regular or irregular) and some portion of their income to the church or some specific charity. On the other hand, some will identify as “Catholic” or “Christian” but that distinction and stated fact of belief has little or very modest impact on how they live their lives.

In other words, Belief does not necessarily translate into a whole lot of action. So, what is a belief that requires very little actual movement? I’d say it’s pretty benign. I would argue that “benign” and “existential truth” are pretty much mutually exclusive, in reality.

All of which is a REALLY long way of getting to my answer the other day to someone who asked me what I would call my set of beliefs. Of course, I did not make up this answer but appropriated it because it makes sense.

To answer, “I’m a Christian,” is to trigger all sorts of subtle responses, each conditioned upon some aspect of the term that resonates as either positive or negative, depending on all sorts of things. For starters, it basically says I identify with Protestants, not Catholics, which is largely true but oh such a limitation on the reality. Most Catholics will answer, “Catholic,” not “Christian.” For others, saying I am a Christian may mean I’m an “Evangelical” (which can translate as “born again,” “zealous,” or politically right wing, depending upon the listener).

Which is why my intention is to always answer, “I follow Jesus.”

In some ways, this is a show-stopper. If for no other reasons, it is not a common response and, therefore, requires some thinking to interpret its meaning.

I like this response for three main reasons. First, it cuts through a whole lot of institutional layering that can easily be grounds for distraction from essential truth. Institutions are inherently self-protective, as are bureaucracies, and while we need them in order to be civilized, they create their own truths aside from that which caused their founding.

Second, it elevates the centerpiece of the whole belief system to primary status. To say, “I’m Christian,” can mean dozens or even hundreds of things. In fact, a whole lot of Christianity is not necessarily focused on Jesus, which might seem counterintuitive to many.

And, third, it substitutes what can be a pretty passive verb “Believe,” with a very active verb, “Follow.” In fact, belief may not really require a whole lot of action where follow certainly does. Crassly, I can sit on my butt and believe but I can’t sit on my butt and follow.

Any ensuing dialogue must then be about who and what Jesus is and what it means to follow him. And, those are the questions that can define a life. Their breadth and depth brooks no quarter. We cannot say “I follow Jesus” and take a back seat. To follow means just that. Wherever he/it leads. That is the path of the pilgrim. That is the path of the disciple. In fact, I could just as rightfully answer, “I’m a pilgrim.” Or, “I’m a disciple.” The pilgrim is on a sacred journey and the disciple is one who invests most everything in following a teacher. Both of these terms clearly express a reality that says the status quo is not acceptable. I will not stand unchanged. Transformation is not only possible, it’s the purpose.

Of course, all of this is much easier said than done. Admittedly, I’m a poor example. I’ve now long abandoned my prior conviction that Jesus was a good guy, even a great moral teacher or enlightened being. None of those come close to describing who he said he was and how his followers reacted to him. No, the reality of Jesus leaves me no choice. Yes, I believe, because (among other reasons) it’s the only answer that makes sense of everything else, as bizarre as that may seem. But, I follow because he leaves me no alternative, thank God. At the very beginning of his ministry, he didn’t say, “Here’s what I ask you to believe.” He bluntly just said, “Follow me.” And, they did. Over the months and years that followed, and well past his death, they kept learning what it meant to follow him. And, now, I am one as well, as completely unlikely as that should have been.

To Believe or Not? We all believe in something and I choose to believe what I do about Jesus and the reality he describes. To Follow or Not? I must every day make that choice … confounding and treacherous and liberating as it is.

Simply, I follow Jesus.