It’s been a long three weeks since my last post on this topic; a full month since I dove in. I expect that anyone still paying attention will have trouble connecting all of the dots. For that, I apologize. Life gets in the way and my attention has been drawn to other things, even other prompts to share in the meantime.

But, now it’s time to bring this to a close.

Essentially, this seven-part series is a response to the reasonable question of why Christians don’t appear to be any more “good” than anyone else and why, after 2000 years of such worldwide influence, does it appear that the world is not a better place for its existence.

I’ve spent a lot of time and space dissecting the question in order to arrive at some form of a coherent response. I am quite ready to admit that it will not prove entirely or even partially acceptable to some.

I hope it’s been clear that I am no defender of much that the Christian religion or many of its adherents have stood for. I also freely admit that I do not have all of the answers and if one who is “investigating” Christianity expects all of the answers, then he or she will be sadly disappointed.

There are many ways to “defend” Christianity aside from trying to answer the good questions raised at the beginning of this series. I’ll offer, instead, that the totality of my writing speaks to the nature of the faith and then I will leave it to readers to draw their own conclusions.

I will conclude this series by addressing two things.

God and Man

One of the most common objections to Christianity is that if God is good and loving and all-powerful, how come he allows evil and bad stuff to happen? Furthermore, if Jesus came to earth to straighten us out and he taught really nice stuff, how come his followers don’t reflect this? Aren’t we just left with the conclusion that God and Jesus are either without power or they are, practically, irrelevant?

I suspect it’s some variant of this line of thinking that motivated the author’s questions I engaged a month ago. And, I accept that. This line of thinking is valid and, as I said in the beginning, it is incumbent upon Christians to be prepared to respond in some fashion.

The Bible is the most well known and published book in human history. While I thought I had some basic idea of its content and message awhile back, in hindsight I didn’t have a clue. In fact, it is highly complex, layered with a breadth and depth that is astonishing. It can be viewed in many ways but, in its essence, it is the story of God’s relationship with Man. And, that’s not an easy thing to define.

Each of us has to come to our own understanding of these things. People are very free to dismiss God as a fiction or to dismiss Jesus being divine or even having existed in the first place. People are free to disagree as to what “divine” is and what “good” is. People are free to believe that morality is purely a social construction and that it has no ultimate objective state. Or, people can believe that there is a supernatural objective truth upon which all things good are based. People can believe that God is perfect love and will forgive all things and everyone, eventually. People can believe that God is both loving and judging and that forgiveness is not necessarily the outcome for everyone. People can believe they know what’s best for God and people can believe that God knows what’s best for us. You can’t have it all ways.

The Christian view is that Man is fallen. This is a theological way of saying that we have rejected God as being in charge and are choosing to go our own way. Furthermore, the Christian view is that Jesus is God come to “dwell among us” as both fully human and fully God. The only such one in human history. The Christian view is that his life and message are to be believed fully. And, that the way for us to come back to God and to overcome our fallen nature is through him.

This is often very hard to accept by non-Christians. Which leads us to a dilemma.

If the above scenario is false, then Christianity is irrelevant. It will turn out to be either a huge scam or something only vaguely resembling the reality Christians believe in. If, on the other hand, it is true, then is the problem contained in the original set of questions the fault of Man or God?

For the longest time, many decades in fact, I determined that the problem was with God, if there was one. No more.

There is so much I do not know. For instance, I am aware that many people have given up on Christianity because of the deep flaws in character they witness on a regular basis. They say how could it be true if, for instance, the Roman Catholic Church allowed terrible instances of abuse to routinely occur? Or, how could Protestant pastors with large followings, who preach love, grace, and forgiveness every Sunday get away with the egregious sins they consistently rail against? Why is the Christian “religion” chock full of people and leaders who routinely violate the most basic principles of their faith? Furthermore, why does God just allow evil to invade every community and society? Ultimately, I do not fully know why there are so many people who profess to be Christians who do bad things, nor I do not fully know why God continues to allow evil to happen.

Having said that, I have some idea of each. To the former, it is hard to surrender the authority for our lives to another. It is hard to set aside many of the worldly things we value and look to in order that we may be valued. The greatest sin is said to be pride as in “Pride Goeth Before the Fall.” Pride is insidious. It is a cancer that, left unchecked, moves from the smallest little benign kind of thing to full blown malignancy. I’d argue that pride is one of the key elements in the grab for power. Pride, power, harshly judging others, and self-righteousness all go hand in hand. No one is immune to this. A self-professing Christian who succumbs to these temptations is one who has chosen to put self above God. The outcome is not good. Of course, this obvious problem can raise questions about why God lets this happen and why is it so hard for a Christian to follow the example of Jesus? There is a long answer but the short answer is that Christians are human like everyone and vulnerable to the same faults. This is where Keller was going earlier when talking about character. A truly gospel-believing Christian will humbly recognize his or her shortcomings and chart a course to be more like Jesus. A nominal Christian will use Jesus for his or her own purpose, hardly recognizing the consequence.

And, why does God allow evil to happen? Or, perhaps less dramatically, why does God allow suffering to occur? I have written about these things before. Just as we cannot fully know God, we cannot fully know the nature of evil and the role of suffering in our human existence. However, we do know some things, if we accept the Christian view. For starters, much of our suffering results in deeper maturity and helps us to live as a more loving and giving person. We become more compassionate and that can ripple out in significant ways. Using a piece of biblical imagery, our iron is refined in the fire as the dross (impurity) is sloughed off. By no means is this a complete answer to why evil is allowed to occur and why Christians have resorted to evil acts. But, in the context of God’s plan for humans, we have to look at the long view. C.S. Lewis shares the following conversation in his book, The Great Divorce, of which I’ve referred previously. This dialogue is between two characters regarding evil, heaven and hell.

Says the heavenly one: “That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even agony into glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say, ‘Let me have this and I’ll take the consequences’, little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven. The bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of things, the Blessed will say ‘We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,’ and the Lost, ‘We were always in Hell.’ Both speak truly.

Unless one is both familiar with and believes that Heaven is “for real” and that a person’s choices will determine the outcome, then this long view serves no purpose to help explain suffering and the reality of bad behavior. I am mindful that these brief explanations may only raise more questions than they answer and that’s ok. As always, I humbly invite others to provide their own conclusion about things, by which they make sense of the entire picture.

I said at the beginning of this post that I will conclude with two things. Here is the second.

Did God Make a Mistake?

While I’ve just touched upon this, I want to respond to the author’s final paragraph of questions that are basically charging God with setting up mankind’s failures. This is a common and rational charge, given the circumstances. The author gets at this with several statements. He says that if the good in mankind has not improved since the lifetime of Jesus and that if Christians cannot be shown to have a higher percentage of good people than non-Christians, then the situation is that only a fraction of people will “get it.” And, because it’s so difficult to “get it,” then God is not really on the side of good (my interpretation) and he’s more in line with someone who gets their jollies out of seeing others struggle in a long uphill battle, rarely ever arriving at salvation. To make it worse, if the whole thing is complicated, since “most people can’t deal with anything complex,” then the system is inherently flawed, set up to fail. God should then be judged by man as deficient or worse.

We can look at this in many ways. First, if after examining everything … and I mean everything about the nature of reality, including the fact of humans within that reality, one concludes there is no God, then that is that. I will not dive back in there because I’ve covered that ground extensively and nothing here promises to add anything special. If, after examining everything, one concludes that there is a God but he/it is the god worshipped by Hindus, Buddhists, Druids or whomever, then we are talking about an entirely different kettle of fish. Of course, people are welcome to believe in such gods. If, however, one concludes that there is a God and he/it is all powerful, loving, judging but gracious, and knows us completely, then we are left with only two conclusions.

The first conclusion is that God is actually not caring, disinterested, manipulative and purposefully set us up to fail. The deck was stacked inevitably and irretrievably against us. Always was and always will be. People don’t really have a chance. This whole thing is a mess. We don’t have the capacity to understand the mess, nor to live by God’s rules. Of course, this presents a problem which is, essentially, the fact this would negate any belief that God is loving, etc…

The second conclusion is that God did not make a mistake and knew exactly what he was doing.

This is where the rubber hits the road. If we can, for a moment, assume that God knows exactly what he is doing and he is all of the things that Jesus teaches us about him, then we are left with an interesting quandary. And, this quandary actually doesn’t stack the deck against those who the author claims may lack complex thinking. In fact, I’d argue that it, if anything, it is an obstacle to those who might be considered complex thinkers.

Perhaps soon I will write on how the Gospel is, simultaneously, both deeply complex and remarkably simple. This supposed paradox can and is regularly resolved but often not in the ways that some people might think. Oh, some will resort to the notion that simple people are led blindly to a false faith by the Machiavellis of the world. But, the God of the second conclusion has figured that one out quite nicely. The truth is available to all and it’s actually quite obtainable, as in “right in front of our face.” The key, of course, is that we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

Diane did not arrive at her deep faith by investigating all of the possibilities, by analyzing all of the variables. Who can look at Diane and critique her for getting it wrong? C.S. Lewis did arrive at his faith by investigating all of the possibilities but even that was not quite enough. It took something else. I investigated most all of the possibilities but, like Lewis, it took something else. Billions of people, whether brilliant or uneducated, rich or poor, urban or rural, have arrived at the conclusion that the God of the Hebrew people, the God made known by Jesus, is actually the real deal.

No, believe these people, God did not get it wrong. With a nod to Chesterton, I did. And still do.

Yes, we can be angry with God. We can deeply lament. We can doubt and question. I am good with all of that. But, as I always say, in the end we always come to a choice. It was the last thing I remembered before everything changed.

Perhaps there has been something in these many pages that will cause one to pause and consider viewing things at least a bit differently. Perhaps not. God bless you all and thank you for listening.

For starters, I could probably put together reams of thoughts on any one of these. But, not now.

Our very wise friend, Dawn, was over yesterday morning for a meeting and she happened to tell us of a great book she’s reading, entitled Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown.

As I read the cover flap, I became aware that one of Brown’s TED talks is a top view on YouTube, entitled, “The Power of Vulnerability.”  I was intrigued enough to watch the brief 20 minute presentation and am a fan. I will attach the link below but here’s the gist. I do a terrible job of summarizing. You should really just spend the twenty minutes on YouTube.

She begins by stating that connection is why we’re here. It gives purpose and meaning to our lives. The greatest threat to connection are the twins of shame and fear. We fear disconnection. Specifically, we all have things about us that we believe if others found out, we would be disconnected or, as she says, “not worthy of connection.” (As she is a highly trained researcher, she arrived at this as part of a massive study into the lives of people over many years.) She says that everyone has shame and (this is huge!) the only people who don’t have it have no capacity for human empathy or connection. That’s something to think about.

These are things no one wants to talk about.

She refers to the underpinning to this shame and fear as “excruciating vulnerability.”  This idea is that in order for connection to happen, we have to allow others to fully see us.

This brings us back to the idea of “worthiness.” She describes two groups: Those who have a strong sense of love and belonging and those who don’t. She said, after a massive amount of data analysis that the only difference between the two is that the former “believe they are worthy of love and belonging.” Put just a tad differently, the thing that keeps us from connection is the fear we’re not worthy of connection.

From there, she tried to discover what the people who believe they are worthy of love and belonging have in common with one another. Again, after exhaustive study, she settled upon a feature she calls, “wholeheartedness.”

From there, she moves quickly through other descriptions and conclusions of what this “wholeheartedness” is like. It includes courage (to be imperfect), compassion (showing kindness to self and others), connection (willingness to let go of who we think we should be for who we really are), and vulnerability (in the end, where she settles).

As she concentrated on vulnerability, she concluded that this feature makes people beautiful. According to her, it is neither comfortable or excruciating. It’s simply necessary. She announces clearly that vulnerability is the “birthplace of joy, belonging and love.”

Wow.

The problem, she continues, is that we work very hard to numb vulnerability but that’s impossible because we can’t numb emotions. By numbing vulnerability, we simultaneously numb joy, gratitude and happiness. We numb by trying to make everything that is uncertain, certain. We seek perfection.

Brown: “You are imperfect and wired for struggle and worthy of love and belonging.”

As she concludes, she says that we should let ourselves be deeply seen. This also means loving with our whole heart when there’s no guarantee. Then, we can practice gratitude and joy. We can say, “I am enough,” and will be able to stop screaming and listening.

If you should choose to watch the linked talk, you will find that I’ve captured much of what she says but I’ve clearly been imperfect in my summary. Everything she shares dovetails with what I believe to be true from my own experience and observation.

We have active private lives that sometimes occupy the surface of our hearts and minds and sometimes settle down in deeper places. Knowing already a lot of what she shares is a nice confirmation but I’m especially intrigued and motivated to reflect upon the powerful role that forces like shame, fear, courage, compassion,vulnerability, transparency and wholeheartedness play in our lives.

Blessings, Brad

 

 

Diane and I were talking as we do when the dusk is settling over the land and we absorb the end of the day, gazing out at the diminishing light.

A little while later, we sat down to dinner, now two days after our Thanksgiving feast, hosting over a dozen people (five dogs in attendance) and we prayed this evening for a number of people we know who are really suffering.

The news is full of strife and anger and judgment. The noise is deafening.

Despite all of that, what tugs at the heart is the pain in the lives of some people who deserve to be called angels. These are people, flawed as I’m sure they would admit, but who would be recognized by others as set apart. They endure at time with great difficulty. We, who love them, ask what we can do to help and try to to arrive at some kind of balance in our own lives. There seems to be no lack of need.

Who are we to preserve barriers to the people who suffer in our midst? Who are we to give thanks but ignore the pleas of the needy?

We must pray that those voices reach our hearts and our only question is how do I respond while not succumbing to the lie that suffering is the only conclusion?

The dusk light is waning but the dawn of a new day is hardly a wink away. We hung the lights and ornaments of the season today along with bows and ribbons and other symbols that express to the world that there is ornamentation that holds the shadows at bay.

We pray fervently for the release from pain and suffering … for the power of love and grace and healing and forgiveness to transform our world. We also stand by expectantly, with hope and the patience born of a promise.

I had another set of thoughts this morning that are reflective of this day.

Yesterday, I pointed the lens outward, giving thanks for people and things that allow my life to flourish.

I got to wondering what I do each day … how I am … that draws others to give thanks.

What qualities or behaviors can any of us demonstrate that will, inevitably, lead another to be grateful for us or the things we bring?

The Apostle Paul offers us an answer.

In his letter to the church in Galatia (currently, Ankara, the capital of Turkey), he described what he termed the “fruits of the Spirit.” In simple terms, these were the natural behaviors one would expect to see in someone who was a sincere follower of Jesus.

They are:

Love. Joy. Peace. Forbearance. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-Control.

At first glance, we may run the risk of just nodding our heads and acknowledging that these are good things. Then, we go about our business.

In fact, they make me avert my eyes as their bright clarity exposes the depths to which I am not worthy to be described this way.

Far too infrequently do I act out of true love, the agape love I’ve mentioned before. While I have received such love, I have frequently not reciprocated as I am called to do. How many times a day do I miss the chance to bring joy into the lives of others? I am often quick to seek control, to shape the things around me, instead of demonstrating forbearance (patience) and self-control. While I’d like to think I’m a kind person who has a gentle touch, I am reminded by others that I can be quick to lodge an objection without pausing to catch my breath, speaking in a tone not reflective of kindness. My thought life would not measure up to appropriate scrutiny. Too often, I find myself hoping for bad things to happen to people, seeing them through my own insufficient eyes and not through the eyes of God. Can I not pause for just a little bit longer to wonder what levels of good I am missing? Perhaps, if I find little of merit, I might feel pangs of sorrow rather than anger. Most importantly, will my faithfulness, my integrity, hold firm against all sorts of attacks or will I be like, Peter, denying the truth when push comes to shove?

The Good News, of course, is that these qualities Paul describes are the natural outcomes of one who is open to God’s transformative power. I, and we, can all grow in our capacity to demonstrate these fruits. While falling far short of an ideal, we can rejoice when our lives bring to mind one or more of these things in the view of others. The best news of all is that, by surrendering, we are forgiven for our inadequacies.

I hope on this Thanksgiving that each of us can consider why others might give thanks for us … for our lives that are expressions of these fruits. I imagine such thanks will result in moments of full and contented hearts. And, that would be a Thanksgiving gift indeed.

My friend, Gary, started off our early morning coffee time together today with a simple prayer of thanksgiving. Later on, we returned to it after covering all sorts of things going on, including both joys and challenges.

Has this annual celebration merely turned into “Turkey Day?” While feasting and gathering with family and friends can be truly wonderful (for others it can be truly painful, unfortunately), do we easily give up any deeper meaning?

When Diane and I host such a gathering at our home tomorrow, we will ask each of the dozen or so people to share one thing that sticks out for which they are most thankful. To me, this does two things. It will both ground us in the reality that we are surrounded by goodness while also providing each of us a window into the lives of one another. Neither of these things should be marginalized.

This morning, Gary said he was so thankful that he has fresh water to drink, access to food and a working sewage system, to electricity. He chose not to take those things for granted.

He also spends time each week in prison and, yesterday, some of the prisoners were thankful that they had food, a place to sleep and Jesus.

Kind of makes us want to pause.

I am so thankful for Diane that I don’t have words adequate enough to describe it.

I am so thankful of our dear sons, Ross and Lee, who have grown into fine young men. They have caring hearts and they know love.

I am so thankful for other family, with whom I share so much, including laughter and tears.

I am so thankful for my many friends who are too numerous to list. With them, too, I share a life that is full and without whom, I would not be the man I am.

I am thankful that I am given purpose and meaning, the absence of which would be terrible. I am thankful that those things lead me in directions that would have largely been unimaginable not that long ago.

I am thankful for love, grace, and hope.

I am thankful that God is actually real and that the Gospel is God’s gift to me and to all of us.

I am so thankful for our house and the means that enable us to live a life without privation, at least for now.

I am very thankful for the majority of my time now when I am not suffering physically. I am thankful when my lungs allow full breaths and, also, thankful that there are medicines and medical professionals to help hold the bad stuff at bay. I am extremely aware that several of my dear friends suffer horribly. I am thankful that they would see me as a dear friend.

I am thankful for quiet moments when the clutter is shed and wonders emerge.

I think I could go on for hours this way.

I am thankful for fresh water, food, plumbing, and electricity.

God bless.

I came across another G.K. Chesterton pearl in my reading this morning. He wrote a century ago:

“The world will never starve for want of wonders, only for want of wonder.”

What will capture our imagination today? What will tug at our hearts as a call from the deep? What will refocus our attention away from the grit that addles our minds and constricts our hearts?

Chesterton so adroitly captures vast truths in the simplest phrases. Of what do we starve? Whose voices capture our attention? If wonder is like oxygen, then its absence is a form of asphyxiation.

My soul yearns for wonder. I believe I was created for wonder. Perhaps, to seek Wonder is our life’s mission. Perhaps to know Wonderful is to be fulfilled.

There is a woman at our former church named Sally. While I do not know her, she is known by many, including Diane and others I know. By all accounts, she is the sweetest, most loving woman. While I’ve heard her name before, I became aware in the last couple of days of the most remarkable thing.

Sally has known suffering. She lost both her husband and brother in the last couple of years to illnesses. Throughout, her faith has remained strong and her countenance gracious.

Last week, her son, Steve, 47 years old, dropped dead of a heart attack. He left behind a wife and children. This, then, is the story of Sally, Steve, Steve’s family and a soldier.

There may be many reasons why American men and women volunteer to serve their country in uniform. Perhaps some see it as a way to break out of a rut dug during teenage years. Or, to land something secure as an alternative to other options they face at a young age. Perhaps some see the benefits of learning a skill that can be marketable once the time of enlistment or commission is finished. Others are motivated by more altruistic reasons, such as the desire to serve a noble purpose or to protect fundamental values like freedom. Of course, some see the threat posed by evil people and societies that do not share our values as significant, their service thereby being a way to keep our homeland as safe as possible. Whatever the initial motivation, many end up in harm’s way and some sacrifice their lives as a result.

One of these brave volunteers had his body blown to pieces three years ago in Iraq. While he, in fact, survived, it was without any arms and legs.

Can any of us truly imagine this? What that must have been like when he woke up? What it was like in the weeks and months that followed? What it has been like in the last three years?

In what ways do we truly suffer? In what ways do we daily take the most simple things for granted? How truly are we disconnected with the actual human condition in front of our faces as we go about our lives, with our pride and anger and self-righteousness?

I do not know the name of this soldier but his life intersected with the lives of Sally’s family a few days ago.

When Steve had his massive heart attack and it was clear it would be fatal, his family asked that he be put into a medically-induced coma so they would have enough time to say goodbye in their own grieving way. While his brain registered no activity, that undoubtedly did not matter as his chest rose and fell with the rhythms of the machine.

Their wishes also allowed medical professionals to pursue options for organ donations as that was Steve’s desire.

We are now used to seeing injured veterans with those prosthetic legs of carbon fiber that look like they have small skis for feet. There are other versions of this but we know that many who have lost one or both legs are ultimately able to walk and run and maintain some semblance of a normal life thanks be to the advances in medicine and technology.

Perhaps we are also aware of prosthetic arms that are biomedical marvels. But, they say, there’s something about arms that make the manufactured ones a less suitable replacement as we find with the legs.

In the time where Steve remained “alive,” it was discovered that his arms were a perfect match for this soldier. The key word here is perfect. They had to match in age, skin color, weight, blood type, etc… I am given to understand that the act of connecting a donor’s arms to another has only happened several times. This is pushing the edge of the medical envelope.

I’m not sure if the procedure has just happened or is imminent. This morning, in our regular prayer group, we prayed for Steve’s family, for the gift of Steve’s life, for Sally, for the soldier and his family and for the medical staff.

Diane mentioned what an amazing thing it would be for Sally to meet this soldier at some point and be embraced by him with the arms of her son. It’s a cold heart indeed that is not moved by such a picture.

There is far too much self-segregation going on in our society today. Far too much tribalism that sees others as opponents, where our identities are wrapped up with this or that thing that ignores the thing that makes us human.

When men and women volunteer to serve and protect, they have some idea of the risk. This soldier fervently hoped the day would never come when he would be alive without arms and legs … the stuff of nightmares. Sally, who has suffered the loss of loved ones, also continues to experience the stuff of nightmares, as her son died so young and so abruptly. Somewhere, in our consciousness, we are aware of the risks. What are we doing about it?

Sally and her extended family are saying goodbye to a loving son, husband and father. They are also saying hello to a man who, hopefully, will be given a renewed chance to flourish in this life. Strangers indelibly connected without walls.

It’s fitting that this is happening on Veteran’s Day, the one day a year when those of us who care, pause to reflect on the sacrifices made by others who don the uniform and assume a heightened level of risk. For those of us who care, we use this moment to pray in our own way, to give thanks for their service on our behalf.

Many folks my age had fathers who served in World War II. My father piloted planes for the Marine Corps in the Pacific Theater of War. Diane’s father did the same for the Army Air Corps, later spending a career as an Air Force pilot. Diane’s sister Mary’s husband, Greg’s, father piloted planes in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. My friends Dan and Mike had fathers who also flew combat planes in WWII. My sister-in-law’s, Julie’s, father fought in the jungle hells. Many of us know veterans of Korea and Vietnam and, increasingly, Afghanistan and Iraq. Today is a day we remember them and so many others, including a certain soldier whose story we are just now learning.

I pray that the operation is a success. I pray for Sally and her family that they may be comforted in this time of intense grief. I pray that such grief is also accompanied by a sense of hope and grace at how Steve’s life is proving such a remarkable gift to a complete stranger. I pray that all of the men and women who serve (and their families and friends who support them) will get the sense today that we care and are grateful.

Amen.

Did we really just arrive back at the beginning? I’ll argue no. Things just aren’t always what they seem at our first, or even second, glance. I felt I had to take the time to mine some key points deeply, giving adequate credit to the importance of the original questions. It is of no use jumping to a quick yes or no. The thoughtful person expects complexities in most things. To believe otherwise is only to court discouragement as the quick proves unreliable in the light of day.

So, now that I’ve spent all of this time defining terms, identifying fundamental principles and so forth, let’s get back at it and I’ll try to respond to the author’s main theme.

Let’s take the first question: What evidence is there that Christianity works?

Anecdotal Evidence

Ok, for starters, why don’t we ask actual Christians, “does Christianity work?” I may be mistaken but I sense that the author’s question is more of a general thing in that he’s pretty much made the assumption that it doesn’t work because the world is in such bad shape, despite the large segment of humanity that professes Christianity.

But it’s not fair to ignore some actual data we might gather from the testimonies of a random sampling of the 2.2 billion self-identifying Christians (about one third of we 7 billion humans).

Honestly, although I’d studied all of the major religions and had come into contact with people who practiced most of them, I had never actually asked that question of someone until I was over 50 years old. I guess I could have sort of discerned in a passive sense that if one believed strongly in a thing, that it “worked” for them. But, we’ve gone beyond that in this series.

Of course, now I have these conversations all of the time, especially when we get down in the weeds to try to match our beliefs with desired outcomes.

So, I’ll say right off the bat, “Heck yes, it works! Are you serious? It’s changed my life for good and in a remarkably positive way. And, I’m not the only one who thinks so. People who have known me for awhile and are around me a lot say I’m definitely more patient, less self-righteous, kinder, more forgiving and less given to anger … in short, more loving. Now, granted, I’ve a long, long way to go but if following Jesus is the cause, then of course it’s working.”

I’m not alone. I see and hear this story constantly. Committed followers of Jesus recognizing their sincere limitations and seeking to grow more deeply in love, testifying that it’s often a case of two steps forward, one step back, but you can’t miss the progress over time.

I hearken back to the Tim Keller piece I shared the other day. He began by questioning which Christians we’re talking about, ultimately stating the obvious that you can’t paint all with the same brush stroke. Yes, that might be convenient as a way of stereotyping but it’s not compelling. If our exposure to Christianity is the popular press in an increasingly secularized age, then the story that gets the most attention is frequently the one detailing something sensational or corrupt.

Instead, go into random churches all across this country and around the world and you will see millions upon millions of people who treat strangers kindly, give a significant amount of their wealth away to the needy, work in shelters and to build low cost homes, support orphanages, hospitals, schools and impoverished children everywhere. Which group of people chooses to go into maximum security prisons on a regular basis to help lift our most disenfranchised people out of a cycle of violence and hate? Where are twelve step programs commonly held? Which organizations regularly sponsor grief groups? Which organizations regularly send their members out to tutor immigrants in language and life skills? The list is nearly endless. And, Christians regularly travel to the most desolate portions of the world, at their own expense, to do these things. Yes, of course, non Christians do this too but let’s apply the same standard of “performance” to Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and Atheists. In the cultures and communities where those other beliefs are present or dominant, are the percentages the same? Are they structuring their weekly lives around living this way? I do not have figures but I believe I’ve studied cultures enough to make an educated guess.

Hope

Let’s not sideline the value of hope here, either. It is easy to succumb to the common criticisms leveled by skeptics and atheists that Christian hope is irrational, tantamount to the five year old hoping the tooth fairy or Santa would arrive that night. I have written on the topic before so will not engage it at length here. But it can’t be dismissed lightly if we want to answer whether Christianity works. Hope is a regular feature of life, regardless of belief system. Everyone hopes, whether broadly or at the granular level. Everyone factors in hope to the way we live out our lives. Hope expands our world while its opposite, despondency, shrinks it. By definition, the Christian is hopeful, as in “filled with hope.” This is based upon a conviction that the promise is real and that conviction is arrived at through both reason and experience. For one who does not reason or experience in such a way, this hope probably makes no sense, hence the criticism. But, spend any time with a committed follower of Jesus, who understands the gospel and I trust you will find out more why hope is a reason Christianity works. Finally, do people who are truly filled with hope bring out the “good” things in life as opposed to people who are cynical and, worse, despondent? I’ll leave that unanswered for now.

A Further Word About Evidence

We’ve been doing a whole lot of diving into the weeds about what Christianity stands for, some of the common criticisms of Christians and some of the anecdotal evidence of how Christianity works for those who lead a gospel-centered life.

But, I expect this is not enough. The author says he “just doesn’t see” that Christianity is better at creating good than had it never existed.

Respectfully, I have two problems with this.

First, just because the author doesn’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. This was the first point Keller made in my earlier piece. I have deep respect for the author’s intellect and ability to analyze data. However, in this case, I know that he has had comparatively little actual first hand exposure to a lot of practicing Christians, saving a few friends, but with whom he has had very little dialogue about their actual faith lives. He has not been a part of a Christian community where the exposure would be much greater and he could compare their stories with the stories of others on what their priorities are, the vision for their lives and how they seek to interact with others around them and in far away communities. To omit this evidence is to prejudice the outcome and unfairly tilt the scales, in my analysis. Spend a year living amidst people who try to live out 1 Corinthians 13 and see if the view begins to shift.

Second, when examining either the historical record or the current world, it assumes a great deal to “condemn” a faith to irrelevancy (or worse) without gathering all of the evidence and this is very hard. There is nothing simple about it, so not “seeing” it is, perhaps, another way of saying, “I haven’t investigated it enough.”

Slavery

It’s common to hear the refrain that Christians promoted slavery for several hundred years in the western world, that it was Christian societies that stole humans from Africa and enslaved them to the harshest lives in the New World. And that the slave-dependent economies of Caribbean and southern American states were directed by Christians for their economic gain. This is a horrible blight with no justifiable defense. There are, however, at least two pieces of evidence that we need to examine. First, slavery has been a common feature of nearly every civilization throughout history. It was fully integrated into the indigenous societies in Africa as well as in North and South America. It was common in the Near East, the Far East, the Middle East and the West, including Scandinavia and throughout the EuroAsian continent. In fact, the first major attempt to eradicate slavery around the world was led by Christians, who saw it as a horrible abomination against God’s created order. Later, the major Civil Rights leaders were largely Christian, who carried on the Abolitionist crusade for equal rights. It does little good to dismiss these apparent contradictions lightly. It is healthy to ask how such contradictions could exist but if we jump to the conclusion that God is at fault or that he cannot be both loving and all powerful without exploring why those contradictions exist, we are shortchanging the whole issue.

Western Laws and Moral Codes

Let’s look briefly at the system of laws that have governed the western world for hundreds of years now and are now the basis of many political and economic systems around the world.

These laws came out of a set of moral principles that established fundamental rights for everyone and are extremely connected with the Judeo-Christian traditions. As a refutation of traditional authoritarian systems, they collectively reflect the belief that all of us have “unalienable” rights. These rights are not the result of evolution, nor are they the result of any other of the world’s major belief systems. They are closely linked to the importance of freedom and dignity for all people and of caring for those who are needy. The now modern concept of Justice, as set apart from a code that says “the strongest man gets to do what he wants,” or “the most powerful tribe or majority can have its way with everyone else,” was an invention grounded in the nature of God and had fidelity to the Christian worldview. I could go into great detail how our Constitution is deeply reflective of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Isn’t that firm evidence of the “good” that has come from Christianity? The critic will be inclined to immediately object and point out all of the faults but the fault does not lie with guiding principles.

* * * * *

What have we learned so far, hopefully?

For starters, it’s not so easy to define whether something like a belief system, specifically here, Christianity, works. If the metric in only such a subjective thing as “doing good,” then we still have a lot to work out before we can answer it. But, if it’s about aligning ourselves with the guiding principles I’ve labored to present, then that complicates things even further.

I can’t say conclusively I could predict the outcome of an objective 1 Corinthians 13 test on a random large sampling of people, even if such a highly subjective test were possible. But, of course, that’s the kind of thing we’d have to do, wouldn’t we? Because that’s Christianity.

Furthermore, the results are mixed and often dependent upon the observer’s perspective and sources of data. This dependency also includes the observer’s preconceptions with respect to the purpose of Christianity. To be blunt, if Observer A thinks Christianity is fundamentally a program for social justice, then he or she will use that lens by which to judge the belief system’s impact. If Observer B thinks Christianity is fundamentally a program for saving souls so they can go to heaven, then he or she will use that lens by which to judge the belief system’s impact. If Observer C thinks Christianity is a myth perpetuated by the powerful to oppress the weak, then he or she will use that lens. And so forth.

I will hopefully wrap this up in the next segment.

Another day. Another act that shocks our sensibilities. Why is it we don’t bat an eye when we hear how vicious people slaughter innocents on a continual basis around the world but we are stunned so fully when it’s here close to home? Why do we think that we are different?

Evil makes no distinction. It resides in the hearts of both men and women. It has nothing to do with our level of education or where we live. I know very smart people who have committed evil acts.

But, says the retort, do they kill from a hotel room or in a church? I reply that evil gets a foothold in the most common of places. We are a violent species, not dissimilar in that way from many other species.

The difference is that we can be called to something better. When that doesn’t work, whether in Washington or Hollywood or Wall Street or the cities and ghettos and suburbs and jungles and savannas on this earth, we look for a cause because it doesn’t make sense. Until it does.

Those poor people in Texas. Full of life in one moment. In a church giving thanks to God. The next, ripped apart. It is only the cold-hearted among us that does not weep for them, nor ask how this is possible.

I live in a reality that accepts both the facts contained in the message I posted a few hours ago and the facts of this one right now. And, for what it’s worth, I find no contradiction. Heavy sigh.

My new friend, Paul, has been talking recently about identity as in “who are we really?” Who are any of us, really? I think I may take this on a little more directly after completing this current series.

Anyway, we sang this song today. It was our dear friend, Shannon’s, favorite. If you’ve been with me for awhile, you will remember that Shannon led our Friday morning group and died most suddenly and tragically early last year. She was a true beacon of light in a world quite dark at times. Shannon was pretty rock solid in her understanding of who she was and who God is. That is reflected in the lyrics of the following song. I’m also including a link to a Casting Crowns recording. If you’re not used to “contemporary” Christian worship (as Diane and I and many others we know are so inclined), this may seem oft-putting. But, I put it out anyway.

As you can see, this is a song lifted up to a very special kind of love and the nature of a loving relationship between us and God. It also gives an accounting of how we receive that relationship that I can identify with. There’s not a word here that is out of place for me.

Here’s the Youtube for anyone interested.