Faith & Humility

As a Christian, there are certain things i believe. As a postmodern Christian, i want to be able to believe what i believe, without putting down what others believe. Yet there is also a history within Christianity which seems to hold the position that to truly 'believe' one must denounce the other's beliefs as "lies".

i suppose there is the reality that anyone who chooses to believe one thing,  by default chooses to 'dis-believe' the other. Therefore, affirmation is also denial. In the Christian faith this means that if i believe in the story revealed in the Hebrew/Christian Scriptures, then i don't believe other religions are ultimately true. Some Christians go further, asserting that other religions are actually and intentionally deceptions. i tend to think it's just human beings trying to figure things out.

i love my faith and it's teachings. i find life, meaning, and purpose within them. Yet i don't like the way holding to one religion or belief system often leads to the denunciation of another. If i hold to one faith system, do i have to denounce another as false or deception? This of course is what many of the major religions do. Many wars have been (and are being) fought over such things.

We ought not deceive one another by pretending that we hold all things equally true. Anyone who accepts certain writings as divinely inspired will of course reject other writings or beliefs that stand in contradiction. Yet to believe is different than to empirically know. This is where faith and science part ways. There are many people of varied faiths that sincerely believe. Each has the right to desire that others discover and benefit from the faith they so appreciatively hold. Each one, by default, rejects the ultimate truth of the other. Yet to accuse and defame one another as 'deceived' goes beyond the boundaries of faith or knowledge.

At best we can say: "I believe". When it comes to "faith" there is no such thing as "knowing" in any empirical sense. If there were, it would no longer be or require faith. Sometimes we feel pressure to prove our faith by claiming "knowledge". We do this because we want others to believe the 'truth'. Yet in labeling our 'faith' as 'knowledge' we unwittingly lie about what we believe to be true.

i suspect i believe in my faith the way the Muslim, the Jew, the Hindu, and even the Atheist believe in their's. In fact, i imagine there are others, of other faiths, who believe more fervently in their faith than i do mine. That is not to say that i 'doubt'. Can you 'believe' that others are as truly convinced in their 'faith' as you are in yours?

That is not to say that all religions are 'true'. Nobody really believes that.

i'm staking all my chips on the belief that my faith is true. That doesn't mean i have to throw the other guys chips in his face. i would appreciate it if he extend me the same courtesy.

Apocalyptic Weather

Well, the big snow storm blew in last night. The one we were all afraid would have us trapped in our houses. It was about three inches...

This morning i found myself upset about the false weather predictions i've heard. Then i chided myself for being so ridiculous as to be upset about such a silly thing. Why would i be upset simply because folks once again exaggerated a bad weather forecast?

Soon i realized that it had little to do with the weather at all. Instead i had found a loose connection between the fear of weather conditions and the exaggerated spiritual and political fears that are constantly bombarding our conservative talk shows and infiltrating our casual conversations.

A whole lot of apocalyptic hype of the horrors to come because of this law or that politician...and then three inches.

It's a disappointment really. Our fear filled imaginations are much more vivid and exciting than the mundane reality.

Christian Witness and Tebowing

i don't watch football, but i've certainly heard of Tim Tebow and what has become known as "Tebowing". This raises a couple of questions...

First, i'm all for people being open about their faith. i'm an Evangelical Christian (minus the politics). i believe witnessing is part of the faith. Of course, there are many different ways to witness.

So, on the one hand, i am fond of Tim Tebow. On another note, i think this whole "Tebowing" phenomena opens the discussion of witnessing vs. effective witnessing. The only person who hasn't been embarrassed by unabashed and obnoxious witnessing is the guy who is doing it.

i'm not sure that Tim Tebow has gone overboard. i truly don't know. i do know some team members have been complaining, but he has also become an encouragement to others.

i do believe that just shouting the name of Jesus isn't the way Jesus intended us to witness to his love and saving grace. i believe there are effective ways to witness as well as ineffective ways.

Then again, what may distance some can draw others. Where's the line? i'm not sure. But this video captures the tension humorously (well to me, while to others it may be off-putting :-)



This parody also unveils an embarrassing aspect of American Christianity, where Jesus has been co-opted into an "added blessing" upon frivolous past-times. Truly, i don't believe Jesus is concerned about who wins the game or the talent show.

The Devil We Know

"There is a devil. He lies in our collective history at the intersection of violence and hubris. Charles Baudelaire was wrong. The devil's greatest trick is not to convince us that he does not exist. It is, instead, to convince us that he lives in our enemies, that he surrounds us, and that he must be destroyed, no matter the cost, no matter the collateral damage. What better tactic could be employed by a creature that lives off violence, that, in a fundamental way, is violence? The Devil is negation, and the negation of negation, but not in some purely abstract, philosophical sense. The devil is the negation and hatred of the Other, a sinister force working its will in our social order and then disappearing into the shadows."

-W. Scott Poole Satan in America: The Devil We Know

History Repeats Itself

Supposed Christian politicians tell illegal immigrants to line up and get on the train. They want to deport them back to their poverty ridden countries. Why? Not simply because they are breaking the law.

Those who helped slaves escape on the underground railroad are applauded for their heroic efforts, even though they were breaking the law. Germans who helped Jews escape the round up are also considered heroes.

But German society considered Jews to be a bane to their social and economic culture. Jews became the scapegoat for Germany's problems. People despised the Jews, blaming them for the loss of jobs and societal deterioration.

Today Latinos are the scapegoat for American society. Truth be told, many Anglo-Americans would like to see nearly all Latinos deported, but they only have legal grounds to deport undocumented Latinos.

What conservative Christians are failing to do is ask the important question concerning the conditions we are sending these human beings back to. We don't care. It's not our problem.

Round em' up, stick yellow stars on em', and force them to board the train. We don't care where that train is going, so long as we don't see em' again.

Perhaps, like former Germany, one day we'll wake up to discover that it wasn't the Jewish Stars that were the problem...instead the problem was embedded deep within our own souls.

God has left the Building; or "Jesus ain't your Mascot"

On this Thanksgiving Day there is uproar. The president left mention of God out of one of his radio addresses. In Afghanistan the troops are upset because a cross was taken off the military chapel, since it was against regulation.

People are upset that God isn't being allowed to continue as the American mascot. i'm beginning to wonder if we haven't misread the signs. Perhaps it's not America that is taking God out of it's political and military jargon...

Perhaps God has left the building (Ezek 10). Perhaps God is tired of being used as the American mascot. He's tired of people invoking His name to justify their personal and secular missions. He's tired of being used by politicians to get elected, and by governments to justify their violence.

Maybe God is behind it all. Maybe He's tired of being our mascot as we continue in our own broken reasoning, using our own broken means, while the whole time justifying it with His name and His symbols.

When Jeremiah told Judah that God would send the Babylonians to destroy the Temple, they jailed him as a traitor and false prophet. They could not imagine that God would ever allow Jerusalem or the Temple to be conquered. God was their mascot. They invoked His Name even as He sent Babylonian troops into the holy city and left not one stone of the temple upon the other. (2 Kings 25; Psalm 79:1)

Maybe God took the cross off the chapel wall at the mlitary base in Afghanistan. Maybe God desired that His name be left out of the presidents radio address for Thanksgiving Day. Maybe He's tired of being our mascot.

Civil War

Nothing inspires a man as much as something worth fighting for. What is it about our nature that lives for a fight? Is the fight against fighting only a continuation and variation of the same epidemic? If it is, i believe it is the only sane fight. Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they will be called "sons of God".