Thinking Christian

New on the blogroll: Discover God. Highly recommended!

The source of this quote is likely to surprise you, both the place (and time–be sure you notice that!) where it appeared, and also who said it:

“Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. . . .

“Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.”

Hat Tip: CADRE Comments

The headline says the conservatives are splitting the church. In truth it’s the other way around. It’s not the conservatives who are departing from historic Christianity or global Anglicanism.

[Link: Conservatives Expected to Split Episcopal Church - NYTimes.com]

Scripture tells us, and Christians commonly concur, that there is an internal experience of the Holy Spirit that assures us of God’s reality in our lives. It is not the only way we know God is real, but it is an important one.

Paul asked yesterday,

Could you describe in positive terms what this direct perception of God or the Holy Spirit is like?

Christians reading here, could you help by writing in your answer to Paul’s question, or direct us to other sources that speak of this? (I should think that hymns and poetry would be great sources.)

I have much I could say about this myself. For me it began when I first realized God was trustworthy; or more likely it was the other way around: I realized God was trustworthy once he began this work in me. Now, I had also been prepared for this realization by study of evidences for Christianity; but there was a time of massively deepening conviction of the truth then.

For weeks following that, there was a literal experience (I know it’s hackneyed but it’s still true) of the sky being brighter, the grass greener, the air smelling more fresh and clean, and the like. I apologize for the clichés; if I were a poet I could say it better. It really happened, even if I can’t speak it in the language it deserves. It was as if scales had dropped off my eyes, off my whole spirit in fact. I don’t think that heightened awareness of life has gone away, although I have become accustomed to it, adapted to it, so that it no longer seems so extraordinary all the time.

There was also an uncanny light and joy and brightness in reading the Bible, especially in discussions with others. I heard myself saying again and again, “I had no idea this was so alive, so relevant, so life-giving.”

There was an immediate sense of overall personal freedom that continues to this day. It’s of this sort: I don’t have to fight to be the person I ought to be, I need only be who I am, and trust God to lead me to the next steps. (There is a kind of personal discipline I must exercise in the process, but it’s discipline within freedom.)

I had been much frustrated for years by a certain personal inconsistency, an area of my life in which I did not live up to my own expectations for myself. Upon trusting Christ, the temptation to that sin (as I now called it) disappeared. It wasn’t a case of, “Now I’m a Christian, I have to fight this off!” Rather it just went away, taken from me by God’s grace, for well over a year. It did come back: I believe God wanted me eventually to deal with it as a matter of character growth and not just have the easy way out. It has proved to be just that, a source of much growth in many ways, not limited to just one issue in my life. But that extended period of freedom, provided through no effort of my own, was confirmatory.

God instilled in me a new sense of love and care for others. My self-centeredness at the time was typical for a musician. Hours in the practice room alone, building my skill and my art, were fine with me. Who needed other people? But God changed that in me.

There was an immediate bonding with other believers. I have seen extraordinary instances of that bonding with Blacks in South Africa, with former U.S. enemies like Vietnamese and Russians, with Cubans, Koreans, and members of many more nationalities, in their own countries where I have been a guest. I have had frequent fellowship lately with African-Americans, experiencing a truly sweet unity in Christ.

I state all of the above in terms of what it was like when it was new and fresh, when the contrast with my prior experience was most salient. Other than the one thing just mentioned, the same experience continues.

So my answer to Paul is, this is not a one-dimensional experience. It is a relational experience with God. Some of it plays out in other kinds of perceptions. Some of it is probably incommunicable, like describing Dvořák or Miles Davis to a deaf person, or blue to a blind person. Before God made his move into my heart, I believe my apparatus of divine awareness was not alive yet; or at least it was seriously clouded. To say that I can now experience God is still of no personal credit to me. I had no ability to wake it up in me. It was God’s doing.

I’m a week late for a certain anniversary date: it was 145 years, one week, and one day ago that Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. He thought his short speech rather a failure at the time, but upon its publication, the nation and later the world came to regard it as a master statement of democratic principles, as well as an eloquent word of honor for those who fought for democracy.

I was required to memorize it in the eighth grade, for which I am much more grateful now than I was at the time. More than once since then I have stood inside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, with the words of this message inscribed hugely on the wall to my left, the massive Lincoln statue’s right, and his Second Inaugural Address on the wall to my right. The first time I was there I tried to read these words to my young children; I could not make it through without my voice breaking. Americans owe a huge Thanksgiving Day debt of gratitude to and for Abraham Lincoln.

A crucial belief underpins both of the addresses adorning his memorial. I demonstrate that belief by this, the beginning of the Gettysburg Address with just one word altered:

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are evolved equal.

Apart from the admitted anachronism (The Origin of Species was only a handful of years past its first publication), it is nevertheless impossible to imagine Lincoln believing this. It’s equally difficult (even in imagination) to ascribe such a belief to Jefferson, who much earlier had written that all men are created equal. I do not know Lincoln’s religious beliefs, though there must be some light of them shining through his 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation, which begins,

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God…

Jefferson’s beliefs were by no means those of Biblical Christianity, yet his Declaration of Independence centers on the rights endowed upon us by our Creator. He believed in God as Creator if not in Christ as Redeemer. Is it a mere accident of historical timing that when these great men spoke of unalienable rights and of equality, they grounded these ideas in a Creator rather than in some mindless cause for our existence?

Let me ask it a different way. Is there something in mindless origins that implies equality among humans?

Let me ask it a different way still. Is there something in evolution that implies equality of organisms within a population? Certainly not; it is the inequality of organisms within a population that drives evolution onward, or so it is said.

America’s rights and freedoms were based, historically speaking, on belief in a Creator. This is no mere matter of rhetoric. Justice, mercy, worth, value: in and under all of these, there is no difference between one person and another as we stand before God. Our practice of these ideals through human government is far from perfect; but under God, there is at least a north star, a firm principle, a definition of these ideals to guide and to correct us. George Washington put it this way in his Farewell Address:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…. And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure; reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. ‘Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.

Nowadays our ideals seem to be based on little more than our history–”What America is all about” (which depends of course on whom you ask)–and upon some vague sense of justice that sometimes seems no more stable than sentiment. The anchor for our beliefs has been slipped. The name that seamen give to the end of the anchor line (or rode) that attaches to the vessel is “the bitter end.” Story has it that it got its name because that’s the way you feel–bitter!–if by some mistake in handling, you see that end of it falling overboard, attached to the anchor below and nothing above. When that happens, you’ve left an expensive piece of hardware firmly attached to the bottom of the sea, with no means of recovery. Worse yet, in some situations: you’re suddenly adrift in whatever current or winds may be playing around you.

I wonder if (stretching the metaphor just a bit further) we are increasingly aiming ourselves toward a bitter end, by letting loose of the Creator upon whom our American doctrine has been moored. And yet it is Thanksgiving, and God is still God. He is the source of human rights and justice, and remains so whether many of us acknowledge him to be or not. Thanksgiving is not only about past blessings, it is about future hope. Hope in “what America is all about”? No. Hope in the Creator who inspired and led America in all its best ideals.

Happy Thanksgiving to all–whether your country sets aside today for the purpose or not, it’s a thanksgiving day for all who know the One who is worthy of all thanks.

It’s an experiment… I can’t help it, I like messing around with different looks.

 Loading ...

Interestingly, the protection against mortality provided by religion cannot be entirely explained by expected factors that include enhanced social support of friends or family, lifestyle choices and reduced smoking and alcohol consumption’ . . . There is something here that we don’t quite understand.

[Link: Attending Religious Services Sharply Cuts Risk Of Death, Study Suggests]

“Something here that we don’t quite understand.” Of course it could be a selection effect or something of the sort, as mentioned in the article. Or maybe there really is something there that they don’t quite understand . . .

Hat Tip: Telic Thoughts

…tell him I forgive him.

[Link: The Point: Bible thumpers takes on a whole new meaning]

(More details here–some of it unfortunately rather graphic.)

Related: What Does Hate Really Look Like?

We are hearing increasing reports of Christians being persecuted in Sudan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Belarus, India, and elsewhere. Even in North America, what seems to be incipient persecution has increased of late, possibly a sign of more to come. In light of that, let us consider the “living hope” of 1 Peter 1:3-7 (ESV).

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

There is a hinge point in this passage: “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while … you have been grieved by various trials.” Another translation uses “distressed” as an alternate for “grieved.” The author (Peter, a disciple of Christ when Jesus walked on the earth) wanted his readers to know that no matter how bad it may get, believers in Christ can still rejoice. Jesus himself said (e.g., Matthew 5:10-12) that we can be glad in him even if it is our belief in him that increases our difficulties, that is, even if we are persecuted for following him.

Following Jesus Christ may (for some people) cost a lot, but the cost will always be more than worth it. The living hope that we have in Christ makes it worthwhile.

Hope, in New Testament usage, is rarely (if ever) of the maybe-but-I-don’t know sort, as for example, “I hope Michigan State wins the football game against Penn State next Saturday.” It is rather a confident expectation of a good future. It is the emotional encouragement provided by faith, the inner heart uplift that enables one to keep going.

It has been said that the greatest single predictor of suicide is hopelessness. I went through a rather profound period of depression once, lasting somewhere between six months and a year. There were times I dreaded getting up and facing the day. Yet by the grace of God I knew there was hope, and that it would get better. I cannot imagine the blackness of depression for those who have lost hope as well as joy. For that period I was certainly hindered by the depression, but I was able to keep on going. That’s the emotional power of hope.

Without some sort of solid grounding, the hope of which Peter speaks would be no better than my hope that my college will win the game next week. The resurrection of Jesus Christ provides that assurance. The game has already been played; the fight has already been fought. Life wins, and death is defeated.

This is reality. Resting in that reality is a matter of faith. The reality is not dependent on our faith; but our confidence, our joy, our rejoicing (why is that word so out of place in today’s culture?) are. Peter speaks of faith’s “tested genuineness.” Most of us reading here have faced tests of one kind or another; if not persecution (of which nothing approaching the real thing has yet reached the Western world), then health problems, economic struggles, conflict, crime, separations, war, injustice. To the extent that we continue to have joy in Christ, to that extent our faith has “tested genuineness.”

We can imagine genuine persecution, the sort that really tests us with a choice: follow Christ and face death (or death of a family member, which to me would be far worse); renounce him and “all will be well for you.” Peter is saying that the former is better than the latter. Trials and distress in Christ are better than apparent peace apart from him.

For many in history this has been a real decision to be made. For many today it still is.

Let us focus a moment on that word “real.” People are really choosing pain, separation from family, imprisonment, economic loss, and death, because they believe the living hope of Christ’s resurrection is real. Peter himself, who had first-hand opportunity to know whether that hope was real, made the same choice.

This is not virtual-world stuff, and (a reminder for all of us bloggers!) it’s not just an intellectual game to play. The living hope of Jesus Christ makes all the difference in the real world, in good times and in distress. For followers of Christ, there is “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” We can count on it; we can live by it; we can stand firm in that good hope.